A third of people were able to believe in fake memories.
Adults have been susceptible to false memories. Psychologists from the University of Warwick (UK) have found that incorrect information can form erroneous memories, while the majority will be confident in their truth.
423 volunteers took part in the experiment to "implant memory", according to an article published in the journal Memory. First, the participants were told a fictional event that they allegedly experienced in childhood - most often it was a story about a prank by a teacher or participants in a public event. The volunteers were then asked to imagine in detail how the event might have happened.
Psychologists conducted a series of such exercises, after which the participants were asked to take a test and choose which memories of their life are true and which are false. Of all the volunteers, 30.5% believed in all the fictional events and began to think that it really happened in their life. Another 23% partially believed in fake memories: they said they remember something similar, but disagree with some details.
In order for a person to believe in a false memory, he needs to admit that a fictional event could occur, to admit the plausibility of this.
The first step towards false memory is to some extent admitting that the proposed event could have happened. This can range from a minimal acknowledgment of the possibility that an event could take place, to full confidence that an event is certain to have happened, the researchers said.
It is noted that in the case when people in the process of "memory implementation" were shown fake photographs, allegedly testifying to the event they experienced, the number of those who trusted false memories grew.
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At the same time, when a person begins to look for details in his fictional memory, he can begin to invent them. But there is also the opposite situation - when a person is not able to obtain sufficient information or to recover mismatched details of an event, he may reject the memory.
In addition, if the proposed events do not coincide with the true experience of the past in a broader temporal and eventual context, the person will also refuse to believe that this happened to him.
When people try to remember a past event, if the memory does not come to mind quickly, they can try to identify a wide period of life in the context that most likely surrounds the event, psychologists noted.
In this case, they say, general details can give a hint of a specific episode.
Scientists noted that their findings should be taken into account during trials and other situations in which a person's memories play an important role. For example, psychoanalysts may mishandle a client based on false memory and taking into account events that never happened to him.
However, the conclusions apply to the entire human community. According to scientists, it is possible to "infect" a whole group of people with false memories if, with the help of books, television and the media, they are given "fictional memory" of certain events.
Marina Tretyakova