Do False Memories Look Real? Evidence That People Struggle to Identify Rich False Memories of Committing Crime and Other Emotional Events.

ABSTRACT: Two studies examined whether people could identify rich false memories. Each participant in both studies was presented with two videos, one of a person recalling a true emotional memory, and one of the same person recalling a false memory. These videos were filmed during a study which involved implanting rich false memories (Shaw and Porter, 2015). The false memories in the videos either involved committing a crime (assault, or assault with a weapon) or other highly emotional events (animal attack, or losing a large sum of money) during adolescence. In study 1, participants (n = 124) were no better than chance at accurately classifying false memories (61.29% accurate), or false memories of committing crime (53.33% accurate). In study 2, participants (n = 82) were randomly ass

SUBMITTER: Shaw J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7156606 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature