Falsification of memory

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False memory syndrome is unintentional falsification of existing own memory contents. It is differentiated from falsification of memories , the fantasizing imagination of new own memory contents. Both processes differ from the conscious false statement ( lie ) in that the remembering person himself considers his statement to be correct. The self-delusions described here are of great importance in psychiatry , in court and in memory research.

Pseudo- memories are a special form of falsification of memories . According to Oskar Berndt Scholz and Johann Endres, this is not used to describe events that they have fantasized about themselves, but rather "events that have been successfully persuaded but not experienced".

Falsification of memories has been the subject of psychological research for over 100 years and, more recently, has also been the subject of neurophysiological research.

The review of statements that are suspected of being wholly or partly due to falsified memories or pseudo-memories is of enormous importance in criminal investigations and in court.

Origin of the terms

The terms “falsification of memories” and “falsification of memories” were first introduced and defined in 1886 by Emil Kraepelin in his article “About falsification of memories”. He supplemented this article in 1887 with two articles of the same name, in which he clarified the new terms through case studies. In the article from 1886 Kraepelin wrote that he wanted to introduce terms for qualitative differentiation in addition to already known terms for the quantitative differentiation of “disorders of memory”, such as general amnesia , partial amnesia and hypermnesia . Analogous to the distinction between illusion and hallucination, he therefore wanted to differentiate between memory falsification and memory falsification .

Explanations

Since perception and memory are neural processing processes, errors can sometimes occur. While perceptual illusions have been studied and researched for a long time, this has only been the case in a comparable form with memory delusions since the 1960s. Since then, experiments have succeeded in using different methods to distort the memories of test subjects in relation to serious details or even to implant pseudo-memories of new events in their memories .

Falsified memories can occur as a result of a suggestion or hypnosis as well as spontaneously (without external influence) under stress or in a state of exhaustion. The term can thus be methodologically delimited from pathological delusions , as they can occur as a symptom of some mental disorders . It is essential that the intellectual and emotional reproduction of the memory content is experienced as an image of a past, waking-conscious occurrence - unlike a memory of a dream , a vision or an active imagination : there the remembering is aware that his memory has no such external reality corresponds. Even in the case of a patchy, vague memory, the remembering person is aware of this incompleteness and imperfection.

False events that are persuaded by suggestion increase in plausibility the more often they are mentioned, the more consistent they are and the more often the person visualizes the situation. The resulting memories are often very detailed, emotional and very believable for the person.

A study showed that suggestion is particularly successful when it comes to emotional content. For example, 100 adults believed, based on their vivid and emotional memories, that they were sexually abused in their childhood. It turned out that these memories were generated by the suggestive techniques of their therapists and that the recurring repetition and examination of these "memories" gained more and more details and credibility and solidified them.

People pay more attention to emotional stimuli than to neutral ones. The memories of these stimuli are strengthened by stress hormones. As emotional memories are called up and reconsidered more often, they are additionally reinforced. This happens not only with actual memories, but also with falsified memories. False memories are easy to come by in an emotional context. It doesn't matter whether the situation arouses strong negative or positive feelings. Negative emotion causes the person to focus on the center of the action and the periphery to be prone to memory errors. In a robbery, for example, the focus is on what is most negative and life-threatening: the weapon. The person misses out on important information about the perpetrator (e.g. distinctive facial features, voice, clothing) and the setting. In English this phenomenon is also known as tunnel memory. Conversely, if a situation evokes positive emotions, there is no need to focus. The person expands their area of ​​attention to take in as much as possible and discover new possibilities. Since these memories are not very detailed due to the vastness of attention, they are generally prone to falsification.

This topic becomes particularly important in the legal context. Often, eyewitnesses are under tremendous stress, even if they are not the victims of a criminal act. You have to go through the act several times. Her emotional memories are very easy to influence. For example, they can be falsified by other eyewitness reports, (suggestive) questions from officials or media reports. For example, it has been shown that the negation of ideas can have paradoxical effects that may lead the listener to believe that the negated ideas actually existed. If a witness has heard that something did not happen, after a while he may falsely remember that it actually did happen.

Experiments

Celebrity question

The celebrity question is an experiment on a special form of memory falsification called source confusion. In the first phase of the experiment, the test subjects are presented with several names, which they are supposed to assess, for example, according to their pronounceability. The next day, in a second phase, these names are presented along with new names and names of famous people. Now the test subjects should decide which of these names should be assigned to famous people. Incidentally, the names of the people read the day before are often incorrectly named as famous. Apparently, the test subjects were not aware of whether they only knew these names from the newspaper and television or from the first phase of the experiment. Unconscious processes then lead to a mix-up of the information source.

Lost in the mall

One experiment on pseudo-memories is the Lost in the mall experiment by Elizabeth F. Loftus and Jacqueline E. Pickrell. The subject of this experiment was the attempt to "implant" a completely new memory in the test subjects. The 24 subjects were asked to describe three events (which for ethical reasons were all equally neutral) in their childhood. These events were provided by close family members, it should be noted that one of the three events never occurred. This pseudo-memory alleged that the subject got lost in a shopping mall between the ages of four and six and was then brought back to her family by a strange adult. To make this experience more plausible, the family member provided the experimenter with information such as the name of a nearby mall, any relatives who might be present, which stores caught the subject's attention at that age, etc.

Results

68% of the events that actually occurred (49 out of 72) were correctly remembered. Six out of 24 test persons “remembered” the constructed event. 75% said that they could not remember such an experience. The level of clarity ratings was slightly lower than that for actual occurrences, although it should be noted that it was generally not very high. It is interesting, however, that the degree of conviction increased with repeated questioning about the wrong event by the investigator. Furthermore, after being informed that one of the memories was incorrect, five of the subjects said that one of the correct memories was the one that was implanted.

Bugs Bunny in Disneyland

Elizabeth Loftus constructed an experiment in which participants who had been to Disneyland in their past were persuaded to meet the character Bugs Bunny . They could then vividly remember the scene. That this meeting could never have happened, results from the fact that the character belongs to Warner Brothers and is, so to speak, strictly banned from entering Disneyland.

Criminal offenses

The psychologists Julia Shaw and Stephen Porter were able to prove in an experimental, controlled study in 2013/14 how easy it is to get people to (incorrectly) remember that they had committed a crime in their early youth. After three interviews in which suggestive conversation techniques were used, 70% of the test subjects (students) “remembered” the alleged act, the reactions of the environment including the police operation and other consequences. In terms of detail and vividness of the memories, these generated memories were similar to other false memories with non-criminal content and also to the true (non-generated) memories of the study participants.

Experiments on more unusual childhood memories

Experiments such as Loftus and Pickrell's Lost in the mall experiment suggested that successful 'implantation' of a childhood memory was due to the fact that it was not an unusual experience (in this case, getting lost in a mall ) acts. Considerations were made as to whether the test subjects confused or mixed up comparable situations, which they actually experienced or which they were told about, with the event constructed for the experiment. Therefore, Ira E. Hyman, Try H. Husband, and F. James Billings carried out further experiments involving more unusual events, such as hospitalization overnight due to a high fever. In the experiment mentioned, four out of 20 test persons (20%) stated that they could remember such a briefing.

Neurophysiology

At the system level

By functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI or fMRI) it could be shown that both the stabilization and the counterfeit is connected of memory contents with increased activity in the left posterior parahippocampal gyrus , as well as two-sided retrosplenial and posterior inferior parietal areas of the cortex . In these and in neighboring brain regions, however, differences in activity were observed depending on the stabilizing or counterfeiting effect, which depended on certain experimental circumstances of influencing and recalling memories. According to the authors, these results confirm the thesis that memory corruption is a negative downside of the brain's predominantly useful property of being able to update existing memory content.

At the neuron level

The study Creating a False Memory in the Hippocampus , published in 2013, shows that neurons that have “learned” to trigger a fear reaction in a certain “dangerous place” can be activated by artificial activation from outside - via optogenetic switching - in another, completely “harmless” “The same reaction could be brought to the place as in the dangerous place. For the animal - by manipulating certain neurons - the memory content “dangerous place” was linked in a falsifying way to a “harmless place”. The study, which has received many comments in professional circles, was described as a milestone in research into memory forgery.

In 2015, the first experimental generation of false memories in mice during sleep caused a similar sensation, which the animals then confirmed through their behavior immediately after waking up. A place cell in the brain region for spatial memory ( hippocampus ) was linked by electrical stimuli to a brain region ( nucleus accumbens ) that is central to pleasant feelings during sleep . After waking up, the animals visited the corresponding place of their dwelling with noticeable frequency, just like other animals that had learned a real memory of the place while they were awake.

Importance in legal proceedings

When making statements in court, the examination of memories for possible self-deception of the testifying person is of great importance. According to Oskar Berndt Scholz and Johann Endres, a distinction must be made between pseudo-memories that arise from manipulation in earlier surveys and false information effects that arise from manipulation in current surveys. This distinction is important because, in the case of a pseudo- memory, the current questioning takes place without manipulation and therefore earlier manipulative implantations of false memories could easily remain hidden in court.

The Kenneth Olson case

The psychiatrist Kenneth C. Olson treated the 33-year-old caregiver Nadean Cool for several years since 1986. During treatment with hypnosis and exorcism , among other things , the patient remembered that she had been involved in satanic cults , had eaten infants, had been raped, had sexual intercourse with animals and had been forced to witness the murder of her eight-year-old friend. She believed she had more than 120 personalities - those of children, adults, angels, and also a duck.

When Nadean Cool later realized that she had been implanted with false memories, she took legal action against the psychiatrist and received US $ 2.4 million in damages in an out-of-court settlement in 1997 after a five-week trial.

The Västerås case

As a result of psychotherapy , a woman (in her late twenties) in Västerås ( Central Sweden ) reported to her father that he had raped and tortured her more than 200 times when she was 9-16 years old. Although there was no other evidence (testimony, technical evidence, medical evidence ) other than the woman's memory , the father was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2002. In 2003 the judgment was confirmed in the second instance. The court described the defense's view that the allegations were false memories implanted in psychotherapy as an “absurd theory”. After more than nine years in prison, the man was released on parole in 2012 after 2/3 of the fourteen-year sentence.

In the meantime, the daughter went into psychotherapy again and, as a result, showed further memories of serious crimes in 2007. She was also the victim of a large pedophile network. The perpetrators included named chiefs in police and business. Subsequent investigations revealed no evidence that the new allegations could be true. However, since they were very similar to the old allegations against the father and were also brought forward as a result of psychotherapy, the old case from 2002 was brought before the Supreme Court of Sweden ( Högsta domstolen ). This overturned the previous judgments on May 24, 2013 and referred the case back to the second instance for reopening. This acquitted the father on April 25, 2014 on all points. This made his prison sentence the longest that a wrongly convicted person had ever served in Sweden in modern times. His lawyer filed a claim for damages of 19 million kroner (approx. 2.06 million euros) on November 7, 2014 and on June 29, 2015 the father was awarded compensation of 12.6 million kroner (1.4 million euros), the highest amount of compensation ever set in Sweden for a wrongly convicted person.

Therapeutic context

The idea that traumatic memories can be suppressed and later regain consciousness, for example in the context of psychotherapy, is widespread both in the general population and among therapists. While the existence of suppressed trauma is out of the question, the frequency of its occurrence is a matter of current debate. It is often not possible to decide whether a memory was actually suppressed and later regained, or whether it came about at a later point in time, i.e. whether it is a false memory.

In order for a memory to be properly classified as "recovered", it must first be established that the respective event actually took place, second, that it was forgotten and it was not possible for the person to remember it, and third, that it happened later was reminded again.

Loftus and Davis were able to demonstrate major methodological flaws in studies that support the thesis of recovered memories. For example, it was not checked whether a memory of a traumatic experience was objectively true or not. Another study interpreted the fact that women who had witnessed an objectively occurring abuse did not mention the abuse in an interview seventeen years later as repression of memory. However, there may be other reasons not to report abuse in an interview, such as shame or a lack of relationship with the investigator.

Loftus and Davis found little evidence that traumatic experiences are usually suppressed and forgotten and can later be recalled. Although there are numerous reports from people who remember what was sometimes massive abuse, this raises the question to what extent these events have taken place or are false memories and, if so, how these false memories can arise.

The fact that suppressed and false memories resemble each other in their vague and sketchy character is particularly problematic in the field of psychotherapy, as it can easily lead to confusion. Therefore, the therapist should always critically question the patient's statements in the context of repressed trauma.

Priming

Awareness of abuse has increased steadily over the past few decades. This led to increased priming on the subject, both among the general population and among therapists.

The effects of priming include selective attention to relevant information, biased interpretation of relevant information, as well as memory processes that create memories that are consistent with priming but false memories and that distort existing memories consistently with priming.

Bias

Many patients entering therapy seek an explanation of their problems. This makes them receptive to plausible sounding theories about the cause of their suffering. If a patient is suggested to have been abused, he may, together with an already existing idea about the possibility of sexual abuse, develop a false memory of abuse. This possibility of explanation can lead patients to stick to this formulated thesis and to defend it against doubts.

On the therapist side, those who consider abuse and repressed memories of abuse to be common will be more likely to ask questions along these lines and be more receptive to the patient's symptoms that may indicate abuse.

plausibility

Information that makes previously implausible information subjectively more plausible can encourage the creation of false memories. Suggestive influences inside and outside of a therapy can consolidate the idea of ​​abuse, regardless of whether it can actually be remembered or not. For example, if a qualified source states that a person's symptoms could be caused by abuse, the likelihood that the person will also assume abuse as the cause is increased.

Acceptance and confirmation

Once a patient has come to the conclusion that they have been abused, there is a risk that they and the therapist will concentrate on accepting, confirming and consolidating their new identity as a victim of abuse. Continuing to deal with the topic, reading case reports or visiting a self-help group can, in turn, encourage the creation and existence of false memories.

Falsification of memory in films and novels

The work of Philip K. Dick , whose novels (and novel adaptations) deal extensively with the topic, deserves special mention in this list .

Movies

Novels

See also

literature

  • Julia Shaw : Deceptive Memory: How Our Brain Forges Memories. Hanser, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-446-44892-6 .
  • Renate Volbert , Max Steller , A. Galow: The credibility report. In: H.-L. Kröber, D. Dölling, N. Leygraf, H. Saß: Manual of forensic psychiatry. Volume 2: Psychopathological foundations and practice of forensic psychiatry in criminal law . Springer-Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-7985-1745-5 , pp. 623-689.
  • David G. Myers, Svenja Wahl, Siegfried Hoppe-Graff: Psychology . Springer, 2008, ISBN 978-3-540-79032-7 , pp. 416-425.
  • Elizabeth Loftus : Creating False Memories. Scientific American . Vol 277, No. 3, September 1997, pp. 70-75. ( Online copy )
  • Melanie Caroline Steffens, Silvia Mecklenbräuker: False Memories. Phenomena, Theories, and Implications . In: Journal of Psychology . Vol 215 (1), 2007, pp. 12-24. ( Online copy (PDF; 632 kB) )

Documentation

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Oskar Berndt Scholz, Johann Endres: Tasks of the psychological expert in suspected child sexual abuse: Findings, diagnostics, assessment. In: New journal for criminal law. 15 (1), 1995, pp. 6-12. Quoted from: Gabriele Jansen: Witness and statement psychology. (= Practice of criminal defense. Volume 29). Verlag Hüthig Jehle Rehm, 2012, ISBN 978-3-8114-4861-2 , p. 226.
  2. ^ A b c Emil Kraepelin: About falsification of memories . In: Archives for Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases . tape 17 , no. 3 . August Hirschwald, Berlin 1886, p. 830-843 .
  3. ^ Jan Dirk Blom: A Dictionary of Hallucinations . Springer, New York 2010, ISBN 978-1-4419-1223-7 , pp. 320 ( excerpt (Google) ).
  4. ^ Emil Kraepelin: About falsification of memories . In: Archives for Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases . tape 18 , no. 1 . August Hirschwald, Berlin 1886, p. 199-239 .
  5. ^ Emil Kraepelin: About falsification of memories . In: Archives for Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases . tape 18 , no. 18 . August Hirschwald, Berlin 1887, p. 395-436 .
  6. ↑ Stephen J. Ceci, Elizabeth F. Loftus: 'Memory work': A royal road to false memories? In: Applied Cognitive Psychology . tape 8 , no. 4 , August 1, 1994, ISSN  1099-0720 , p. 351-364 , doi : 10.1002 / acp.2350080405 . P.56
  7. ↑ a b c Robin L. Kaplan, Ilse Van Damme, Linda J. Levine, Elizabeth F. Loftus: Emotion and False Memory . In: Emotion Review . tape 8 , no. 1 , October 23, 2015, p. 8-13 , doi : 10.1177 / 1754073915601228 .
  8. ^ EF Loftus, K. Ketcham: The myth of repressed memory . MacMillan NY, New York 1996.
  9. ^ Martin A. Safer, Sven-Åke Christianson, Marguerite W. Autry, Karin Österlund: Tunnel memory for traumatic events . In: Applied Cognitive Psychology . tape 12 , no. 2 , April 1, 1998, ISSN  1099-0720 , p. 99-117 , doi : 10.1002 / (SICI) 1099-0720 (199804) 12: 23.0.CO; 2-7 .
  10. ↑ Steven J. Frenda, Rebecca M. Nichols, Elizabeth F. Loftus: Current Issues and Advances in Misinformation Research . In: Current Directions in Psychological Science . tape 20 , no. 1 , February 4, 2011, p. 20-23 , doi : 10.1177 / 0963721410396620 .
  11. ↑ J. Maciuszek, R. Polczyk: There was not, They did not: May cause negation negated the ideas to be remembered as existing? In: PLoS ONE. 12 (4), 2017, p. E0176452. doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0176452
  12. ↑ Elizabeth F. Loftus, Jacqueline E. Pickrell: The Formation of False Memories . In: Psychiatric Annals . No. December 12 , 1995, p. 720-725 .
  13. ^ David G. Myers, Svenja Wahl, Siegfried Hoppe-Graff: Psychology . Springer, 2008, ISBN 978-3-540-79032-7 , p. 424.
  14. ↑ Elizabeth Loftus : Creating False Memories. Scientific American . Vol 277, No. 3, September 1997, pp. 70-75. ( Online copy )
  15. ↑ Werner Stangl : Forgetting - Some research results on remembering and on the "False Memory Syndrome" , article on the False Memory Syndrome
  16. ^ Robert Sternberg: Cognitive Psychology . Cengage Learning, 2008, ISBN 978-0-495-50629-4 , pp. 240-241. ( Excerpt (Google) )
  17. ↑ Deceptive Memories - The Alleged Criminal . In: Spiegel Online. 16th August 2016.
  18. ↑ Julia Shaw, Stephen Porter: Constructing Rich False Memories of Committing Crime. In: Psychological Science. January 14, 2015. ( Abstract )
  19. ↑ Ira E. Hyman, Try H. Husband, F. James Billings: False Memories Of Childhood Experiences . In: Applied Cognitive Psychology . Vol. 9, pp. 181-197 .
  20. ↑ Peggy L St. Jacques, Christopher Olm, Daniel L Schacter: Neural mechanisms of reactivation-induced updating that enhance and distort memory. In: Proc Natl Acad Sci USA . 110 (49), 2013, pp. 19671-19678. PMID 24191059
  21. ↑ Steve Ramirez, Xu Liu, Pei-Ann Lin, Junghyup Suh, Michele Pignatelli, Roger L Redondo, Tomás J Ryan, Susumu Tonegawa: Creating a False Memory in the Hippocampus. In: Science . 341 (6144), 2013, pp. 387-391. PMID 23888038
  22. ↑ Six detailed, specialist reviews: Free (only one time) full text online in F1000Prime Reports ISSN  2051-7599
  23. ↑ G. de Lavilléon, MM Lacroix, L. Rondi-Reig, K. Benchenane: Explicit memory creation during sleep demonstrates a causal role of place cells in navigation. In: Nature Neuroscience . Volume 18, number 4, April 2015, pp. 493-495, doi: 10.1038 / nn . 3970 . PMID 25751533 .
  24. ↑ Nicole Paschek: Learning while you sleep. In: Spectrum of Science. July 2015, pp. 16-17. (on-line)
  25. ↑ Oskar Berndt Scholz, Johann Endres: Tasks of the psychological expert in suspected child sexual abuse: Findings, diagnostics, assessment. In: New journal for criminal law. 15 (1), 1995, pp. 6-12. Quoted from: Gabriele Jansen: Witness and statement psychology. (= Practice of criminal defense. Volume 29). Verlag Hüthig Jehle Rehm, 2012, ISBN 978-3-8114-4861-2 , p. 227.
  26. ↑ Meg Jones: Repressed memory lawsuit is settled. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Online Main Page, March 4, 1997. (documented online)
  27. ↑ Elizabeth F. Loftus : False Memories. In: Spectrum of Science. 1, 1998, p. 63ff. (on-line)
  28. ↑ Frias efter över nio år i fängelse. ( Memento of the original from November 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Vestmanlands Läns Tidning . April 25, 2014.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / vlt.se
  29. ↑ Begäran om rekordstort skadestånd ( Memento of the original from November 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , November 7, 2014.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / vlt.se
  30. ↑ Friad for 13 miljoner i skadestånd. In: Svenska Dagbladet . June 29, 2015.
  31. ^ Harrison G. Pope, James I. Hudson: Can memories of childhood sexual abuse be repressed? In: Psychological Medicine . tape 25 , no. 1 , ISSN  1469-8978 , p. 121-126 , doi : 10.1017 / S0033291700028142 .
  32. ^ Bessel A. van der Kolk , Rita Fisler: Dissociation and the fragmentary nature of traumatic memories: Overview and exploratory study . In: Journal of Traumatic Stress . tape 8 , no. 4 , October 1, 1995, ISSN  0894-9867 , p. 505-525 , doi : 10.1007 / bf02102887 .
  33. ↑ Linda Meyer Williams: "Recall of childhood trauma: A prospective study of women's memories of child sexual abuse": Correction. In: Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology . tape 63 , no. 3 , p. 343-343 , doi : 10.1037 / 0022-006x.63.3.343 .
  34. ^ A b c d Elizabeth F. Loftus, Deborah Davis: Recovered Memories. In: Annual Review of Clinical Psychology. 2, 2006, p. 469, doi : 10.1146 / annurev.clinpsy.2.022305.095315 .
  35. ↑ Stephen J. Ceci, Elizabeth F. Loftus: 'Memory work': A royal road to false memories? In: Applied Cognitive Psychology . tape 8 , no. 4 , August 1, 1994, ISSN  1099-0720 , p. 351-364 , doi : 10.1002 / acp.2350080405 .
  36. ↑ Gisli H. Gudjonsson: Recovered memories of abuse. Assessment, therapy, forensics. By Kenneth S. Pope and Laura S. Brown. American Psychological Association. Washington, DC. 1996, 315 pp. ISBN 1-55798-395-X . In: Criminal Behavior and Mental Health . tape 11 , S1, November 1, 2001, ISSN  1471-2857 , pp. S29-S30 , doi : 10.1002 / cbm.416 .