FALSE MEMORY RESEARCH AND

ITS IMPLICATIONS ON CHILDREN

Agha Sarmad DawarAnosheh AsifAnoush Irfan

Muhammad AbuBakar Mourige

Nimra JillaniBBA-II

Section L

ABSTRACT This research briefly reviews the

longstanding discussion of legal, social and ethical issues involving the use of children and other special populations as research subjects in studies of autobiographical research

INTRO What are false memories?

True memories represent events as they really happened, whereas false memories shade, distort, or entirely misrepresent what really happened.

LITERATURE REVIEW One question frequently faced in false

memory literature is whether actual memory traces underlie such false memories, or whether they can be explained by social influences, such as compliance (e.g., Bruck & Ceci, 1999).

Researches have revealed, true memory reports tend to contain more detail, especially sensory detail like sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell as compared to the false memories (Schooler, Gerhard, & Loftus, 1986.)

METHODOLOGY The research done in this article is

solely based on secondary sources of information comprising of online journals librariesarticlese-books research papers

Due to the time constraint involved in this research the scope is restricted down.

THE ORIGIN OF

CHILDREN'S IMPLANTED

FALSE MEMORIES

THE ORIGIN OF CHILDREN'S IMPLANTED FALSE MEMORIES What does false memory occur due to?

Memory traces or compliance? A few experiments and tasks were

carried out (implantation paradigm) 65% (15/23) children indicated that

false events had occurred to them Thus, false memories are created by

faulty memories rather than compliance

THE NATURE OF REAL,

IMPLANTED AND

FABRICATED MEMORIES IN

CHILDREN 

INTERESTED IN?The conditions under which false memories are

likely to be planted in adults and children and the conditions under which adults and children are more likely to be resistant to the implantation of

false memories.No matter how good your recall is, you still have

false memories!

FALSE MEMORIES An area of intense research interest for both theoretical and

practical reasons.

Theoretical perspective Practical perspective

True memories and false memories

True represent events as they really happened, whereas false memories shade, distort, or entirely misrepresent what really happened.

False memories may sometimes seem to be only subtly different from strictly accurate reports of experienced events, as when witnesses misremember true inferences about events as though the inferences were directly experienced.

FLEXIBILITY OF MEMORY Turning out to be progressively clear. Numerous impacts can bring about

recollections to change or even be made over again.

The information that we can't depend on our recollections, however convincing they may be, addresses about the legitimacy of criminal feelings that are construct to a great extent with respect to the affirmation of casualties or witnesses.

Our logical comprehension of memory ought to be utilized to help the legitimate framework to explore this minefield.

IMPACT Notices about the potential for falsehood at times

work to restrain its harming impacts, yet just under restricted circumstances.

The deception impact has been seen in a mixed bag of human and nonhuman species.

Also, a few gatherings of people are more defenseless than others.

At hypothetical level? Individuals come to accept dishonestly that they

encountered rich complex occasions that never, truth be told, happened.

ISSUE AND ANALYSIS

A focal issue?

"recall" a profoundly passionate episode which never happened.

The present study gave an inside and out examination of genuine, embedded, and manufactured recollections for distressing adolescence occasions.

Analyzed? Whether false recollections for enthusiastic occasions

could be embedded and, provided that this is true, whether genuine, embedded, and manufactured recollections had unmistakable elements.

DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN TRUE AND FALSE MEMORIES

• Dilemma for professionals• Distinguish between true and false

memory• Three approaches:

i. focusing on the memories reported

ii. person reporting the memories iii. on a particular rich memory

FOCUSING ON GROUPS OF MEMORIES Cognitive neuroscience Wilder Penfield, electrically stimulated

brain regions. Reports of fragments of thoughts and false memories.

Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

Sensory Activity > true memories than it is for false memories

Medial temporal are responsible for false memories

FOCUSING ON THE PERSON REPORTING THE MEMORIES Two types of lies – Intentional and

Unintentional Latter is based on false memories Extremely difficult or almost impossible

to be certain if he/she is lying. Content of memory report for clues

FOCUSING ON A PARTICULAR MEMORY Criteria-Based Content Analysis Scoring memory reports using 19

cognitive and motivational criteria like logical structure, unusual details and spontaneous corrections.

True memories have more details Entire false memories implanted by

therapists Researchers should determine which

portion of memory reflects reality and which is false memory.

LEGAL AND SOCIAL

IMPLICATIONS OF RESEARCH

ON FALSE MEMORY

LEGAL AND SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF RESEARCH ON FALSE MEMORY

There are many things that influences the memory to change or even creates a new memory

1. Imaginations 2. Leading questions 3. Recollections of ideas When people encounter and encode experiences the spontaneous false

memory begin at that time. The author quotes different examples that shows that after

some time the answers to same questions do changes He also believes that forensic interviews should minimize Research shows that information provided to children

through formal or informal means whether directly or indirectly will affect their reporting pattern and interpretation of events.

Many research has shown that children have the capabilities to resist false memories.

The young age children are expected to remember less likely the events which are occurred

For accuracy and fair witness from young children it is really important to understand and identify factors that promote the accessibility of verbatim and gist memories

In the end author concluded that we can do a lot of research on this and science and technology can reduce these uncertainties

LEGAL AND SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF RESEARCH ON FALSE MEMORY

ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS

REGARDING FALSE

MEMORY RESEARCH

The basic claim of Herrmann and Yoder's article is that when children serve as subjects, researchers need to be especially cautious.

ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS REGARDING FALSE MEMORY RESEARCH

The research on child witness has two central yet complementary goals: i. to advance scientific knowledgeii. to address real-world problems.

Thompson (1990, 1992) notes, the ability to conduct ethically sound research with children depend largely on consideration of children's cognitive and socio-emotional development

The type of questioning as well as the types of experiences provided to the subjects between the event and the final questions vary across the hundreds of experiments that have been conducted.

Some of these procedures include: asking the child misleading questions, providing the child with misinformation, asking the child to think about true or false events, encouraging the child to help and not to be afraid to tell

what really happened, telling the child that all his or her friends have already told

Often, these experimental manipulations are based on procedures used by some professionals when they interview children in connection with real allegations or suspicions

ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS REGARDING FALSE MEMORY RESEARCH

CONCLUSION All memory is false to some degree. Memory is inherently a reconstructive process,

whereby we piece together the past to form a coherent narrative that becomes our autobiography.

In the process of reconstructing the past, we color and shape our life’s experiences based on what we know about the world.

Our job as memory researchers and as human beings is to determine the portion of memory that reflects reality and the portion that reflects inference and bias.

At present, more work needs to be done to determine what tasks, measures, and techniques are required to distinguish a true from a false memory.

Once these methods are obtained, they might be combined to predict the accuracy of a given memory

RECOMMENDATIONS1. The procedure should initiate with a

thorough explanation given to parents about the goals of the study prior to children's involvement.

2. As part of the debriefing, do not emphasize that interviewers `lied' for the sake of science.

3. An accurate and careful presentation of findings should be an essential part of disseminating results

4. Providing readers with the procedures used for debriefing