MADE IN MEMORY - DISTORTIONS IN RECOLLECTION AFTER MISLEADING INFORMATION

This chapter reviews that the recollection of people who have initially seen an important event such as an accident or crime can be altered by the introduction of new information that occurs after the important event. When the new information is misleading it produces errors in what a person reports. A large degree of distorted reporting has been found in scores of studies involving a wide variety of materials. People have recalled nonexistent broken glass and tape recorders, a clean-shaven man as having a moustache, straight hair as curly, stop signs as yield signs, hammers as screwdrivers, and even something as large and conspicuous as a barn in a bucolic scene that contained no buildings at all. In numerous laboratories, the misinformation effect has been obtained, and there seems to be little doubt that erroneous reporting is easy to induce. The chapter discusses that research on the misinformation effect typically involves a three-stage procedure in which subjects first experience an event, then receive new information about the event, and finally take a test of memory for the event. In misinformation studies, people report that they have seen objects as part of an event when in fact those objects came from other sources. The findings support the notion that the process of remembering involves a highly constructive activity that gathers bits and pieces from different sources and constructs a memory. © 1991 Academic Press Inc.