Picture the Monopoly Man. Is he wearing a top hat? How about a monocle? The first is true, but if you imagined the board game mascot with fancy eyewear, you have experienced a false memory.
False memories are recollections of events that never actually happened or facts that aren’t true. Like computers, our minds are capable of storing and processing massive amounts of information. But they aren’t perfect. Memories can be altered through suggestion and misinformation or become distorted over time.
Scientists from the University of Chicago’s department of psychology, including Prof. David Gallo and Assoc. Prof. Wilma Bainbridge, study what happens to our brains when false memories form and why we sometimes share false memories—a phenomenon called the Mandela effect.
Understanding the limits of human memory can inform the way we participate in politics, engage with media, try legal cases, and even think about our own lives.
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What is a false memory?
A false memory is a recollection of something that didn’t happen or isn’t true. They can be distorted versions of “true” memories or entirely false. Importantly, false memories aren’t the same as forgetting or lying.
False memories can rewrite facts or general knowledge, known as semantic memory. False memories can also alter our memories of past events, also known as episodic memory. Perhaps you’re certain you had spaghetti Bolognese for dinner last week, when in fact you had sushi.
According to UChicago’s Prof. Gallo, who studies episodic memory, there is evidence that these types of memory represent two different systems in the brain, which often interact with each other.
False memories can be a collective experience—often referred to as the Mandela effect. This happens when many people, sometimes around the world, have the same false memory. The term comes from a phenomenon where many people reported remembering that South African President Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980s (Mandela died a free man in 2013 at the age of 95).
Though scholars have pondered the nature of memory since the times of Plato and Aristotle, the experimental study of false memories—especially how they affect the brain—began in the 1970s.
What causes false memories?
Scientists aren’t certain what causes false memories, but factors like time, suggestion, misinformation and closely associated images or words can contribute to forming false memories. Here are a few theories:
- Your brain fills in the blanks
False memories sometimes happen because, like a zip drive, your brain tries to save space and energy. “We don't save everything we see in memory,” said UChicago’s Assoc. Prof. Wilma Bainbridge. “We have to do some time-saving, efficient tricks.”
Instead of mentally recording every item in a living room, for instance, your memory might fill in a coffee table or lamp because those items make sense for how your brain conceives of a living room.
Since the 1970s, psychologists have investigated how associations and suggestions can implant false memories.
For example, to study false memories psychologists will often use a type of experiment called the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. To “lure” participants into a false memory, researchers will create a list of closely associated words: dream, bed, awake, rest. When researchers ask people to recall the list, they often add “sleep,” though the word was never on the original list.
“Everybody makes that association because you basically inferred it,” said Gallo. “It's another way where your own mind mentally activates its own misinformation.” - Familiarity or repetition
Frequent repetition can influence how much you like something—a phenomenon called the mere exposure effect. That’s one reason why you might end up loving a pop song after you’ve heard it a million times.
Scientists also think repetition may influence whether you believe something is true or not. Politicians and advertisers often take advantage of this phenomenon, called the illusory truth effect. After a while, a statement that’s repeated over and over can start to “feel” true, even if it isn’t. - Age, stress, lack of sleep, or impairment
Research has shown that certain factors such as age, stress, lack of sleep, and drug and alcohol use can increase the likelihood of having false memories.
However, there are important exceptions. For example, there’s evidence that having more false memories as you get older is not inevitable and taking THC (the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis) can actually reduce false memories by making it harder for your brain to form close associations. - Some objects or faces are more memorable
At UChicago’s Brain Bridge Lab, Bainbridge studies memorability, or how easy it is to remember images, objects and faces.
For example, in a study conducted at the Art Institute of Chicago, researchers found that some artworks are consistently more memorable (and forgettable) than others—a finding duplicated by their machine learning model, ResMem, designed to predict the memorability of images.
Bainbridge has also found a connection between how memorable something or someone is and false memory.
“What we have found is that there are some images or faces that just cause a lot of false memories,” Bainbridge said. (If people frequently tell you that you look familiar, you may have a Mandela effect face.)
Though scientists don’t know the cause, they have found that friendlier, more attractive faces tend to cause more false memories. Fear not, false memory-inducing face havers!