shaw and porter (2015)

aim

to explore whether complete false memories of committing crimes involving police contact could be generated in a controlled experimental setting.

- if so, to explore their prevalence and how their details compare to both false memories of other emotional events and true memories.

sample

126 undergraduate students were considered for participation in the study, with 70 meeting participation criteria and 60 undergoing data collection (interview stage)

age range of participants + race + gender breakdown

18-31, primarily female, primarily caucasian

screening phase (1st in method)

in the screening phase, the 126 participants consented to their primary caregivers receiving an extensive memory questionnaire. caregivers were asked whether their child had experienced any of 6 negative emotional events, 3 of which were criminal (assault, assault with a weapon, and theft) and 3 of which were non-criminal (an accident, an animal attack, losing a large amount of money) to ensure participant had not experienced any of the "fake events". caregivers also reported one highly emotional event of any kind in extreme detail to be utilized as the real memory.

how many participants were determined to be eligible and how was eligibility decided

of those who returned the questionnaires, 70 were deemed eligible to participate (eligibility = caregivers had to report at least one extremely emotional event of any kind for participants between ages 11-14 and that participant had not experienced any of the target criminal events/police contact of any kind).

what conditions were there? (second method)

participants were randomly assigned to a criminal condition or a noncriminal condition. criminal condition (1/3 were told they had committed assault, 1/3 were told they had committed assault with a weapon, 1/3 were told they had committed theft ). noncriminal condition told they had experienced an emotional event (1/3 were told they had injured themselves, 1/3 were told they had been attacked by a dog, and 1/3 were told they lost money and got in trouble with their parents.

first interview

participants were verbally presented with one true event (confirmed by the caregiver to have occurred) and one false event. they were asked to explain what happened during each event. all participants at first had trouble recalling the false event but were deceived by the researchers into believing the study was an examination of memory retrieval models. participants were told to practice visualization of the event every night at home and to use guided imagery to remember the event.

second and third interviews

participants were asked to provide as many details as possible for both the false and true events. the interviewer probed them throughout the interview by asking about their perspective, their emotions throughout the event etc... at the conclusion of the third interview participants were informed that their second memory was false. before a complete debriefing, participants were asked how surprised they were to hear their memory was false, how often they had visualized the event at home, and if they believed the event had actually occurred.

overall results

participants were classified to have built a false memory using guidelines from prior literature. only participants who provided less than 10 details in their descriptions of the event and claimed to have believed it occurred were analyzed as having a false memory, as participants with more than 10 details most probably had just been accepting that the false memory occurred and speculating about it. (44/60 believed the false memory had occurred)

non criminal results

76 % were classified as having false memories

criminal results

70% were classified as having false memories

further implications of the study

indicates that people can come to visualize and recall detailed false memories of engaging in criminal behavior, and that misinformation provided by interviewers can lead to major distortions in memory.

year of research + names of researchers

shaw + porter (2015)