Even about things that never happened.

Hello viewers, Trace here for DNews. You may think your memory is perfect, or you may be

like me and occasionally forget your own name. But there is an interesting third option for

memory; you may remember things that never even happened.

A study in Psychological Science showed that by using the right, or rather the wrong techniques,

people can be led to think they’ve done things they never did. Serious things that

got the police involved. Things you would and should probably remember doing.

Lead researcher Julia Shaw and her team contacted the caregivers of 60 students from the University

of British Columbia. They asked them to give them specific accounts of events in the students

lives from when they were 11 to 14.

Then the researchers brought in the students for a series of 3 interviews each a week apart.

In the first interview the students were told about 2 events from adolescence, except one

of them wasn’t real. The researchers would tell them the student had either committed

some sort of crime like assault or theft, or had experienced some emotional trauma like

being attacked by a dog. Even though the story overall was fake, the researchers sprinkled

in some real details from that time in the student’s life.

Then the subjects were asked to explain what had happened, and when they understandably

struggled to remember the thing they had never done, interviewers encouraged them to try

anyway and focus on specific details. In the second and third interviews the students were

asked again to describe both events.

If you think you would have called shenanigans at this point, you’re probably wrong. 71%

of the students who were told they had committed a crime in their youth actually believed they

had done it. 55% of them gave detailed accounts of their dealings with the police. The subjects

that were told they had emotional trauma didn’t fare better, with 76% of them giving specific

details and confidently recounting the experience.

You may think people with better memories would be more resistant to being inceptioned,

but that’s not the case. A study at UC Irvine tested ordinary people along with some who

had Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory. The subjects with HSAM could remember what

day of the week specific dates were, and could tell you exactly when major events took place.

These people have no excuse for forgetting anniversaries.

And yet when they were baited into thinking they had seen things they hadn’t, like footage

of United flight 93 crashing in Pennsylvania on September 11th, subjects with super memory

took the bait as often as everyone else, about a fifth of the time.

These studies highlight just how malleable our memories are, and how they can be shaped

with a little coaxing. It has big implications for police interviews and interrogations,

and now I really want to listen to all of Jay’s interviews from Serial again.

For more proof that your brain is a dirty liar, Anthony elaborates on false memories

here.

What’s another quirk of the human brain you think is interesting? If there’s one

we haven’t covered, let us know in the comments and we’ll check it out… If we remember

to. See you next time on DNews.