False memories leave memory traces

Press release 9 February 2012

Memories of something that never happened (such as sexual abuse) are not caused by socially desirable behaviour but by “memory traces”, the mechanism underlying the creation of real memories. These memory illusions, or pseudo-memories can be triggered by things like suggestive questions. Researchers from Maastricht University are the first to unravel the mysteries of this mechanism and they have published their study online this week in Acta Psychologica, the International Journal of Psychonomics.

Although most pseudo-memories are fairly innocent, they could be dangerous in a legal trail and result in unjust sentences, such as in cases of sexual abuse. Children can – if they have been subjected to suggestive questions – become convinced that they have been abused in some way. The research results suggest that they may carry these false memories with them for the rest of their lives. 
     
For this study, forty-five children aged between eight and ten were told two stories. One story involved an event they had really experienced (their first day at school, about which their parents had provided details by means of questionnaires). The second was about a fictitious event (a trip in a hot-air balloon) that was presented to the children as if they had actually experienced it. Afterwards, the children were interviewed several times and asked to describe both events or to answer questions on specific details. Nearly all the children could remember their first day at school. Of the forty-five children, twenty-six had developed false memories of the balloon ride. An additional computer test (a “deception task”) was used to establish that those children who had produced false memories could confirm the balloon ride faster than they could deny it. People can only confirm experiences faster than deny them if the memories are “real” and involve memory traces. Consequently, this discovery reveals for the first time that false memories, or memory illusions, in children are based on memory traces and are not caused by socially desirable behaviour.


Note for the press:
For more information about the content of this press release, please contact Dr Henry Otgaar, tel. +31 43 388 4340, email henry.otgaar@maastrichtuniversity.nl, or Dunja Bajic, UM press officer, tel. +31 43 388 5243, email dunja.bajic@maastrichtuniversity.nl.

The UM Marketing & Communications Department can be contacted on +31 43 388 5222 or at pers@maastrichtuniversity.nl. For urgent matters outside office hours, please call +31 6 4602 4992. Please refer to the Webmagazine for interesting research being carried out at UM.

<< Back