Research
The study that has contributed the most to the False Memory Syndrome Foundation is Elizabeth Loftus’ “lost in the mall” technique, where she interviewed people and asked them about a specific memory that had never occurred in a way that was meant to mimic the techniques used for repressed memories in therapy. By asking people about a time they were lost and alone at a shopping mall as a child, she also received other parts of the “memory,” including other events and people that never existed. The false memory research group “argues that decades of research has demonstrated that human memory can be extremely malleable...and that there is a very real risk that the techniques practitioners use to uncover supposedly repressed memories of trauma could actually be creating false memories in patients’ minds” (Laney & Loftus, 2005).
Another one of Loftus’ studies involved the impossibility meeting Bugs Bunny (a Warner Brothers character) at Disneyland. Loftus argued after this study that about one third of people would be susceptible to forming that sort of false memory (Waterhouse 2013). The leap from a memory of a character at a theme park to years of traumatic childhood sexual abuse, however, is a large one.
In contrast to the research that said that exposing people to events that didn’t actually occur in their childhoods made them believe that the events were real, a 2012 study ended up drawing the opposite conclusion. "To examine whether exposing people to false events using instructions taken from the cognitive interview creates false beliefs and false memories, we conducted an experiment where participants took part in two sessions. First, they rated how confident they were that they had experienced certain childhood events and their memories of those events; they also rated how plausible they thought the events were. Second, 2 weeks later, participants were exposed to two of three false target events: one high, one moderate, and one low plausibility. For the first event, participants were instructed to either report everything or mentally reinstate the event context. For the second event, participants received both instructions. The third event was the control event about which participants received no instructions. Finally, participants rated their confidence and memories the second time. The results showed that the cognitive interview instructions had little to no effect on the development of false beliefs and false memories." (Sharman et. al.)
Another one of Loftus’ studies involved the impossibility meeting Bugs Bunny (a Warner Brothers character) at Disneyland. Loftus argued after this study that about one third of people would be susceptible to forming that sort of false memory (Waterhouse 2013). The leap from a memory of a character at a theme park to years of traumatic childhood sexual abuse, however, is a large one.
In contrast to the research that said that exposing people to events that didn’t actually occur in their childhoods made them believe that the events were real, a 2012 study ended up drawing the opposite conclusion. "To examine whether exposing people to false events using instructions taken from the cognitive interview creates false beliefs and false memories, we conducted an experiment where participants took part in two sessions. First, they rated how confident they were that they had experienced certain childhood events and their memories of those events; they also rated how plausible they thought the events were. Second, 2 weeks later, participants were exposed to two of three false target events: one high, one moderate, and one low plausibility. For the first event, participants were instructed to either report everything or mentally reinstate the event context. For the second event, participants received both instructions. The third event was the control event about which participants received no instructions. Finally, participants rated their confidence and memories the second time. The results showed that the cognitive interview instructions had little to no effect on the development of false beliefs and false memories." (Sharman et. al.)