True Photographs and False Memories Essay

True photographs and false memories is a research article aimed at determining the rate of false memory among 45 undergraduates asked to remember three childhood events from group photos. The primary question in the article is, does the rate of false memory in clients increase if suggestive influences are introduced to the client? The 36 women and nine men were offered an introductory course in psychology (Lindsay et al. 2004). Their parents provided both the stories and child class photo in addition to related events that the subjects had difficulty remembering. The research aimed at giving the participants cues on suspected repressed memories especially of childhood sexual abuse (Lindsay et al. 2004). According to psychologists, distortions in addition to memory illusions play a critical role in memory errors and form a firm basis of memory theories. The notion formed the basis of researching on trauma memory oriented psychotherapies in which cognitive psychologists aimed at helping the participants "remember" pseudo-events from their childhood.

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In the experiment/research, the subjects were given descriptions that hinted at their childhood, and they were expected to remember those very events. To convince the subjects on the legitimacy of the stories, they were informed that the stories originated from their family members. According to the findings, of the 374 subjects, 116 scored false memories with high rates of between 0% to 56% (Lindsay et al. 2004). Other researchers revealed partial to complete false memories. However, the majority of the subjects gave concrete evidence of complete false memories with a strong belief that they offered the exact pseudo-event instead of merely accepting that the event took place. According to the article, some of the photos were changed to give a different illusion. Changing the photos aimed at distorting the minds of the participants to check on the nature of the distortion created among them. The doctored images played an influential role in the subjects with the majority reporting false memories. With the strong belief that photos provide compelling evidence, the majority (at 50%) said that the events took place (Lindsay et al. 2004).

However, in spite of the strengths of the false photo experiments, the entire setup and analysis suffered various limitations on generalizability and ecological validity. Firstly, the majority of people rarely encounter doctored photos, for example, adults with historical abuse with little memory often trigger traumatic memories. If one is not informed that the photos were doctored, it is easy for the participant to accept the fact that they are the true and real pictures previously known and held in memory. At the same time, exposure to childhood photos may quickly lead one to the development of false memories. In several ways, a quick look at the photo may make the subject remember painful memories and deny him/her the opportunity to review the photo critically. The hypothesis is based on the fact that vivid perpetual photos of childhood memories have the high chance of compelling one to gripping pseudo-memories. Forty-five percent of the subjects developed "false memories" with 22% showing memories of the event and a 22% showing a high rate of having images but no memories of the event (Lindsay et al. 2004). From the results, it is evident to conclude that the rate of false memories is often higher among clients exposed to photo condition photos who believed that they could remember the pseudo-event in question. It thus leads to the broader implications that individual memories are easily distorted if and when exposed to similar stimuli previously held in memory (Lindsay et al. 2004). At the same time, it means that memory retention is highly dependent on current exposure in addition to environmental influences such as similar conditions.

In more than one way, the design of the experimental is very significant in understanding individual memory and in coming to terms with the vital role that various conditions can play in memory retention. Additional experiments should also focus on the effect of memory lapse on clients exposed to childhood photos with the aim of determining the clarity of event recollection in one's life. Such an experiment would give insight into different aspects of memory retention and the ability of remembrance as one advance in age (Gallo 2013). At the same time, the focus needs to be made on the effect of age on memory if and when a subject is exposed to a given picture later in life. Is it possible to have a clue to a previous event in one's life related to the given picture of current event one is exposed to in everyday life? Such an experiment would help determine the effect of similar pictures on memory recollection especially on old age clients who may have lost touch with previous pseudo-events. Despite the fact that old age comes with memory lapse, such an experiment may offer psychologists the opportunity to determine the effect of pictures on the memory of the old, especially about pseudo-events.

An article published in the APA PsycNet, a journal of experimental psychology, on picture memory experiments by Dallet, Wilcox, and D'Andrea, clients were shown a set of pictures. The experiment aimed at determining the effect of picture distortion on memory. In the experiment, 75 clients were shown several pictures, and a test was carried out in which half of the pictures were original, the other half were changed and placed with pictures of similar outlook (Dallett et al. 1968). In the first and second experiment, the picture and titles and requested just before the recognition recalls made little difference in the accuracy. In subsequent experiments namely experiment iii, iv, and v, the pictures were blurred and degraded (Dallett et al. 1968). The conditions of the pictures were tested and the clients given the opportunity to observe them. The results revealed that degradation and blurring of the pictures the clients could not remember the degraded information's in the picture. Although the clients had little memory of the changes introduced in the pictures in experiments ii and iii. It is only in experiments iv and v that they could not recall anything from the previous pictures they were exposed to in the experimentation (Dallett et al. 1968). From the results, it is possible to deduce that memory is distorted whenever a stimulus is introduced in an original picture shown to a client. While the clients had no problem in recalling and retaining information in the first picture, they had a challenge in recollecting information in the blurred and distorted pictures later in the experiment. It thus suggests that memory lapse and the ability for recognition is profoundly influenced by any form of distortion to an object or pseudo-event.

References

Dallett, K., Wilcox, S. G., & D'andrea, L. (1968). Picture memory experiments. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 76(2p1), 312.

Gallo, D. (2013). Associative illusions of memory: False memory research in DRM and related tasks. Psychology Press.

Lindsay, D. S., Hagen, L., Read, J. D., Wade, K. A., & Garry, M. (2004). True photographs and false memories. Psychological Science, 15(3), 149-154.