Did you witness demonic possession? A response time analysis of the relationship between event plausibility and autobiographical beliefs

Self Cite

Previous studies have shown that many people hold personal memories for events that they no longer believe occurred. This study examines the reasons that people provide for choosing to reduce autobiographical belief in vividly recollected autobiographical memories. A body of non-believed memories provided by 374 individuals was reviewed to develop a qualitatively derived categorisation system. The final scheme consisted of 8 major categories (in descending order of mention): social feedback, event plausibility, alternative attributions, general memory beliefs, internal event features, consistency with external evidence, views of self/others, personal motivation and numerous sub-categories. Independent raters coded the reports and judged the primary reason that each person provided for withdrawing belief. The nature of each category, frequency of category endorsement, category overlap and phenomenological ratings are presented, following which links to related literature and implications are discussed. This study documents that a wide variety of recollective and non-recollective sources of information influence decision-making about the occurrence of autobiographical events.

Section: Objective and Perceived Event Plausibility Play A Central Romentioning

confidence: 97%

Reasons for withdrawing belief in vivid autobiographical memories

Scoboria

Boucher

Mazzoni

2014

Self Cite

“…Hence one goal for research is to identify which components are necessary to produce false memories. For example, the plausibility of suggested events limits the degree to which memories result (Pezdek, Blandon-Gitlin, & Gabbay, 2006;Mazzoni, 2007), unless plausibility increases (Mazzoni, Loftus, & Kirsch, 2001). Script knowledge (i.e., what someone knows about a type of event) shows relatively little influence on memory formation; minimal knowledge appears to be sufficient for false memories to develop (Otgaar, Candel, Scoboria, & Merckelbach, 2010;Scoboria, Mazzoni, Kirsch, & Relyea, 2004).…”

mentioning

confidence: 92%

Credible suggestions affect false autobiographical beliefs

Scoboria

Wysman

Otgaar

2012

False memory implantation studies are characterised by suggestions indicating that specific unremembered events occurred, attributing suggested events to a knowledgeable source (e.g., parents), and including true events that provide evidence that this source was consulted. These characteristics create a particular retrieval context that influences how individuals come to believe that false events occurred. Two studies used a variant of implantation methods to vary the proportion of events attributed to parents and the presence of true events within the suggestion. In Study 1 participants received six false events, and were told that all or some events came from parents. Participants told that all of the events came from parents formed more and stronger false beliefs. In Study 2 participants also received two true events, and a third group was told that half of the events came from their parents. Participants given the specific ratio ("half") endorsed more false beliefs, and beliefs between the other groups no longer differed. Across both studies participants told that some events came from parents reported stronger memory phenomenology. The effect of suggestions on false beliefs in implantation studies depends partly on the credibility of suggestions derived from providing information about the source of suggested events.

“…Moreover, their results suggest that the specific detail altered and the number of memories from which a conjunction event draws from can influence the rates of acceptance of AM conjunction lures. However, the literature on false memories for entirely fabricated events suggests that factors such as plausibility (Mazzoni, Loftus, & Kirsch, 2001; Mazzoni, 2007; Pezdek, Blandon-Gitlin, & Gabbay, 2006; Scoboria, Mazzoni, Kirsch, & Relyea, 2004), imagination (Garry & Polaschek, 2000; Garry & Wade, 2005; Goff & Roediger, 1998; Mazzoni & Memon, 2003; Nash, Wade, & Lindsay, 2009), processing fluency (Garry & Wade, 2005; Sharman, Garry, & Beuke, 2004; Sharman, Manning, & Garry, 2005) and the sensory and emotional detail comprising an event (Heaps & Nash, 2001; Thomas, Bulevich, & Loftus, 2003; von Glahn, Otani, Migita, Langford, & Hillard, 2012) could also have marked effects on the acceptance of AM conjunction errors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors that influence the generation of autobiographical memory conjunction errors

Devitt

Monk-Fromont

Schacter

et al. 2015

The constructive nature of memory is generally adaptive, allowing us to efficiently store, process and learn from life events, and simulate future scenarios to prepare ourselves for what may come. However, the cost of a flexibly constructive memory system is the occasional conjunction error, whereby the components of an event are authentic, but the combination of those components is false. Using a novel recombination paradigm, it was demonstrated that details from one autobiographical memory may be incorrectly incorporated into another, forming autobiographical memory conjunction errors that elude typical reality monitoring checks. The factors that contribute to the creation of these conjunction errors were examined across two experiments. Conjunction errors were more likely to occur when the corresponding details were partially rather than fully recombined, likely due to increased plausibility and ease of simulation of partially recombined scenarios. Brief periods of imagination increased conjunction error rates, in line with the imagination inflation effect. Subjective ratings suggest that this inflation is due to similarity of phenomenological experience between conjunction and authentic memories, consistent with a source monitoring perspective. Moreover, objective scoring of memory content indicates that increased perceptual detail may be particularly important for the formation of autobiographical memory conjunction errors.