Abstract
Choice blindness is the failure to detect a discrepancy between a choice and its outcome. The misinformation effect occurs when the recollection of an event changes because new, misleading information about the event is received. The purpose of this study was to merge the choice blindness and misinformation effect paradigms, and thus examine whether choice blindness can be created for individuals’ recollections of a witnessed event, and whether this will affect their later recollections of the event. Thus, as a way of delivering misinformation the participants ostensibly became their own source of the misleading information. The participants watched a short film and filled out a questionnaire about events shown in the film. Some of their answers were then manipulated using reattachable stickers, which allowed alteration of their original answers. The participants gave justifications for their manipulated choices, and later their recollection of the original event was tested through another questionnaire. Choice blindness was created for a majority of the participants. A majority of the choice blind participants later changed their reported recollection of the event in line with the manipulations, whereas only a small minority of the participants in the control condition changed their recollection. This study provides new information about the misinformation effect, suggesting that this effect also can occur when misinformation is given immediately following presentation of the original stimuli, and about choice blindness and its effects on the recollections of events. The results suggest that memory blindness can be created when people inadvertently supply themselves with misleading information about an event, causing a change in their recollection.
Highlights
For the moment he had shut his ears to the remoter noises and was listening to the stuff that streamed out of the telescreen
The purpose of the current study was to converge the misinformation effect and choice blindness paradigms and thereby investigate whether people can seemingly be their own source of misleading information, creating memory blindness
The results show that choice blindness can be created for people’s recollections of a witnessed event, and these false recollections can in turn create a change in the reported remembrance of the witnessed event
Summary
For the moment he had shut his ears to the remoter noises and was listening to the stuff that streamed out of the telescreen It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week. Winston Smith, a clerk in the Ministry of Truth, rewrites newspapers and other documents in accordance with the ever-changing statements made by Big Brother and the Party. He incinerates the old versions by throwing them down the memory hole. In this way the memories of the citizens are being imperceptibly manipulated. This sounds like an absurd procedure, but is it impossible to implement? Many would probably argue that they never could be tricked in such a way, but perhaps we overestimate our ability to detect when our memories do not correspond with the way things were, even when the manipulation occurs right in front of our eyes
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