Memory implantation

Memory implantation is used in cognitive psychology to investigate human memory. In memory implantation studies researchers make people believe that they remember an event that actually never happened. The false memories that have been successfully implanted in people’s memories include remembering being lost in a mall as a child, taking a hot air balloon ride, and putting slime in a teacher’s desk in primary school. Memory implantation techniques were developed in the 1990’s as a way of providing evidence for the reconstructive properties of human memory. Most of the studies on memory implantation were published in the context of the debate about repressed memories and the possible danger of digging for lost memories in therapy. Successfully implanting memories in people’s minds have implications for therapy and legal settings.

Successful memory implantation

Published studies

The first formal studies using memory implantation were published in the early 1990's, the most famous being "The Formation of False Memories" (commonly referred to as the "Lost in the Mall" study) by Loftus and Pickrell . The basic technique used in this study involved getting family members of a participant to provide narratives of events that happened when they were young and then add another event that definitely did not happen. The participants got these four narratives and were told to try to remember as much as possible about each event. Across a number of studies using memory implantation about 37% of people have come to remember part of or entire events that never actually happened. Other studies have expanded on this paradigm by introducing photos instead of narratives. Wade and colleagues found that 50% of people came to remember details of a hot air balloon ride that never happened after seeing a manipulated photo depicting the event. Later it has been argued that photos by themselves do not produce more false memories than narratives but that both methods have the power to successfully implant false memories. Real photos have also been found to increase the creation of false memories. In a study by Lindsay and colleagues people were shown a childhood photo from the same time period as the false event. Seeing the photo resulted in more false memories even when the photos did not depict the actual event.

Legal case

A real life example of memory implantation occurred during the criminal case against Paul Ingram. Ingram was accused by his daughters of recurring sexual abuse. Ingram denied all allegations at first but after being interviewed by police and therapists he came to remember multiple instances of abuse. Psychologist Richard Ofshe (wiki) considered this confession a result of suggestive questioning and decided to test his theory. He told Ingram about a made up scenario and said it was another accusation made by his children. Ofshe asked Ingram to try and remember as much as possible about this new event. Ingram could not recall anything straight away but after thinking about it for some time came up with a written confession where he described in detail what had happened. His children confirmed to Ofshe that the event had never actually happened, Ingram had created an entirely false memory of an event after suggestions from Ofshe. Richard Ofshe considered this successful memory implantation evidence of Paul Ingram’s suggestibility and it also casts doubt on the other confessions Ingram has made.

Implications

The methods used in memory implantation studies are meant to mimic those used by some therapists to recover repressed memories of childhood events . The high rate of people "remembering" false events shows that memories cannot always be taken at face value. Being told to go home and look at old photos to jog your memory can help you remember real events, but paired with suggestions from a therapist it might also lead to false memories. Memory implantation studies are also similar to recovered memory therapy in the way that they involved an authoritative figure claiming to know that the event actually happened and applying pressure on the participant/patient to remember. Memory implantation techniques in general also illustrate how people can come to remember things that actually never happened relatively easy. This poses a big problem for confessions to crimes resulting from suggestive questioning by police and others and also for the accuracy associated with eyewitness memory. Some people have argued that memory implantation studies are not applicable to real life memories of trauma, such as childhood sexual abuse. As it is not ethical to try to implant false memories of sexual abuse researchers have tried to get around this by choosing other events that are seen as negative but not traumatic. Being lost in a shopping mall for example would be a negative experience for most children. Hyman and colleagues used memory implantation techniques with emotional events such as a specific birthday party (positive) and being hospitalized overnight(negative). They found that using emotional events did not change the rate of false memory creation significantly compared with other studies.