Emotional Content of True and False Memories, Reaction Paper Example

As the title suggests, the authors of this study have tried to make inroads into the human psyche by exploring methodically the extent of impact, genuine or false memories have on the overall emotional state of an individual and whether emotional content could be taken as a reliable indicator of memory accuracy (Laney & Loftus, 2008). They have tried to establish a distinction between the two, by conducting a cleverly designed experiment in which the participants were initially not aware of the actual motive of the experiment, which was done deliberately but without compromising on ethics, as it was necessary to serve the purpose of the study. The authors achieved their purpose by thoroughly searching for events which evoked a definite emotional response in majority of the participants and then by subjecting them to evaluative procedures to assess the emotional content based on actual and manipulated memories. Though true memories did have a higher emotional impact, the authors were not able to provide evidence for any discernible factors which could indicate that there was a difference between true and false memories contributing to overall emotionality which therefore could not be accepted as a criterion to indicate memory accuracy.

The authors have built up the basis for their study due to the consistent observations recorded in previous studies that emotional events in life influenced personal memories leading to the overall self awareness perception in an individual. The authors believe that the relationship between emotional experiences and memories is highly intricate and false memories which might result due to manipulation of post event inputs involving events which had a high impact on the human psyche such as murder or rape could lead to emotional states which may not be associated with true experience. The authors have conducted an extensive literature review on emotional false memories and the role they play in therapeutic endeavors to implant such memories into individuals as reconstructive procedures. They have highlighted the important findings of previous experimentation in evaluation of the impact of false and true memories on the emotional state and the modes employed to detect any distinguishing features.

The authors carried out extensive preliminary studies to identify the emotional events which could be used as critical items in the actual experiment and after short listing 73 such items, finally zeroed down to three events which included ‘overnight hospitalization’ due to reasons other than own birth, witnessing ‘a physically violent encounter between parents’ and ‘catching the parents indulging in sexual intercourse’. These three events received a high score on the emotional scale and were finalized for the main study. 301 undergraduate students, primarily female were enrolled in this study and they represented various ethnic backgrounds. After random assignment of the participants to one each of the identified emotional events criteria, they underwent further evaluations to split them into ‘true memories’ and ‘false memories’ groups for the specified event by using appropriate statistical tools. Those without true memories were further subjected to ‘manipulation’ (75%) and ‘control’ (25%) conditions. Extensive emotional evaluations using recommended scales were carried out on all participants in two sessions each for the control as well as the experimental group.

The authors have conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the finer nuances and the implications of implanting false memories in each of the identified criteria using reliable and proven tools for evaluating emotional responses through the use of questionnaires and appropriate statistical tools. Their results suggest that implantation of false memories associated with emotional events possessing intensity of high degree was possible as suggested by their success rate of 23.6% (Laney & Loftus, 2008). In addition to substantiating the fact of success of experimental implantation of false memories in subjects in past studies, the authors were able to demonstrate that emotionality of true and false memories for the same emotional events could be compared. The authors have highlighted the significance of their achievement based on the fact that they were able to demonstrate the inculcation of emotionality for thoroughly identified and definite events which they had short listed after careful selection. They believe that this was a significant development as past studies of this nature used abstract and imaginary events. This, the authors believe has implications for jurors who should not believe emotionally expressed facts as always to be true as they could inherently contain false memories.

The authors study is comprehensive in structure as well as design and has opened up vistas for further research into the issue. Substantiation of the fact that false memories could influence the emotional state of an individual can assist in making better interpretation and evaluation of a person’s true past by concerned academicians, psychologists or administrative authorities.

References

Laney, C & Loftus, E F, 2008. Emotional content of true and false memories, Memory, Vol. 16, No. 5, Pgs. 500 – 516