What Are False Memories And Why Do We Suffer From Them?
On numerous occasions we have found ourselves arguing with another person. The causes of a possible debate or argument are innumerable, but the reader will find it easy to identify with the fact of arguing because he or she remembers an event, occurrence or conversation differently than another person.
How can two people remember the same event so differently? Furthermore, how can it be that we do not remember well or even remember things that have never happened?
To answer these types of questions We must first understand what false memories are why they appear and what are the brain processes that make them exist.
Memory is what we use to reach our memories, to repeat some action that led us to the desired result, get situated or pass an exam. Now, the difference between our memory and that of any machine is that we constantly distort those memories.
We remember that we have a memory, but it was encoded at the time with a specific load, some sensations and emotions, a cognitive state, some previous experiences and a context. By accessing it we can remember it, and perhaps access a residue of the emotion experienced at that particular moment; we access a transcript, but The state we find ourselves in when we remember it is not the same
Nor are previous experiences the same, since over time they continue to increase, which leads us to have an image of the past seen from the present, with its consequent interference. Likewise, we can contaminate any event that occurs in the present if it has been repeatedly imagined before.
Through expectations, whether given by inference based on previous situations or by mere personal desire, we condition the experience (and therefore the memory) of the present event, since these expectations are also a memory (for example: I remember having I wanted everything to go perfectly that day) and they constitute consolidated pseudo-learning, that is, something to be expected.
In such a situation, an event with a low negative valence can be interpreted as a big problem, or in the reverse situation, an event with a low positive valence can be interpreted as something extraordinary. So, in this way, this distortion remains encoded in memory through the imagination that actively shapes reality.
The link between memory and imagination
Being clear the distortion to which we subject our memory and the interference that the imagination of the future can have in its subsequent interpretation, it seems reasonable to believe that by changing the direction in which this imagination normally operates (forward) and turning it backwards, it can distort our memory even more, even creating memories of an event that never existed. This is the basis of false memories
There are, in fact, studies where the possibility that memory and imagination share a neural network has been investigated.
The areas of the brain activated when remembering and imagining
In a research carried out by Okuda et al, (2003). The role of two brain structures, the frontal polar zone and the temporal lobes (all involved in thinking about the future and the past), was investigated using positron emission tomography (PET). Regional cerebral blood flow (Rcbf) was also measured in healthy subjects while they talked about their future prospects or past experiences.
Most areas in the medial temporal lobes showed an equivalent level of activation during tasks related to imagining the future and tasks related to reporting the past
Along the same lines, in another study, participants were asked to imagine a future event and to remember a past event for 20 seconds with a specific backward or forward projection. Although some differences were found, such as greater activation of the right hippocampus when imagining future events (an issue that according to the authors could be due to the novelty of the event) and greater activation of prefrontal areas involved in planning, the similarities were abundant..
These results are consistent with those found in amnesic patients who in addition to being incapable of accessing memories of episodes from the past, were also unable to project themselves into a vision of the future.
An example that can be consulted through scientific databases is that reported by Klein, Loftus and Kihlstrom, JF (2002) in which an amnesic patient, with the same type of injury and with the same problem as those mentioned above. Curiously, he alone suffered from this deficit in imagining the future and remember the past episodically, being able to imagine possible future events in the public domain, such as political events, who would win the elections, etc. This relates memory and imagination, but also giving it an important nuance, in its episodic form.
Classic experiment for false memories
An example of a classic experiment in the field of false memories is, for example, that carried out by Garry, Manning and Loftus (1996). In it, participants were asked to imagine a series of events presented to them. They were then asked to judge how likely they thought it was that this would not have happened to them at some point in their life (in the past).
After some time, in a second session, the participants were asked to repeat the experiment and assign probabilities again. Curiously, the fact that they had imagined it made them assign lower probabilities to his conviction of not having experienced that event. This is an example of how memories become distorted.
Why is it important to understand what a false memory is?
The importance of this data goes beyond the anecdotal (or not so anecdotal) nature of a discussion or “who said what?” For example, an aspect that has been much worked on in forensic psychology relatively recently has been trying to differentiate a real statement from one contaminated with false information or distorted that has been suggested to the declarant.
Popular wisdom dictates that if someone tells something that did not happen or tells it in a way that does not fully correspond to reality, it is because they want to do it that way; Maybe he has ulterior motives or wants to deceive someone. With the results presented previously in this article, there is, at least, a reasonable doubt about this statement.
Thus, research in this area suggests that the most common sources of error are given by factors related to perception, interpretation of facts, inference from unprocessed information, the passage of time and post-event information received or imagined. These factors can cause the person to be telling the truth (their own) even when remembering something that did not happen.
It is the job of psychologists, but also of anyone who wants to go beyond a first impression, to try to analyze these factors as much as possible. Whether it is going to be explained or to receive an explanation that is relevant for one or more parties, whether in a legal field or in daily life, it is important to keep in mind that our memory is the result of a process that they go through. the events experienced and that this “stored” result, even so, is not in a fixed and unalterable state.
