False Memories Can Be Planted But Researchers Found a Way to Undo It

The human brain can make false memories out of stories that people hear or photographs they have seen, even if actual recollections are long forgotten.

With suggestions, subliminal messages, and other tricks, the brains could be tricked to create false memories. But researchers from Germany and the UK have found a way to undo them using interview techniques.

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False Memories Can Be Planted But Researchers Found A Way to Undo It

Reversing the Effects of False Memories

According to MailOnline, previous studies have only focused on how false memories are developed in a bid to understand how they can be used against people by the legal system.

But the new study, entitled "Rich false memories of autobiographical events can be reversed" and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examines how to reverse or undo potentially dangerous false memories.

Researchers planted false memories in 52 participants with an average age of 23 with assistance from their parents. The researchers explained to the parents about the negative events that occurred to their child along with two events that did not happen, like being lost as a child or getting involved in a car accident.

Then the participants were asked to recall each event and provide details about what they experienced and witnessed. The interviewers told the participants that their parents told them about four memories, wherein two were real, and two were fabricated, which happened during their childhood. This is where the implanting of false memories happened.

After the experiment, the researchers asked the participants at which level did they believed the fake events. The researchers found that participants believed it 27% of the time, and 20% of them were able to describe these false memories in detail with light encouragement from the researchers. Although some said, they have no recollection of such an event.

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The second part of the study involves reversing the effects of implanting false memories over two additional interviews. The participants were told that the traumatic events were not their memory but came from sources like their parents or separate events.

Then they explained that participants were pushed to recall these false memories to fill in gaps and put an end to aggression.

Later, the participants rejected the false memories, and fewer of them subscribed to fake memories, although some of them still described the false memories in detail.

A year later, the researchers did a follow-up on the participants, and 74% of them either rejected the false memories or said they have no recollection of the event.

What This Implies

The researchers found that false memories can mostly be undone, and they can reverse them relatively easily.

"If you can bring people to this point where they are aware of that, you can empower them to stay closer to their own memories and recollections and rule out the suggestion from other sources," Aileen Oeberst at the University of Hagen in Germany told Inverse.

Moreover, Elizabeth Loftus said that it might be possible for law enforcers, like prosecutors, police, and others, to try this technique before they start prosecuting people and potentially untangle innocent people from awful legal nightmares.