Implanting False Memories and How Our Brains Trick Us

Humans rely tremendously on memory because it impacts everything, including the way people feel, think, and behave. However, human memory isn’t always reliable. It’s counterintuitive to believe our minds can cognitively distort and store information in different ways, in which we may not be aware of.

It’s true that people often tend to embellish stories and over exaggerate to capture an audience’s attention, yet we’re usually aware when we’re doing this. When people recall memories and talk about those experiences with people, we have confidence in our ability to recall past events and recite what happened in clear detail. However, there are many times when humans recall false memories, without acknowledging it. Eveleth explains,

People tend to think of their memories as a transcript, a rough history of events from some early age until the very moment they are experiencing. But human memory is far more like a desert mirage than a transcript—as we recall the past we are really just making meaning out of the flickering patterns of sights, smells and sounds we think we remember.

So, how are we able to believe false memories?

The creation of Photoshop, image-editing software, allows images to be realistically manipulated. Photoshop can change the appearance of someone online VS. the real-life appearance of a person, political campaigns through fake imagery, and the way humans remember things. It’s much easier for a person to believe physical evidence which matches a person’s experience, rather than listening to a person talk. People often believe Photoshopped images to be true because those images get cognitively stored in the brain, while other factual information is lost. The images don’t distort the past, but they do effect our current and future behavior. It’s also much easier for a person to remember a fake memory from the past by using a childhood memory and Photoshop software.

The author of the article, Rose Eveleth, provided examples of various Photoshopped pictures that stirred up controversy. An example include a “faked protest” showing Senator John Kerry and Jane Fonda together at an anti-Vietnam War rally emerged during the 2004’s US election, which never actually happened. Another example includes a “reluctant rocket” when Iran’s show of military power was doctored to remove a launcher which failed to fire in 2008. Instead, the faulty launcher was replaced with a fourth projectile. The creation of Photoshop and ability to edit important historic events for different purposes, can be very dangerous. By providing a false, yet believable sense of reality through doctored photos, people could easily believe events that never occurred. We, as people, don’t like admitting what we witness to be wrong, by making us question our sense of judgment and reliability. The use of Photoshop for political campaigns and government purposes, will leave people feeling confused. The process of manipulation and implementation of false memories is very possible and counterintuitive to believe, considering people have confidence in their memory abilities.

In 2002, Wade and psychologists conducted an experiment with implanting false memories. “The question was whether showing subjects a doctored photograph with no supporting narrative, would lead them to remember a false experience” (Garry and Gerrie, P. 2) The psychologists cut-out photographs of each individual participant and digitally altered the subjects’ pictures onto a hot air balloon ride. The edited photo was combined with three real-life, unaltered photos, in a pile to observe. Next, participants carefully observed the photos for two weeks. The psychologists created fake background details about the balloon ride experiment that the participants never actually experienced when they were children and tried convincing the participants of the unique experience. At the end of the two week experiment, 50% of the subjects were convinced they experienced a balloon ride with their family as a child. Some subjects even created their own elaborate details about this false event and how much fun they had on the balloon ride. With the help of photo editing software and persuasion, psychologists were able to implant false childhood memories over a two week time span.

In a 2014 study conducted by Linda Henkel, a professor of psychology at Fairfield University, suggests taking photographs can actually impair our memory. In the study, participants were asked to walk around an art museum and either take pictures or observe the art around them. The participants remembered fewer details of the artwork they photographed VS. the artwork they observed. (Wayne)

Dr. Henkel said in an interview:

“In general, we remember the photographs. It’s like the family stories we tell. There’s the original experience, and then the story everyone tells every Thanksgiving. The story becomes exaggerated, a schema of the original event. The physical photo doesn’t change over time, but the photo becomes the memory.”

We believe memory begins with our personal experience. What someone tells us happened could never have the same reality for us as what we ourselves lived through. But astrophysicist, Carl Sagan, insists there’s a technique for making people believe that they actually experienced things they’ve never lived through. Sagan describes the process of instilling false memories in his book, The Demon-Haunted World. The very idea contradicts our understanding of what memory is.

In Pomeroy’s article, Sagan broke down the manipulative process in four steps: 1. select one of your mates, 2. fabricate a memory, 3. prepare, and 4. set your plan in motion. I was able to apply Sagan’s theory to my own personal experience with my father.

I am able to vividly remember the day my parents got divorced. I was only five years old, but the memory is forever burned in the back of my mind. I remember the velvety green couches in the living room, the way my mom’s watery eyes analyzed my every move as my parents explained the situation to me, the typical “it’s not your fault, sweetie,” speech that all divorced parents give their children. As I grew up, it was apparent that one of the main reasons behind my parents’ divorce was father’s alcohol dependency.

Since I was young enough to remember, I’ve always dealt with my father’s drinking problem. The Sagan experiment avoids big life-changing events because of ethical concerns, but real life plays by different rules. My father would manipulate my memory and constantly tell me “Everything is going to be okay,” and “I’ve been clean for months now, I’m not going to pick up another bottle ever again.” He would make me feel foolish for “unnecessary worrying,” well, that’s what he’d call it. I’d always believe him, even if his previous promises have failed me numerous times. Why wouldn’t I believe him? I mean, he’s my dad, and I trusted him. On many occasions when my father would end up in the hospital after excessive drinking, he would create elaborate stories on why he ended up in the hospital, covered in wounds. Some stories would include the flu, to dehydration, to ‘unknown’ sicknesses, trying to shelter me from the harsh truth. These false stories altered my awareness and made me believe my dad remained sober but just got “sick” easily. At a young age, my perception of reality was able to be easily manipulated through my dad’s made-up stories. However, as I grew older, my reality changed and I was aware that my father wasn’t randomly sick with the flu or the stomach virus, he was suffering from the effects of relapsing, yet again. Every time my father relapsed, I felt uncontrollable pain dealing with my inability to help him. I would spend hours providing useful advice and the best possible strategies to help control his addiction urges, and it wouldn’t work.

For years I wondered why and how my dad could deliberately lie about the circumstances he was in to me. I couldn’t comprehend how my dad could drink again after the alcohol contributed to the divorce, which broke my family apart. I wondered how my dad could stare into my bloodshot eyes and lie to me after seeing me cry. However, I began to realize that my dad created this false reality of him being “okay” to try and help me be okay. I know my sister and I are the best things in my father’s life, and it hurt him deeply to lie to us but he didn’t want the truth to hurt us even more without us fully understanding what his addiction was like. Now I finally understand, my father was trying to protect my sister and I. Afterwards, I was able to forgive my father for his lies, which improved our relationship tremendously throughout the years. My father has been able to get the help and treatment he needs to sustain a healthy, alcohol-free lifestyle. I also understand, thanks to Sagan, that my father wanted to alter my perception of reality to benefit me. After interpreting a situation differently, my viewpoint has changed and positively impacted my life. I took on my father’s viewpoint and realized many things that I wasn’t able to comprehend before. My memory of the past events has even shifted with new information.

The effect of claiming to have witnessed a person do something can lead a person to make a false confession of wrongdoing. This effect was demonstrated in a study by Saul M. Kassin and colleagues at Williams College. According to author Elizabeth Loftus, When innocent participants were accused by the experiment’s confederate for pressing the wrong key, which “damaged” a computer, the individuals denied the charge. However, social demands later changed the views of those individual into believing they actually did the guilty action.

How is this possible?

Social demands play an important role when implanting false memories. The pressure exerted by researches on the participants encouraging them to remember and confess to a guilty action they didn’t commit, caused participants to justify their actions. The participants feel the need to confess because an authority figure is accusing them of a guilty action, and in the minds’ of the participants, the authority figure wouldn’t lie, and therefore, the thought- “I must have committed the false behavior.” The unfamiliar setting, such as a therapeutic location, also plays a role on the participants confessing by impacting the participants’ nerves. An unfamiliar place can often effect judgement and behavior.

This technique of authority figures pressuring individuals to confess, even for an innocent crime, can be found in real-life examples such as our judicial system in the United States. Innocent people are encouraged to confess to a suspected crime, regardless if proven guilty or not, to reduce the amount of time he/she will spend behind bars with a lighter sentence. The technique raises the question of whether implanting false memories and using pressure of authority figures is ethical when dealing with the lives of others.

People can be led to remember their past in different ways, and even remember entire events that never happened to them. We are often confident with our abilities to recall past experiences, but psychological findings such as the ones stated above, provide insight on how the human mind can often fool us.

 Work Cited

Eveleth, Amy. “How Fake Images Change Our Memory and Behavior.” FUTURE. BBC, 13 Dec. 2012. Web. 29 Mar. 2015. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121213-fake-pictures-make-real-memories

Pomeroy, Steven. “How to Instill False Memories.” Scientific American. Scientific American, 19 Feb. 2013. Web. 1 Mar. 2015. <http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/02/19/how-to-instill-false-memories/&gt;.

Loftus, Elizabeth. “Creating False Memories.” Scientific American, 1 Sept. 1997. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. <http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm&gt;.

Garry, Maryanne, and Matthew Gerrie. “When Photographs Create False Memories.” Current Directions In Psychological Science. American Psychological Society, 1 Jan. 2005. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. <http://www.mccc.edu/~jenningh/Courses/documents/PSY101_journalpacket_2008_000.pdf&gt;.

Wayne, Teddy. “Shutterbug Parents and Overexposed Lives.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Feb. 2015. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/style/shutterbug-parents-and-overexposed-lives.html&gt;.