Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

Imperfect Memories255event by eyewitnesses (see Davis & Loftus, 2007). People have recalled stop signsas yield signs, normal headlights as broken, barns along empty country roads, ablue vehicle as being white, and Minnie Mouse when they really saw MickeyMouse! Whether it is in the form of suggestive questions, misinformation, or otherexposure to conflicting details, such postevent experiences can distort eyewitnessmemories.Source ConfusionMisremembering the Source of a MemoryHave you ever confidently remembered hearing something on television only todiscover that it was really a friend who told you the information? Or mistakenlyremembered doing something that you actually only imagined doing? Or confidentlyremembered that an event happened at one time and place only to learn laterthat it really happened at a different time and place?If so, you can blame your faulty memories on a phenomenon called source confusion.Source confusion arises when the true source of the memory is forgottenor when a memory is attributed to the wrong source (Johnson & others, 1993;Leichtman & Ceci, 1995). The notion of source confusion can help explain the misinformationeffect: False details provided after the event become confused with thedetails of the original memory. For example, in one classic study, participants viewedimages showing the use of a screwdriver in a burglary (Loftus & others, 1989).Later, they read a written account of the break-in, but this account featured ahammer instead of a screwdriver. When tested for their memory of the images,60 percent said that a hammer (the postevent information), rather than a screwdriver(the original information), had been used in the burglary. And they were justas confident of their false memories as they were when recalling their accurate memoriesof other details of the original event.More recently, photographs have been used to demonstrate how false details presentedafter an original event can become confused with the authentic details of theoriginal memory (Garry & Gerrie, 2005; Garry & others, 2007). For example,shown digitally doctored photos of famous news events, such as the violent 1989Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, China, details from the fake photos wereincorporated into participants’ memories of the actual news event (Sacchi & others,2007).Elizabeth’s story in the Prologue also demonstrated how confusion about thesource of a memory can give rise to an extremely vivid, but inaccurate, recollection.Vivid and accurate memories of her uncle’s home, such as the smell of the pine treesand the feel of the lake water, became blended with Elizabeth’s fantasy of findingPsychological studies have shown thatit is virtually impossible to tell the dif -ference between a real memory andone that is a product of imaginationor some other process. Our job asresearchers in this area is to under -stand how it is that pieces of experi -ence are combined to produce whatwe experience as “memory.”ELIZABETH LOFTUS (2002)Which is the Real Photo? The photographof an unknown young man bravely defyingoncoming tanks in an antigovernmentprotest in China’s Tiananmen Square hasbecome an iconic image of individualcourage and the global struggle for humanrights. But after people who rememberedthe original image correctly were shownthe doctored image on the right, theirmemories changed to incorporate thecrowds of onlookers in the fake photo(Sacchi & others, 2007).