8.4: False Memories

It is one thing to misremember the details of something; it is quite another to think you remember something that never happened at all. Fortunately, the former is far more common than the latter, but the latter does occur. For example, there are people who think they remember being abducted by aliens or having a past life or (closer to home) events from their childhood that never occurred. A false memory is one that is very inaccurate; it may even be a “memory” of something that didn’t happen at all.

Corroboration by another person is one of the most potent causes of false memories. Many other factors, even imagining something or recounting stories about it, can lead to false memories. For example, Maryanne Garry asked students about various kinds of events that occurred when they were children. Two weeks later, she had students vividly imagine that they had experienced various events occurring as children, e.g., that they hit a window, broke the glass, and cut their hand. Some of the students came to believe that they really had experienced such events, after imagining that they had done these things years before. One of the chief problems in assessing the accuracy of memories is that false memories often feel just like accurate memories.

Motivated Misremembering

Our desires and motives also sometimes lead us to misremember things. Most of us like to see ourselves in a good light, and so we are likely to remember things in a way that will protect our self-image and self-esteem. To see how common this is, just remember some situation where two people who live together argue about something, e.g., who did their fair share of the housework, or who is to blame for various problems. The two people probably had rather different memories about who did what, and each remembered things in a way that put them in a better light. Often both people’s claims are sincere—they really think that their memories are accurate—but they can’t both be right.

Sigmund Freud thought that we used defense mechanisms to protect our view of ourselves. A defense mechanism is something we do (typically unconsciously) to keep from recognizing our actions, motives, or traits that might lower self-esteem or heighten anxiety. Some defense mechanisms involve distortions of memory. The most extreme case is repression, forgetting things that are unpleasant to remember or face. This is the opposite of a false memory. Rather than remembering something that didn’t happen, we erase the memory of something that did. It isn’t clear how often repression occurs, but our memories are often clearly self-serving. We reconstruct the past in a way that puts us in a good light.

Childhood Trauma and False Memory Syndrome

In recent years, some psychologists have argued that certain childhood events (e.g., sexual molestation) may be so traumatic that people repress them. The memories would be so painful that the victims simply forget that they ever happened. But although they can’t bring the experience into consciousness, its traces still linger in some form that leads to long-term problems like low self-esteem, depression, and sexual dysfunction.

Many people, often with the aid of therapy, have uncovered what they think are memories of childhood traumas like sexual abuse. How accurate are these memories? It is known that children are sexually molested more often than society used to suppose, and in some cases very traumatic events are forgotten. So, some of these memories are probably accurate.

Recently, however, some psychologists have argued that many of the reawakened memories are false memories, and they argue that the victim is actually suffering from false-memory syndrome. False memory syndrome is a pattern of feelings, emotions and thoughts based on distorted or entirely false memories.

This phenomenon is clearly seen in the Satanic Panic that swept through the US and Canada in the 1980’s and 1990’s. In Martensville, Saskatchewan for instance, more than a dozen people were charged with over 100 crimes stemming from accusation of being involved in a satanic cult. When the Royal Canadian Mounted Police took over the investigation, however, they concluded that literally no crimes were committed. How did this happen? A combination of poorly trained police investigators, psychologists asking children leading questions, positive reinforcement being given when allegations were made, and the fragility of early childhood memory are among the reasons (although many other biases we will discuss later also come into play).

Experts in false memory syndrome are quick to point out that although traumatic events are sometimes forgotten, they are usually remembered all too well. Furthermore, childhood memories of events that occurred before age three are very unreliable (the parts of the brain needed to store memories simply haven’t developed enough before then). Later childhood memories are often accurate, but source misattribution and misinformation effects plague us all. Children have been shown to be particularly suggestible, and they often receive subtle—and sometimes not-so-subtle—suggestions from a parent, therapist or other authority figures. Suggestibility is a less serious threat in older patients, but anyone could have a motivation to misremember in ways that help us make sense of our experiences and preserve our self identity.