PSYC 575 Research Paper: Analyzing Causes and Impacts of False Memory

This report explores the psychology of false memories, focusing on their causes, impacts, and the populations they affect. It identifies misattribution and misinformation as key causes, along with the interference of existing memories. The report highlights the potential for suggestion to induce false memories, as demonstrated by Elizabeth Loftus's research. The impacts of false memories range from minor inconveniences to severe consequences, such as false convictions. The paper concludes that anyone can be affected by false memories, emphasizing the importance of understanding how these distortions occur and the need for continued research in this area. This paper has therefore covered much information from the available literature to explain false memories in deep details. Desklib provides this paper and similar resources to aid students in their studies.

Running Head: FALSE MEMORIES PSYCHOLOGY 1
False Memories Psychology
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

False Memory Psychology 2
Introduction
Thesis statement: Who has the possibility of getting false memories?
Key Points
 Causes of false memories
 Impacts of false memories
 Affected population and contributing factors.
Causes of False Memories
There are several factors that cause false memory in psychology which include
misattribution and misinformation of a source of information. Sometimes the existing memories
and knowledge acquired from different sources of information may also interfere with the
process of acquiring new information. This interference causes a recollection of an event in the
human memory that result to false memory (Cherry, 2018). Memory research has shown that
suggestion can induce false memories as explained by Elizabeth Loftus.
Inaccurate perception is one cause of false memories, and this happens when the human
mind perceives things and events that do not exist (Cherry, 2018). Inaccurate perception is
mostly formed when the information is not encoded the way it should be. A good example of this
can be given when one may try to reconstruct the series of events of an accident one witnessed
(Roediger & Marsh, 2009). One may not have witnessed everything and therefore may use
imagination to fill up the gaps to record the whole event.
Inference can happen in two different ways. Firstly, the old memories may interfere with
the new information being stored in the memory and introduce false memories to this

False Memory Psychology 3
information. The new information may also make it hard for one to remember the old memories
and may lead to distorted information (Roediger & Marsh, 2009). These gaps in the old
information tend to be filled with new expectations or beliefs which bring about false memories.
Causes of false memories have potential impacts in the perception of inexistent things.
Potential Impacts of False Memories
False memories are fairly inconsequential in most cases as they may happen in minor
ways such as forgetting where one left the car keys. They may also have severe impacts as the
research shows that they make the highest percentage of false convictions. Investigations have
shown that false memories have effects on emotions and retrieval of memories (Jarret, 2013).
These convictions may involve life changing experiences such as making one serve a jail term.
False memories have a huge negative potential since they give out in correct attributions and
confusion in regard to the sources of memories. There is an increase of the affected population
thus there is need to understand how false memories form.
Affected Population and Contributing Factors
False memories can affect anyone even those people perceived to have a good memory. It
is easy for a human mind to record information of an event that never existed through suggestion
and other ways discussed in this paper (Psychologistworld.com, 2018). When the details are still
fresh in mind, the information is less distorted, and this gets worse as the time passes which is
caused by misinformation.

False Memory Psychology 4
Conclusion
Continued research has shown that false memories can affect virtually every person. This
is because the human memory is sometimes not as good as we think and it is sometimes very
easy to form a memory. These memories have effects from minor misattribution to potentially
fatal misinformation. It is also clear that false memories can be triggered by the suggestion which
tends to distort the old information in the memory. This paper has therefore covered much
information from the available literature to explain false memories in deep details.

False Memory Psychology 5
References
Cherry, K. (2018). How False Memories Are Formed. Retrieved from
https://www.verywellmind.com/how-do-false-memories-form-2795349
Cherry, K. (2018). How Your Brain Can Create False Memories. Retrieved from
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-false-memory-2795193
Jarret, C. (2013). False memories have an upside. Retrieved from
https://digest.bps.org.uk/2013/09/23/false-memories-have-an-upside/
Psychologistworld.com. (2018). How False Memories Can Affect Our Ability To Recall Events.
Retrieved from https://www.psychologistworld.com/memory/false-memories-
questioning-eyewitness-testimony
Roediger III, H., & Marsh, E. (2009). False memory. Scholarpedia, 4(8), 3858. doi:
10.4249/scholarpedia.3858