posted on February 16, 2003 05:58:36 PM new
I really do have to complete some community commitments and home projects so I don't have time to be around much for a while, but I thought this article from ABC news intriguing, especially in its potential applications to mass media, somewhat similar to experimentations with subliminial techniques. Just to appease my own curiosity I'll look for more information as I have time, but I thought that some other posters and readers here might also be interested.
Study: It's Easy to Plant False Memories
Researchers Find It's Easy to Plant False Memories in Minds of Some People
The Associated Press
DENVER Feb. 16 —
Remember that wonderful day when Bugs Bunny hugged you at Disneyland? A study presented Sunday shows just how easy it can be to induce false memories in the minds of some people.
More than a third of subjects in the study recalled that theme-park moment impossible because Bugs is not a Disney character after a researcher planted the false memory.
Other research, of people who believed they were abducted by space aliens, shows that even false memories can be as intensely felt as those of real-life victims of war and other violence.
posted on February 16, 2003 06:17:10 PM new
This has been known for quite a while. Look back to the 80s, when we had our child abuse witchhunt going on nationwide. There were trials & convictions left, right & down the center. People were rabid about investigating preschools & to hear them talk you'd have thought that devil worship was a prerequisite for running one. It was all you heard about practically for 2 years.
The only problem was...it never happened. If you take a kid and ask him/her over and over and over and over again "they did this to you, didn't they" & "show us how they did it to you" and "you were touched, weren't you--show us where & how," pretty soon the kid begins to believe that it *did* happen. They'll even start expanding on the theme. Some of the crap that was taken as gospel by the rabid hordes was totally insane & impossible, but that fact was ignored. After all, if a child said it, it must be so. BTW, convictions are starting to be reversed in these cases...
Adults can form false memories in the same way. A couple of years ago the big furor was about Suppressed Memory therapy. Parents were being accused all over the place of extraordinarily evil things. Families were destroyed, lives shattered. But again...the movement eventually foundered because it became more & more apparent that it was a bunch of codswallop. Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
posted on February 16, 2003 06:31:03 PM new
Yes, bunnicula. I remember the incident in California that received such wide coverage and think that it and other such incidents were probably the impetus for this particular study of adults. I'm wondering if the study comes to any conclusions about the type of person who is susceptible. I was also surprised at the number of those that the article implies are susceptible and
the ease of implanting the memories. There should be a published report available before long.
posted on February 16, 2003 07:24:45 PM new
There is no one "type" of person susceptible. We all are, especially as children. It can even happen with true memories. Most all of us have something that happened when we were children too young to remember, but who've been told the tale by our family so often that we think we *can* remember it. Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
posted on February 16, 2003 09:35:38 PM new
I dunno. The wording of the press release suggests more than that and since Dr. Loftus has been invited to present her research in the keynote address to the American Psychological Society Convention in Atlanta this summer I would guess that it's worth checking out. Her work especially interests me because of the pervasive sense of nostalgia in society today as well as the creation of myth and historical revisionism. And though these are certainly not new to the world's cultural history, technology today does provide vehicle's for social engineering of a breadth and depth not possible in the past for a large, pluralistic society.
posted on February 16, 2003 09:46:29 PM new
Yes, but it doesn't say that all people are susceptible. Of those who are susceptible some are more so than others.
posted on February 17, 2003 04:55:14 AM new
This is nothing new. Con men have known this for years. Have you ever watched an info commercial?
Amen,
Reverend Colin
In spite of the overwhelming numbers marching in the anti-war demonstrations, I believe that most Americans are asleep and confused today. The US Congress is a good example of that! With society in such a suggestive and malleable state, propagandists can have a field day manipulating memories to change a culture.
Loftus study is interesting and will be applicable in so many fields. It will be interesting to see how history records our situation today.
