James Ost

Familiarity breeds distortion: The effects of media exposure on false reports concerning media coverage of the terrorist attacks in London on 7 July 2005

The present experiment investigated whether increased media exposure could lead to an increase in memory distortions regarding a traumatic public event: the explosion of the No. 30 bus in Tavistock Square, London on 7 July 2005. A total of 150 Swedish and 150 UK participants completed a series of questionnaires about their memory of either (i) the aftermath of the explosion, (ii) a non-existent computerised reconstruction of the moment of the explosion, or (iii) non-existent closed circuit television footage of the moment of the explosion. In line with the availability heuristic, UK participants were more likely than Swedish participants to claim to have seen all three types of footage. Furthermore, a sub-sample of UK participants who appeared to have developed false “memories” of seeing the No. 30 bus explode scored significantly higher on measures of dissociation and fantasy proneness than participants who did not develop false “memories”. This experiment provides further support for the role of imaginative processes in the development of false memories.

Police interviews with suspected child sex offenders: does use of empathy and question type influence the amount of investigation relevant information obtained?

Abstract Using transcripts of 26 real-life interviews with suspected child sex offenders from England, this study examined the use of empathy and the impact of question type on the amount of investigation relevant information (IRI) obtained. There were no significant differences in the amount of IRI obtained in the interviews as a function of the use of empathy by police officers. The mean proportion of inappropriate questions was significantly higher than the mean proportion of appropriate questions and, as hypothesized, the responses to appropriate questions contained significantly more items of IRI than responses to inappropriate questions.

A mega-analysis of memory reports from eight peer-reviewed false memory implantation studies

ABSTRACT Understanding that suggestive practices can promote false beliefs and false memories for childhood events is important in many settings (e.g., psychotherapeutic, medical, and legal). The generalisability of findings from memory implantation studies has been questioned due to variability in estimates across studies. Such variability is partly due to false memories having been operationalised differently across studies and to differences in memory induction techniques. We explored ways of defining false memory based on memory science and developed a reliable coding system that we applied to reports from eight published implantation studies (N = 423). Independent raters coded transcripts using seven criteria: accepting the suggestion, elaboration beyond the suggestion, imagery, coherence, emotion, memory statements, and not rejecting the suggestion. Using this scheme, 30.4% of cases were classified as false memories and another 23% were classified as having accepted the event to some degree. When the suggestion included self-relevant information, an imagination procedure, and was not accompanied by a photo depicting the event, the memory formation rate was 46.1%. Our research demonstrates a useful procedure for systematically combining data that are not amenable to meta-analysis, and provides the most valid estimate of false memory formation and associated moderating factors within the implantation literature to date.

Seeking the middle ground in the ‘memory wars’

In the last decade, psychologists have become involved in one of their most contentious debates to date—contentious enough that Pezdek and Banks refer to it as close to a ‘religious war’ (Pezdek & Banks, 1996, p. xii). They are not far wrong. The recovered memory debate has divided professional organizations resulting in a substantial loss of membership. Some of the major organizations have been unable to reach a consensus beyond the most basic of guidelines concerning professional practice (Royal College of Psychiatry; see Brandon et al., 1997; American Psychological Association; see Alpert et al., 1996). In fact, the British Psychological Society was the only professional body to produce a report and guidelines that met with the approval of all the members of their working party (Andrews et al., 1995), if not all members of the society (see Weiskrantz, 1995).

False memory ≠ false memory: DRM errors are unrelated to the misinformation effect.

The DRM method has proved to be a popular and powerful, if controversial, way to study ‘false memories’. One reason for the controversy is that the extent to which the DRM effect generalises to other kinds of memory error has been neither satisfactorily established nor subject to much empirical attention. In the present paper we contribute data to this ongoing debate. One hundred and twenty participants took part in a standard misinformation effect experiment, in which they watched some CCTV footage, were exposed to misleading post-event information about events depicted in the footage, and then completed free recall and recognition tests. Participants also completed a DRM test as an ostensibly unrelated filler task. Despite obtaining robust misinformation and DRM effects, there were no correlations between a broad range of misinformation and DRM effect measures (mean r  = −.01). This was not due to reliability issues with our measures or a lack of power. Thus DRM ‘false memories’ and misinformation effect ‘false memories’ do not appear to be equivalent.

Misremembering Bartlett: a study in serial reproduction

According to much of the recent psychological literature on memory, Bartlett should be credited with the insight that remembering can never be accurate but is, instead, more or less of a distortion (a view to which many modern authors themselves seem to subscribe). In the present paper, we argue that Bartlett did not himself provide such an unqualified account of remembering. Although he sought to challenge the idea that remembering is largely an accurate record of past events, he did not maintain that it is always inaccurate. Despite unqualified claims by Bartlett to the contrary, neither his own experiments nor his theoretical position warrant the conclusion that remembering is inherently unreliable. Indeed, as we explain, Bartlett himself provides several examples of impressively detailed and accurate recall, and sought to explain them within the framework of his schema theory.

The influence of social pressure and black clothing on crime judgements

Abstract The impact of (i) social pressure and (ii) colour of clothing on participants’ crime judgements were examined. A total of 49 participants participated in small groups. They were read a crime report, and answered questions aloud about this report. Unknown to them, some group members were confederates and gave incorrect answers to some of the questions. In each session either one or four confederates were present who wore either dark or light clothing. Results revealed that participants gave numerous incorrect answers, with the most incorrect answers being given when (i) there were four confederates, and (ii) the confederates wore dark clothing.

Altering false reports via confederate influence

The present experiment examined the effects of confederate influence on the likelihood that participants would claim to have witnessed non‐existent footage of a highly charged public event. A total of 48 participants completed a questionnaire, in the presence of a confederate, concerning their memory for (non‐existent) closed circuit television (CCTV) footage of an explosion in a Bali nightclub. Overall, 19 participants (39%) claimed falsely to have seen this non‐existent footage. Furthermore, participants increased or suppressed their false reports in line with confirmative or disconfirmative social influence exerted by the confederate. We would like to thank Anthony Pratkanis and two anonymous reviewers whose constructive comments greatly improved the quality of this paper. We also thank Alan Costall for his advice regarding the statistical analysis.

Latent variables underlying the memory beliefs of Chartered Clinical Psychologists, Hypnotherapists and undergraduate students.

ABSTRACT In courts in the United Kingdom, understanding of memory phenomena is often assumed to be a matter of common sense. To test this assumption 337 UK respondents, consisting of 125 Chartered Clinical Psychologists, 88 individuals who advertised their services as Hypnotherapists (HTs) in a classified directory, the Yellow PagesTM, and 124 first year undergraduate psychology students, completed a questionnaire that assessed their knowledge of 10 memory phenomena about which there is a broad scientific consensus. HTs’ responses were the most inconsistent with the scientific consensus, scoring lowest on six of these ten items. Principal Components Analysis indicated two latent variables – reflecting beliefs about memory quality and malleability – underlying respondents’ responses. In addition, respondents were asked to rate their own knowledge of the academic memory literature in general. There was no significant relationship between participants’ self reported knowledge and their actual knowledge (as measured by their responses to the 10-item questionnaire). There was evidence of beliefs among the HTs that could give rise to some concern (e.g., that early memories from the first year of life are accurately stored and are retrievable).

Misrepresentations and flawed logic about the prevalence of false memories

Summary Brewin and Andrews (2016) propose that just 15% of people, or even fewer, are susceptible to false childhood memories. If this figure were true, then false memories would still be a serious problem. But the figure is higher than 15%. False memories occur even after a few short and low‐pressure interviews, and with each successive interview, they become richer, more compelling, and more likely to occur. It is therefore dangerously misleading to claim that the scientific data provide an “upper bound” on susceptibility to memory errors. We also raise concerns about the peer review process.