A false memory is a recollection of an event that either did not happen or happened differently from the way it is remembered. Experimental psychology, notably the work of Elizabeth Loftus, has shown that false memories can be created relatively easily through suggestive questioning, misleading post-event information or exposure to related but absent material, as in the widely used Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm, in which people falsely recall a word that was never presented but is strongly associated with a list of words they did see. False memory research has had significant real-world impact in legal contexts, particularly regarding the reliability of eyewitness testimony and recovered memories of childhood abuse.
Facts
Core ClaimResearchers attribute false memory to several overlapping mechanisms rather than one cause, among them suggestibility, activation of related associations, the post-event misinformation effect, and source misattribution, where a genuine memory is correctly recalled but wrongly attributed to the wrong origin. 1 Classification
Type of Phenomenon Connections
Associated With
Loftus's misinformation-effect research established that false memories can be implanted through suggestive post-event questioning.
In Branch
Sources
1. Wikipedia: False memory
Wikimedia Foundationlead paragraph, definition
In psychology, a false memory is a phenomenon in which someone incorrectly recalls something that did not actually happen or recalls it differently from the way it actually happened.
lead section, defining sentence
In psychology, a false memory is a phenomenon in which someone incorrectly recalls something that did not actually happen or recalls it differently from the way it actually happened.
lead section, phenomenon-kind classification
In psychology, a false memory is a phenomenon in which someone incorrectly recalls something that did not actually happen or recalls it differently from the way it actually happened.
View the Source Simply Psychology: False Memory In Psychology
opening definition paragraphQuote, opening definition paragraph
In psychology, a false memory refers to a mental experience that's remembered as factual but is either entirely false or significantly different from what actually occurred.
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