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The more interested you are in a topic , such as politics or sports , the more likely you may be to mold " false memories " about events related to that topic , according to a new study .
In the subject area , people were asked whether they call back certain events , including some that really happened and some that did n’t . The research worker found that only 10 percent of people in the study said they recall an issue that did not really find — or in other give-and-take , they had a false memory — in relation to topics that they were not interested in . In contrast , 25 percent of people in the cogitation hadfalse memoriesabout events in coition to theme they were concerned in .
" Most the great unwashed are somewhat confident in their own memory for events , but this research shows that false memory is a lot more frequent than many people realize , " said study co - generator Ciara Greene , a psychologist at the University College Dublin in Ireland . [ 5 Strange fact About Memory ]
" In term of day-to-day life , the take - domicile subject matter here may be to read that someone who recollect an event differently from you is n’t necessarily lying — someone’smemory may be incorrect , and it might be yours , " Greene said .
In the study , the researchers asked 489 citizenry to grade seven topics from the most to the least interesting . Those subject were football , politics , business , engineering , picture show , science andpop euphony , allot to the bailiwick , which the investigator will present on Thursday ( Sept. 1 ) in Barcelona , Spain , at a meeting of the British Psychological Society .
The researchers asked each person to read four news stories about events that were related to the topic they grade as the most interesting , and four story about events related to the topic they rated as the least interesting . In each case , three of these events really did come about , but the fourth one was made up . For lesson , in the " science " category , the fictional story was about recent rediscovery of a purportedly extinct raspberry species in Senegal . However , in the true , the species is very common in that country and is in no peril of extinction .
The research worker then asked the people to bespeak if they remembered each of the four tidings events by choosing one of the follow options : " I remember this , " " I remember this other than " or " I do not think of this . "
It turned out thatpeople tended to rememberthe stories from the issue they say they were more interested in , compared with topics they were not concerned in . However , the participants also tended tostore more false memoriesrelated to the topics they were interested in , compared with topics they were not interested in , the researchers come up .
This determination " is counterintuitive , interesting and emphatically worthy of further scientific examination , " allege Elizabeth F. Loftus , a psychologist and false - memory expert at the University of California , Irvine , who was not need in the bailiwick .
Moreover , the researcher get hold a similar impression if a person knew a stack about a certain issue , rather than just being concerned in it . In that case , he she or was also more likely to form untrue retentivity about the subject , compare with topics that he or she did not know much about . [ Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind ]
It is not unclouded why having a strong interest or rich knowledge of a topic is linked to a greater risk of forming false memories about the field of study . However , the more people be intimate about a topic , the more retentivity related to this subject they have store in their brain , the researcher say . Therefore , when a person encounters newfangled information on this issue , that information may trigger suggestion of similarmemories that are already storedin the wit , Greene said .
" This can lead in a sentience of casualness or recognition of the new material , lead to the conviction that the informationhas been meet beforeand is in fact an existing store , " Greene tell Live Science . In other word , this new textile or information may " sense " conversant and therefore the person may take for granted it must be true , he said .
find out more about how mistaken memories work may help protect against the harmful effects of them , such as wheneyewitness accounts of crimes are faulty , the researchers said .
in the beginning published onLive skill .
