Have you seen the movie Ghost? Do you remember the last scene? The one where the protagonist's soul walks away saying, "It's wonderful, Molly, the love inside you. It will make you happy". If you answered "yes", you have just experienced a false memory phenomenon induced by misleading information. In reality, the protagonist says, "It's wonderful, Molly, the love in you. Always take it with you."
Do you want to know why this happens? The main reason is that there are no perfect memories because human memory, and also that of some animals, is highly suggestible. So, in this Psychology-Online article, we will tell you what are false memories in psychology and how do they work.
False memories are the product of a reconstructive and non-reproductive mechanism because, precisely, in our mind there is no photograph or film of the events that we have witnessed. Therefore, memories are only reconstructions of the events we have experienced, so it is easy for a subject to create memories that are not really real.
Thus, false memories are a phenomenon that causes Let's remember things that have never happened or that we remember them in a different way than they happened. Let's look at the different ways in which false memories manifest:
- Made up: An imagined event in great detail can leave an imprint on the brain that is very similar to that of a real event. This explains the difficulty in distinguishing between real and false memories.
- Based on an authentic memory, but altered.
- combined souvenir: mix and confuse memories. These can refer to events that occurred at different times, but neutralizing the temporal information of each fragment, so that the invented memory is perceived in its entirety.
- Induced by a pleasant dream or by a frustrating and distressing nightmare. After a while, that experience is mistakenly perceived as real.
- induced by hypnosis: creates confusion and mixes authentic memories and inventions of the patient. The reconstructed memory can be accompanied by unpleasant and painful details that can have a great impact on the patient. If you want to know more, in this article, we tell you what is hypnotherapy and what is it for.
If you're wondering why you remember things that never happened, read on to learn about the main causes of false memories.
biological causes
The main biological causes of false memories are the following:
- Encephalitis.
- Wernicke's syndrome-Korsakoff.
- Trauma and neurological dysfunction.
- Damage to the anterior communicating artery, in the Circle of Willis.
- Some types of drugs.
- dreams.
- memorization process.
In general, patients who have suffered brain injuries, especially in the prefrontal cortical regions, have a tendency to experience false memories.
psychological causes
The origin of false memories can also be psychological. Let’s see what are the most frequent psychological causes:
- Influence of loved ones or authorized, for which one has esteem and trust.
- Insistent and suggestive therapy to recover lost memories, such as Retrieved Memory Therapy (RMT)
- Hypnosis.
If you want to learn how to identify false memories, the best way to do it is to understand how they work. Therefore, below, we show you the main theories that explain the operation of this phenomenon.
- constructive view theory of memory: Promoted in the 1970s, this theory asserts that reasoning influences memory, in contrast to the prevailing view that memory supports reasoning. Specifically, it highlights the role of personal desires and beliefs in recovering memories.
- Theory of errors source monitoring:e"Source control" is the process by which we distinguish false memories from true ones. An example could be the spontaneous distinction between what has been said (external source) and what has been thought (internal source). This theory holds that false memories are created through the comparison of memories and information that has been formed in memory encoding. This occurs when the available information is insufficient to attribute it to the exact source.
- Fuzzy tracing theory: It is based on the assumption that memory is not registered in a unitary way. the theory holds that at the moment an event is experienced, both the details and the meaning are captured. If the meaning of an event that has not actually occurred is superimposed on the meaning of a lived experience, a false memory is formed.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
