Abstract
A recent study showed that many people spontaneously report vivid memories of events that they do not believe to have occurred [1]. In the present experiment we tested for the first time whether, after powerful false memories have been created, debriefing might leave behind nonbelieved memories for the fake events. In Session 1 participants imitated simple actions, and in Session 2 they saw doctored video-recordings containing clips that falsely suggested they had performed additional (fake) actions. As in earlier studies, this procedure created powerful false memories. In Session 3, participants were debriefed and told that specific actions in the video were not truly performed. Beliefs and memories for all critical actions were tested before and after the debriefing. Results showed that debriefing undermined participants' beliefs in fake actions, but left behind residual memory-like content. These results indicate that debriefing can leave behind vivid false memories which are no longer believed, and thus we demonstrate for the first time that the memory of an event can be experimentally dissociated from the belief in the event's occurrence. These results also confirm that belief in and memory for an event can be independently-occurring constructs.
Highlights
Counter-intuitive as it might sound, people do not always believe that the events they remember really occurred
First we examine the data measuring participants’ beliefs and memories for critical actions in Session 2, and we look for evidence of nonbelieved memories among these reports
Many false memories for fake actions were obtained: 68% of memory ratings were above the scale-midpoint, and a high percentage (58%) were in the high confidence range (i.e., Memory $7)
Summary
Counter-intuitive as it might sound, people do not always believe that the events they remember really occurred. Many people report having a memory that they know to be false [1], and in some cases these memories can concern extremely significant experiences. There are documented cases of people with memories of severe childhood abuse having encountered incontestable proof that the events they recall could not possibly have happened [2]. Theoretical accounts of autobiographical memory and constructive memory processes have increasingly focused on believing as a foundation and precursor to remembering [3,4,5]. This study [6] offered empirical support for this nested model: their participants gave ratings of plausibility, belief and memory for ten specific events that they might have experienced in childhood. Participants gave belief ratings that were equal to or greater than their memory ratings on 95.7% of occasions
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