Misinformation Effect On Human Memory

MISINFORMATION EFFECT

ABSTRACT

The present experiment was conducted to study the effect of misinformation on human memory. It was conducted to see whether a misled narrative would lead to participants’ reduced accuracy in responses. To study the misinformation effect, the experiment was conducted on 164 participants. Half of the participants were exposed to the controlled condition where they were shown a neutral video and then given a neutral narrative to read and were questioned based on that video. Whereas the other half of the participants were exposed to the experimental condition where they were shown the same neutral video but given a mislead narrative to read and were asked the same questions as asked to the participants in the controlled

According to the misinformation effect, when we witness an event and then get some incorrect information about that event, we incorporate that incorrect information (misinformation) into our memory of the event. It results in the altered memory of the event. Researchers have found out that long term memory is very prone to errors and can easily be altered and molded. And this inaccuracy of long term memory is enhanced by the misinformation effect. For example, if the lecturer tells the student that the lecture is at 10 am, and someone else tells the student that the lecture is 9, then we might perceive that information to be true and believe that the lecture is at 9 only. This is where the misinformation effect

McClosky and Zaragoza (1985a, 1985b) disputed the memory impairment hypothesis.

Johnson and Lindsay in 1986 gave the source misattribution hypothesis. The hypothesis states that, the inability to distinguish whether the original event or some later event was the true source of the information. Belli (1989) gave the concept of misinformation acceptance i.e., accepting additional information as having been part of an earlier experience without actually remembering that information. Belli pointed out that misleading information may bias the responses unrelated to the presentation of misinformation, fail to remember the event item. Belli uses the term memory interference to refer jointly to memory impairment and source misattribution. He argues that the finding of poorer misled than control performance provides evidence of memory interference. In other words, he argues that the result reflects memory impairment, or source misattribution, or