False Memory and False Source Memory (Post 4)

The phenomenon of memory conformity is a well-established one - when one person reports some aspect of a shared event that another did not experience, the second person will later report personal recall of what the first person described. However, it is not yet known whether the false recall is really false recall, or simply a report of what that person "knows" to be true about the subject at hand.

This study examined the phenomenon by showing pairs of participants videos from slightly different angles, such that each saw two details that the other could not. Each pair was then asked about a number of details in the video in a cooperative task, and were then split up and asked the same questions individually, along with a source memory question - where did their knowledge of the scene come from? Was it a memory, information from their partner, both, or just a guess?

Items seen by one's partner were recalled at a very high rate, and participants most often attributed their memory of those items to both their partner and their own viewing of the video, even though they never saw those details themselves - a clear case of false memory. Interestingly, details not seen by one's partner were often attributed to the partner as well. It seems that both false memory and false modesty are at work here!

[PHOTO: Mike blogs live at NOWCAM 2009 ]