The memory is a very complex phenomenon, that each day we know more. In this blog I have already dedicated a post to studies related to memory, such as, for example, the amnesia of source, or the ease with which our social contacts can lead us in false recollections.
A striking aspect of memory is that we have the capacity to feel that we have memories of situations that, in reality, we know or think we know-that we have never experienced (“non-believed memories”). Although this capacity may be expressed in our day-to-day a more-or-less natural, in the journal Plos One was published last month an article is unsettling: a group of researchers has been able to induce for the first time “non-believed memories” to the subject of laboratory.
The team recruited 20 participants (18 women and two men) with the excuse of carrying out an experiment on mimicry. The participants were asked to that, sitting in front of the experimenter, repeated movements (such as hitting the table, slapping,…). The sessions were recorded, up to a total of 26 shares per participant.
In a second phase, two days later he showed the participants a video of the actions, where they could be seen sitting in front of the experimenter, while he was carrying out an action. The subjects had to say if they remembered and if they believed to have carried out the action. But two of those actions were a video montage, prepared by the researchers: they showed the subject observing an action of the experimenter that in reality had never taken place in their presence (as can be seen in the image that illustrates this post).
Anything less than 68% of the subjects said to have carried out the action that in reality had never witnessed.
The key point of the experiment took place in a third phase, when the cfour hours later communicated to the subject the trap to which they had been exposed. Then, they were asked to give a score to their level of memory for the different actions, and to the degree that they believed to have carried out the actions.
As well: for the 25% of the shares fictícias, participants gave higher ratings to their degree of memory of the action that is to be degree of belief. In this way, expressed recordan an event that did not believe had taken place.
An experiment impressive and a pioneer in its theme, since, as the authors say:
The data provide new evidence—the first experimental evidence—for the proposal that the occurrence of beliefs and memories can be independent.