SECRETS OF MEMORY Part V Implanted false memories and narcoanalysis

Memory implantation refers to an individual creating a false memory in the mind of another person by means of suggestions or questions containing suggestions about the imagined event.  Repeated suggestions make the individual believe that what is suggested is true.

Suggestion and hypnosis

Suggestion is the psychological process by which one person guides the thoughts, feelings, or behaviour of another. Nineteenth century psychologists such as William James used the words "suggest" and "suggestion" in senses close to those they have in common speech. Early scientific studies of hypnosis by Clark Leonard Hull and others extended the meaning of these words in a special and technical sense.

Modern scientific study of hypnosis separates two essential factors: trance and suggestion. The state of mind induced by the process of hypnotic induction—essentially instructing and suggesting to the subject that they will enter a state of sleep—is called hypnosis. Once a subject enters hypnosis, the hypnotist gives suggestions that can produce the effects sought for.  

Waking suggestion

Suggestions, however, can also have an effect in the absence of hypnosis. These so-called "waking suggestions" are given in precisely the same way as suggestions given within hypnosis and can produce strong changes in perceptual experience. Experiments on suggestion, in the absence of hypnosis, were conducted by researchers such as Nicholas Spanos and Irving Kirsch. They found that waking suggestions are as effective as hypnotic suggestion in some individuals. Without knowing the psychological basis of the effect of suggestion Adolf Hitler's Propaganda Minister in Nazi Germany Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels used the technique of “waking suggestion”. The infamous words “if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth” is attributed to him.

Memory implantation in criminal investigation

Memory implantations in eyewitnesses to a crime are a possibility, particularly for young eyewitnesses. Because of their suggestibility, children are the most vulnerable to memory implantation when they are eyewitnesses to a crime. Laboratory researches have established that pre-school aged  children are more vulnerable to suggestion as compared with older children.

Is it also possible to implant false memories in the mind of a suspect in a crime? If suspect is confused, tired, and fearful he/she is vulnerable for implantation of false memories. Once the person is identified as a suspect, the next step of interrogation is undertaken with the purpose of obtaining a confession. The methods used can be highly confrontational and accusatory. Repeated suggestions that the suspect committed the crime are a routine part of the interrogation procedure. It is not uncommon for the interrogator to claim he or she has evidence of the suspect’s involvement in the crirme and knowledge of the suspect’s past. It is theoretically possible that an innocent suspect may not only make a false confession, but also come to believe or internalize his or her guilt in committing the crime. Psychologists Saul M. Kassin and Gisli H. Gudjonsson have brought out examples of such internalized false confessions. http://web.williams.edu/Psychology/Faculty/Kassin/files/Kassin_Gudjonsson_PSPI_05.pdf 

Memory implantation before narcoanalysis test

Narcoanalysis Test refers to the practice of administering barbiturates or certain other chemical substances, most often Pentothal Sodium, to lower a subject's inhibitions, in the hope that the subject will more freely share information and feelings. A person is able to lie by using his imagination. In the narcoanalysis test, the subject's inhibitions are lowered by interfering with his nervous system at the molecular level. In this state, it becomes difficult though not impossible for him to tell lies. In such sleep-like state efforts are made to obtain "probative truth" about the crime. Experts inject a subject with hypnotics like Sodium Pentothal or Sodium Amytal under the controlled circumstances of the laboratory. The dose is dependent on the person's sex, age, health and physical condition. The subject who is put in a state of Hypnotism is not in a position to speak up on his own but can answer specific but simple questions after giving some suggestions. The subject is not in a position to speak up on his own but can answer specific but simple questions. The answers are believed to be spontaneous as a semi-conscious person is unable to manipulate the answers. The implantation of false memory actually occurs during the interrogation before the actual procedure of the narcoanalysis test.

No narcoanalysis without consent

The Supreme Court of India in May 2010 declared the use of narcoanalysis test without the consent of the individual illegal. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-05-05/india/28319716_1_arushi-murder-case-nithari-killings-apex-court

More Baloney about Implanting False Memories

TV show available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/memory-hackers.html

In an otherwise excellent episode of Novaon PBS about recent research into memory - available for viewing in its entirety at the website above - the show takes what is for me a disturbing turn around the 38 minute mark. It starts to discuss the issue of whether false memories can be implanted in people. An academic psychologist named Julia Shaw discussed her experiments which she believes "proved" that you can induce in someone a memory of a crime in the distant past that they did not actually commit.

Dr. Julia Shaw

According to an articlein the New Yorker, Shaw modeled her work after that of child abuse apologist and memory pseudo-expert Elizabeth Lofton. Shaw claimed that she was able to induce this kind of false memory in 70% of her subjects. Of course, even if this were true, it means that she was unable to supposedly accomplish this feat in almost one third of her subjects, which leaves us with the question of what distinguishes that portion of the sample from the others.

But leaving that aside, let's look at the experiment she did, as shown with a film of one probably illustrative subject during the experiment. The experimenter brought up a supposed incident that occurred when the subject was 12 years old. Dr. Shaw told the subject that the subject's parents had told her about the false incident. She said, "What happened was you initiated a fight that was so severe that the police called your parents. They said it happened in the fall when you were with Ryan when it happened." She mentioned two facts that were in fact true - a move the family had made around that time, and the name of someone she knew.

The subject's first response was not surprising, and it was quite definitive - if not emphatic. As I relate the dialog in the experiment, I want readers to notice that the subject moves from a quick and clear-cut response at first, denying this happened, to later describing an event that she starts to think may possibly have happened. In the later interview, not only is her language tentative, but she looks puzzled and is intermittently shaking her head no! If you don't believe me, watch the show segment for yourself by clicking on the link under the picture at the top of the post.

The key point the reader should also consider is that the experimenter has now put the subject in the position of calling her parents liars! If they are generally truthful, hearing that they reported something that seems completely alien to her whole personality will at the very least introduce cognitive dissonance and self doubt. I mean, why would her parents make up something like that? This self doubt is clearly manifested in the patient's facial expressions and tone of voice as she says the things she says in the film. 

However, even if the parents were notorious for being fast and loose with the truth or made a habit of blaming the subject for things that were not her fault (a not uncommon feature in dysfunctional families), due to family loyalty the patient might still become motivated to protect her parents' reputation to the experimenter and perhaps also to save herself from an argument with the parents later on. Family loyalty is something Dr. Shaw apparently either knows nothing about and/or has never even considered.

The subject's initial response to the experimenter relating to her what her parents allegedly said had "happened" was this:  "Honestly, I don't remember. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't think I've ever been in a fight." (She laughs). I'm so confused!" While she said this, I observed not the least bit of hesitation.

Dr. Shaw admits during the program that she uses techniques meant to create social pressure to get the subject to come up with the false "memory." Experiments in social psychology have shown that the pressure to conform to a group can cause people to say things that they actually know are not true. In other words, they blatantly lie in order to fit in. The most famous of these experiments were done by Soloman Asch, as described here.

Shaw tells the subject, "Relax, close your eyes, and focus on trying to retrieve this." This instruction implicitly assumes that the event the experimenter concocted actually took place. Then comes a little extra social pressure: "It seems strange, but it does work for most people." She then has the patient picture herself at the time and place under discussion. "Picture yourself at the age of 14 and it's Fall and you were with Ryan when it happened."

A week later, the subject starts talking tentatively, "I remember like a verbal fight." She has an unmistakable puzzled look on her face. "It seems so unlikely." Clearly, she is not really recalling any specific event, but trying to put together bits and pieces in her memory from other things that might have happened to her - again, I strongly suspect, to avoid either saying or believing that her parents have lied about her. 

She continues, "Maybe I pushed or something."

Shaw encourages her to continue. "Good! Ok!"

Subject: "I feel like she pushed [significant pause] me first. 

Feeling like something might be true is hardly the same as actually remembering it.

A week later, the subject embellishes the non-story: "I think the cops showed up." (Translation: I'm not really sure about this). "We were kind of having maybe like a verbal kind of fight and it got into a push." Maybe? Again, does not sound like a specific memory at all. And the coup-de-grace: After saying this, she again shakes her head no.

Dr. Shaw confidently asserts that she has now proven that you can induce false memories in people, when what she actually proved was that under conditions of social pressure, cognitive dissonance, and/or family loyalty issues (and probably in several other contexts), you can induce people to make stuff up. And sometimes even lie to themselves about it.

Facebook Depression Major Threat to Teens or False Alarm

A few weeks ago, a sometimes-visitor to this blog, Cara,  emailed me a link to a news article about this report from the American Academy of Pediatrics on teens and social media. Although it's actually a pretty balanced report, it does include one paragraph on what it calls "Facebook Depression". You can find that report here, but the paragraph in question is below:

Researchers have proposed a new phenomenon called “Facebook depression,” defined as depression that develops when preteens and teens spend a great deal of time on social media sites, such as Facebook, and then begin to exhibit classic symptoms of depression. Acceptance by and contact with peers is an important element of adolescent life. The intensity of the online world is thought to be a factor that may trigger depression in some adolescents. As with offline depression, preadolescents and adolescents who suffer from Facebook depression are at risk for social isolation and sometimes turn to risky Internet sites and blogs for “help” that may promote substance abuse, unsafe sexual practices, or aggressive or self-destructive behaviors.

If you read this paragraph carefully, it clearly implies that spending "a great deal of time" using social media causes depression in some teens. Specifically, the "intensity of the online world" may "trigger" the problem.




Whoa. That's serious. I mean, at least three-quarters of teens use some type of social media. And we know that depression is a serious problem (I've blogged about it here and here).  So to say that use of social media can cause depression? Yipes! And remember, the people making this claim are not from Joe Blow's Emporium of Discount Docs, they are the AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS. Double yipes!

But then some folks took a closer look at the articles cited in that report that supposedly supported this conclusion. Turns out four of the six of them were third party news reports, not original research studies. And neither of the two actual peer-reviewed studies they cited used the term "Facebook depression" or established that use of social media can cause depression. Actually, the studies they cite show it's a lot more complicated than that--for example, only teens with "low quality friendships" show this tendency toward depression with increased social media use. Teens with solid, high quality friendships aren't affected.

You can read an in-depth critique of the "Facebook depression" part of that AAP report at PsychCentral. One of the major criticisms is the basic confusion between correlation and causation. Two things can be related, but that doesn't mean one causes the other. Because of the prevalence of depression in teens, it's likely that many depressed teens use social media. But isn't it possible that depressed teens intensify their use of some social media as escape from the in-person world? Or to cope with the fact that they don't have great offline friendships? In those cases, depression or a predisposition to it would actually be causing increased use of social media in some kids, not the other way around.

The other major criticism was that this report didn't bother to cite conflicting evidence. It reads like ALL researchers have come to this conclusion. But there are several studies that show that use of social media actually has some positive outcomes for teens, including increased access to social support.

Now--if you're interested in this, I do suggest you read the entire report. In my opinion, most of it is pretty well-balanced and raises some pretty good points about teens and social media.

But the take-away message here: be careful, folks. When you see a report like this blared throughout the media, don't take it at face value. If it impacts you, do a little digging. You may be surprised to find there's no scientific consensus, or someone is grossly oversimplifying a nuanced issue, or perhaps the media has just latched on to something sexy and is making more of it than is warranted. All of those seem to be in play here.

Did you hear about this "new condition"? If so, what did you make of it? Is it believable that use of social media could trigger depression in a teenager (apart from cyberbullying, that is)? How about the other way around? Could it help an isolated teen reach out?

And if any of you ever have questions regarding the interpretation of psychological reports in the media or from one of those major professional groups (especially if it relates to children or adolescents), you can always do what Cara did and shoot it my way! I'd be happy to take a look.

This week, for the Sisterhood of the Traveling Blog, Lydia answers the question, "Does each story you write have an overarching theme, and if so, do you think of it ahead of time or discover it after?" And just in case you missed it, here's Laura's post from last week.