Memory Impairment Theory
ABSTRACT
Misleading information presented after an event can lead people to erroneous reports of that misinformation. Different process histories can be responsible for the same erroneous report in different people. We argue that the relative proportion of times that the different process histories are responsible for erroneous reporting will depend on the conditions of acquisition, retention, and retrieval of information. Given the conditions typical of most misinformation experiments, it appears that misinformation acceptance plays a major role, memory impairment plays some role, and pure guessing plays little or no role. Moreover, we argue that misinformation acceptance has not received the appreciation that it deserves as a phenomenon worthy …show more content…
It occurs when a person’s recall of episodic memories becomes less accurate because of post-event information. Research in this area began by Elizabeth Loftus in 1974. It was about the “ False Memories”. When the first collection of misinformation experiments appeared in the mid-1970s, the lesson that was being learned from these experiments was that misleading postevent information can impair memory of an original event ( Loftus, 1975 , 1977 , 1979 ). Memory Impairment Hypothesis- a genuine change or alteration in memory of an experienced event as a function of some later event. McClosky and Zaragoza ( 1985 a, 1985 b) disputed the memory impairment hypothesis. McCloskey and Zaragoza (1985), claimed that memory for an original event is not impaired by misleading postevent information. McCloskey and Zaragoza devised a test that excluded the misinformation as a possible response alternative, and they found no misinformation effect. McCloskey and Zaragoza argued that it was not necessary to assume any memory impairment at all–neither impairment of traces nor impairment of access. According to Johnson and Lindsay (1986) Source Misattribution Hypothesis i.e., source misattribution theory states that an inability to distinguish whether the original event or some later event was the true source of the
Misleading information presented after an event can lead people to erroneous reports of that misinformation. Different process histories can be responsible for the same erroneous report in different people. We argue that the relative proportion of times that the different process histories are responsible for erroneous reporting will depend on the conditions of acquisition, retention, and retrieval of information. Given the conditions typical of most misinformation experiments, it appears that misinformation acceptance plays a major role, memory impairment plays some role, and pure guessing plays little or no role. Moreover, we argue that misinformation acceptance has not received the appreciation that it deserves as a phenomenon worthy …show more content…
It occurs when a person’s recall of episodic memories becomes less accurate because of post-event information. Research in this area began by Elizabeth Loftus in 1974. It was about the “ False Memories”. When the first collection of misinformation experiments appeared in the mid-1970s, the lesson that was being learned from these experiments was that misleading postevent information can impair memory of an original event ( Loftus, 1975 , 1977 , 1979 ). Memory Impairment Hypothesis- a genuine change or alteration in memory of an experienced event as a function of some later event. McClosky and Zaragoza ( 1985 a, 1985 b) disputed the memory impairment hypothesis. McCloskey and Zaragoza (1985), claimed that memory for an original event is not impaired by misleading postevent information. McCloskey and Zaragoza devised a test that excluded the misinformation as a possible response alternative, and they found no misinformation effect. McCloskey and Zaragoza argued that it was not necessary to assume any memory impairment at all–neither impairment of traces nor impairment of access. According to Johnson and Lindsay (1986) Source Misattribution Hypothesis i.e., source misattribution theory states that an inability to distinguish whether the original event or some later event was the true source of the