People tend to think of memories as the perfect time capsules– faithful descriptions of events that have happened to us in the past that are rigid, passive, and unchangeable for the rest of our lives. Something handy to us when we would like to replay the memory in our minds, just as we like to do with our favourite songs or TV shows on particularly bad days.
What many don’t know is that our mind is active and fluid. Our memories are tricky and consist of more than what has occurred in our lives. Every time someone tells a story, they tend to unconsciously add small details and change the story a little bit, unknowingly modifying their entire memory of the event.
Recent research suggests that it is possible to implant false memories in one’s mind easily and erase those planted memories just as effortlessly. This fact is riveting yet terrifying since we base all of ourselves– our personalities, beliefs, opinions, and behaviours– on something that others can easily mold.
It has been established that planting false memories is easy when done correctly and on vulnerable and gullible subjects. The subjects can also recall vivid and smaller details of the false memory– as if it had actually occurred. Studies have revealed that it is easy to make people remember false memories about events, but the process grows increasingly difficult as the complexity of the fake memory increases. It is also advantageous if the false memory to be planted is not emotional in nature– since we tend to remember highly emotionally provoking memories very well, and it would raise our suspicions when one doesn’t remember a particularly emotionally triggering memory.
In the earliest of memory implantation studies, researchers have successfully implanted false memories– incidents like getting lost in the mall, or riding in a hot air balloon– in several subjects. The basic process is as follows: the researchers consulted with the parents to learn about the incidents the subjects went through as a child. One-on-one interviews were then held with the subjects, where they were consequently told about two events in detail: one that happened and one that never occurred. The researchers explained both events by incorporating authentic details of the subject’s childhood– places they favour to spend time in and friends they hung out with. Subsequently, the subjects were prompted to think and explain what happened during both events with even vivid detail. When the subjects struggled to remember any details about the false ones, they were encouraged to remember those events using memory techniques.
It has been shown that many of the subjects explained the event with minute details and vivid descriptions in the following interviews. For a false memory to develop, all that seems to be needed are some realistic details of the subject’s life that would provide some familiarity to the subject, making the event plausible to them. The process of erasing the false memories is just as simple: asking the subjects to identify the source of the said memory and subtly explaining to them that being pressured to remember something multiple times can sometimes induce false memories.
This concept of false memory– whether created naturally by our mind or through implantations, has enormous implications for legal and criminal settings. False memories play a considerable role in legal procedures during eyewitness testimonies in courtrooms. Though the witness feels confident that the event they’re reporting is right, there is a fair chance that the witness’s memory of the event has been modified: memories tend to change when we revisit and explain it to others as we unconsciously add details in it, and it is those small details that make large differences during legal trials. One statement could put a victim in jail and set the perpetrator free. Studies from Ohio State University determined that roughly 52 percent of wrongful convictions in courts arose from eyewitness mistakes.
False memories have even more significant implications in criminal facets. Researchers have experimented on subjects to make them believe they’ve committed crimes even though they never did. The researchers have done it to show that the interrogation process that the police often use possesses the ability to distort people’s memories in consistent ways.
The researchers started by informing the subjects that they’ve committed crimes and backed up the claim using confidential sources by statements like “Your mother has told me that you’ve stolen a cycle from your classmate in your sixth grade.” The researchers added that they talked to the parents by giving details of their talk, which would confuse the subject. Then the researcher would talk about the subject’s life in detail, making the subject believe the researcher when they say they have contacted their parents. Over the following weeks, the subject is asked about the memory they don’t remember and is repeatedly asked to imagine and share details about it. Soon, the subject would no longer be able to differentiate between the imagination of the vivid details and their feeling that memory is coming back. They start believing that they really committed the crime and just forgot about it.
Such instances have happened in real life. Suggestive questioning is a technique that was used during police investigations. Suggestive questions are questions that imply that a specific answer should be given in the answer or falsely presents something in the question as an accepted fact. Unskilled officers tend to use this method to get people to confess and trick them into answering a question in a certain way. The questions are constructed to limit specific responses while suggesting others. For example, the police might ask someone if they were home at 5, 6, or 7 ‘o’clock, forcing them to think that it has to be one of those choices. This causes people to recall things from the prompt instead of from their actual memories. This is one of the ways the questions asked during the process warp the memory.
One of the examples of this occurrence happening in real life is the example of Paul Ingram, whose case is famously known as the Thurston County ritual abuse case. Paul’s children had accused him of sexual abuse following ‘recovered memory therapy’ for which he was interrogated. The interrogation consisted of sleep deprivation, and though Ingram denied all allegations at the start, he soon began to ‘remember’ and confess to the alleged abuse. His daughter had also reported that her father had conducted over 800 satanic rituals involving unspeakable acts.
Ingram’s interrogators and pastors encouraged him to remember more about the events, filling in more and more details. But the accounts from Paul and his daughter clashed with reality. Ingram recalled two people accompanying him during a certain ritual, but one of them had a solid alibi– that one person had been out of the country. Both of Ingram’s daughters claimed to be covered in scars from his abuse, but those scars weren’t found in the medical examination. The buried corpses allegedly used in the rituals weren’t found.
Sociologist Richard Ofshe suspected this to be a result of the suggestive questioning and decided to test the theory. He told Ingram about a made-up story and informed Ingram that it was another accusation by his daughters. He prompted Ingram to remember as much as he could about the case. Initially, just as with the other allegations, Ingram denied the claims. After being fed with some other made-up details about the location and time by Ofshe, the entirely invented scenario came flooding back, including dialogues. When Ofshe informed Ingram that Ofshe had created it, Ingram insisted that it felt very real to him. This revelation of false memories questioned the authenticity of Ingram’s confessions.
When Ofshe questioned Ingram’s wife and daughters, he was able to extract some answers from the younger daughter, who hadn’t described anything of this sort till the point. Ingram’s wife who initially insisted that her daughters' charges were false, later came to doubt her own reliability after being prompted by a pastor to remember the events. The daughters kept adding new pieces of information based on the police’s questions and soon accused their mother of being involved in the abuse, though they denied their mother's involvement in the start. Paul’s attorney perfectly summarized the entire situation: "I think in five years, the Ingram family will wake up and realize none of this ever happened.”
Sadly, what has happened here is happening to thousands of people worldwide who have been accused based on ‘recovered’ memories and suggestive questioning used by the police.
While this phenomenon has devastating consequences in the crime field, it can also be used to explain why ‘impossible events’ are perceived by others and why they claim and insist that they have spotted a unicorn or have seen aliens walk by.
References-
1. Funk, A. (2021, March 23). Scientists can implant false memories — and reverse them. Inverse. https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/how-to-reverse-false- memories-study
2. Lunau, K. (2016, September 14). A ‘Memory Hacker’ Explains How to Plant False Memories in People’s Minds. https://www.vice.com/en/article/8q8d7x/memory-hacker-implant-false- memories-in-peoples-minds-julia-shaw-memory-illusion
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