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Study: Ads Creating False Memories

SwissSkeptic said:
The conclusion seems to be that the vivid ads implanted the false memory of having tasted the popcorn into the minds of the subjects.
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This conclusion does not appear to be supported. It's well known that false memories can be created, and that people are generally pretty terrible at remembering even recent events. One classic experiment involves a faked murder in a court room, where the audience (whop don't know it's fake) are interviewed almost immediately afterwards, but mostly get the gender, colour, and even number of attackers wrong. Then there are things such as getting a child to describe their meeting with Bugs Bunny at Disneyland, despite it not being a Disney character. In the former, it's simply bad memory. In the latter, it's deliberately creating false memory by suggestion.

The thing is, in the experiment in question, it appears both are possible explanations. Maybe the subjects created a false memory themselves just from being asked the question. Maybe the experimenters asked leading questions (unwittingly or deliberately) to create the false memory themselves. Hell, maybe it was a really good advert and everyone went straight out and had some popcorn, then got that confused with the experiment.

As it is, it seems a classic case of "correlation does not equal causation". Sure, people saw adverts and later had a false memory. But without eliminating all the other various ways a false memory could have been generated, it's not possible to conclude that it must have been the advert that caused it.

Edit:
One week later the subjects of both groups who saw the vivid ads were "just as likely" to report having tasted the popcorn.
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Actually, this sounds particularly suspicious to me. Firstly, assume that all other possibilities had been eliminated and the adverts were the only possible source of false memories. That means that the group who had popcorn should almost all report having had popcorn, while the group who didn't should report having it in an amount that depends on how effective the adverts are. But if both groups are just as likely to report having had popcorn, that means that either the adverts are almost 100% effective at creating false memories, or they actually create false memories that people didn't have popcorn. It seems likely the former would be explicitly stated in reports ("Adverts create false memories in everyone!") rather than just saying "equally likely", and the latter is directly opposed to the actual point being made.

Either way, it doesn't quite seem to add up. If the advert really created the false memory, the group that actually had popcorn should still report having had popcorn significantly more than the group which didn't. Since that's not the case, the conclusion that the false memories were created by the advert just doesn't seem to hold up. It would be very interesting to see the results of asking the same questions of a group that had neither advert or popcorn (or presumably adverts for a different food would be a better placebo group).
 
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Cuddles said:
Either way, it doesn't quite seem to add up. If the advert really created the false memory, the group that actually had popcorn should still report having had popcorn significantly more than the group which didn't. Since that's not the case, the conclusion that the false memories were created by the advert just doesn't seem to hold up. It would be very interesting to see the results of asking the same questions of a group that had neither advert or popcorn (or presumably adverts for a different food would be a better placebo group).
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I haven't read the study in detail, but the comparison group was presumably the ones who saw the 'low vividness' ad, and were much less likely to report tried eaten the popcorn (39.1%) compared to the 'no experience high imagery' condition (76.7%) or the 'experience high imagery condition' (77.8%).
 
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Aepervius said:
I am highly skeptical here...
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To say the least. IMO anyone with a memory that poor or screwed up in general doesn't need ads to have false memories. My memory isn't great, but even I can reliably recall whether or not I ate something when particular attention is being paid to it like this. The only thing this might prove is that there are a lot of people who need to watch a LOT less TV - or is that a kind of water-is-wet statement -
 
Elaedith said:
I assume by short time intervals you meant the time between suggestion and testing the presence of a false memory. The false childhood memory studies used time intervals between suggestion and test varying between 1 day and 1 week, but of course the event falsely remembered is presumed to have taken place a long time ago. I can think of at least two similar now for false memories of events in adulthood (memories for having seen news footage that doesn't exist), but again the imagined event is presumed to have occured some time before.
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That's what I meant, thanks for bearing with me here.

Many of the eyewitness studies involve false memories for events and objects that were never seen (e.g. falsely remembering broken glass in a crash scene) where the witnessed event occurred only a short time ago. I would not class these as simply distortions of witnessed events.
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This distinction isn't clear to me at all. I never thought of the broken glass as a false memory in the same sense as say the false memories of satanic ritual abuse. The broken glass is just an additional element to the memory of an event that actually happened. As opposed to making up the whole event. I don't know if that's the right way to think about it, but surely there must be some distinction between mistaking the details of an event and remembering an event that never happened.

The DRM paradigm can produce false memories for hearing or seeing words within a single session.
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In the DRM paradigm the subjects still hear and see words during the session, they just remember additional ones. In the study this thread is about, the subjects see words and pictures and then remember having eaten something that they didn't. That's somewhat of a leap as far as I can tell.

Imagination inflation studies for actions typically find false memories for having performed actions only 24 hours before, or sometimes less (but not when the test is given immediately after the imagined action). For example,
http://www.personeel.unimaas.nl/tom.smeets/peters et al. 2007jnmd.pdf
http://psych.wustl.edu/memory/Roddy article PDF's/Goff and Roediger 1998.pdf
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Thanks for the links, I'll be looking into these.

I would expect a false memory for a familiar taste to be quite easy to create through imagination inflation. I don't see why it would be harder than a false memory for seeing an object, hearing a word, or performing an action. A false memory for something never tasted would be difficult to create because it would be difficult or impossible to imagine.
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This I completely agree with. I don't think it should be harder to create the false memory of a familiar taste than that of hearing a word. It's just that I wouldn't expect this particular experiment to lead to the creation of such a memory. It's not as if the subjects were given various foods to taste and then misremembered that popcorn was one of them when it wasn't.
 
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Cuddles said:
Maybe the subjects created a false memory themselves just from being asked the question.
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This seems plausible to me and it doesn't support the conclusion that the false memories were created by the ads themselves. I'd be interested to learn how one would control for this factor, it seems like some Schroedinger's cat sort of thing.

Maybe the experimenters asked leading questions (unwittingly or deliberately) to create the false memory themselves.
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The questions weren't leading, but possibly confusing in the context of recognizable brands. However they did account for mistaking the fictional brand for an existing one, so I don't think that's it.

Questions:

-Select all of the products you believe you have tried at least once. (Choose from list of 36 products)
-Select all of the statements that apply to ____ (product).
I have tried this product.
I have purchased this product.
I do not know this product.
-How confident are you in your memory of whether or not you have ever tried ____product? (1 = very confident that I have never tried it, 7 = very confident that I have tried it at least once)
-My memory of trying the product is
Dim-sharp (1–7)
Sketchy-detailed (1–7)
Vague-clear (1–7)
-Do you have any doubts about the accuracy of your memory for trying ____ product?
(1 = a great deal of doubt, 7 = no doubt whatsoever)


ETA:
Darat said:
Certainly those pretty much rely on creating false memories - I've seen people being interviewed minutes after "readings" and have already created false memories of what happened.
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This is a very interesting point, I immediately thought of psychic readings and stage magic after I saw the article. However I was under the impression that those false memories get formed over time while reflecting upon the experience. I don't assume that the test subjects spent a considerable amount of time reflecting upon the popcorn they saw in the ad.

For what it's worth, I concede that I was mistaken in thinking that false memories can't be created within a weeks time. I'm still having trouble to buy the conclusions of the study, though.
 
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bigred said:
To say the least. IMO anyone with a memory that poor or screwed up in general doesn't need ads to have false memories. My memory isn't great, but even I can reliably recall whether or not I ate something when particular attention is being paid to it like this. The only thing this might prove is that there are a lot of people who need to watch a LOT less TV - or is that a kind of water-is-wet statement -
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Saying that the results couldn't possibly apply to you isn't really a solid basis for dismissing scientific research.
 
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Never said it was, but moot point as it doesn't have to be, as the premise is weak. Further, I don't see any "scientific research" - just wired.com's claims of some which we aren't permitted to see, apparently (if I missed how, pls point it out) as the link THEY have brings up precious little data/etc.

If you want to buy into it, have it at.
 
Swiss Skeptic

I assume you mean when does advertising in such a manner become unethical. It doesn't. Even if the findings of the study are correct, there's no reason to believe that false memories can be implanted in unwilling subjects.
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If the study is correct it implies that false memories can be implanted in unwilling subjects; this effectively means that your statement follows this argument

"Even if the findings of the study that false memories can be planted in unwilling subjects, there's no reason to believe that false memories can be implanted in unwilling subjects"
 
SwissSkeptic said:
This seems plausible to me and it doesn't support the conclusion that the false memories were created by the ads themselves. I'd be interested to learn how one would control for this factor, it seems like some Schroedinger's cat sort of thing.



...snip...
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Excellent documentary series on the BBC covered this (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s6b06 unfortunately not available to watch at the moment) and the police were well aware of contaminating the statement given by a witness and have developed techniques to minimise this. It was really interesting to see how fundamentally wrong folks could be in recalling an incident - for example who attacked whom.
 
SwissSkeptic said:
The questions weren't leading, but possibly confusing in the context of recognizable brands. However they did account for mistaking the fictional brand for an existing one, so I don't think that's it.

Questions:

-Select all of the products you believe you have tried at least once. (Choose from list of 36 products)
-Select all of the statements that apply to ____ (product).
I have tried this product.
I have purchased this product.
I do not know this product.
-How confident are you in your memory of whether or not you have ever tried ____product? (1 = very confident that I have never tried it, 7 = very confident that I have tried it at least once)
-My memory of trying the product is
Dim-sharp (1–7)
Sketchy-detailed (1–7)
Vague-clear (1–7)
-Do you have any doubts about the accuracy of your memory for trying ____ product?
(1 = a great deal of doubt, 7 = no doubt whatsoever)
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Interresting, but could it be more a question of confusing the memory recall process by having to recall many different stuff, rather than real implanted false memory ?

In other word if you do not confuse the process with recalling many brand, but pause a single question on the popcorn brand, would the result be dramatically different as the person concetrate themselves on only ther fake popcorn ?
 
bigred said:
Never said it was, but moot point as it doesn't have to be, as the premise is weak. Further, I don't see any "scientific research" - just wired.com's claims of some which we aren't permitted to see, apparently (if I missed how, pls point it out) as the link THEY have brings up precious little data/etc.

If you want to buy into it, have it at.
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The whole study was linked in post #7, you can find it here: http://www.pi.edu.pk/660165.pdf


INRM said:
Swiss Skeptic



If the study is correct it implies that false memories can be implanted in unwilling subjects; this effectively means that your statement follows this argument

"Even if the findings of the study that false memories can be planted in unwilling subjects, there's no reason to believe that false memories can be implanted in unwilling subjects"
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Can you provide a citation or is the highlighted part just baseless assertion? I see absolutely nothing in the study that could leave the impression that something like that would work on unwilling subjects.

How is that even supposed to work, the same way subliminal messages were said to work? Do these ads magically bypass your consciouness and make you crave product X without even knowing that it exists?
 
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SwissSkeptic said:
The whole study was linked in post #7, you can find it here: http://www.pi.edu.pk/660165.pdf




Can you provide a citation or is the highlighted part just baseless assertion? I see absolutely nothing in the study that could leave the impression that something like that would work on unwilling subjects.

How is that even supposed to work, the same way subliminal messages were said to work? Do these ads magically bypass your consciouness and make you crave product X without even knowing that it exists?
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What do you mean by 'unwilling subjects'? I know of no evidence that there is anything people can do to consciously prevent false memories being created (although possibly the chance of it can be reduced). Your claim seems rather odd.
 
Elaedith said:
What do you mean by 'unwilling subjects'? I know of no evidence that there is anything people can do to consciously prevent false memories being created (although possibly the chance of it can be reduced). Your claim seems rather odd.
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Note that my quote was an answer concerning the ethics of advertising in such a manner. My point is rather simple (which doesn't make it right, of course): People can avoid exposure. The subjects had to read the material that was given to them for the experiment to work. It was a conscious action on their behalf without which there would have been no false memories. If somebody feels threatened in their psychological integrity through the existence of such ads, they can simply choose not to read/watch/listen to them.

Thinking about it, my wording was pretty bad. What I meant by it working in "unwilling subjects" would be something akin to the way subliminal messages were said to work. I.e. the people who are influenced by it don't even know they're influenced and thus aren't able to give their consent. I probably should have said "nonconsenting subjects".
 
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SwissSkeptic said:
Note that my quote was an answer concerning the ethics of advertising in such a manner. My point is rather simple (which doesn't make it right, of course): People can avoid exposure. The subjects had to read the material that was given to them for the experiment to work. It was a conscious action on their behalf without which there would have been no false memories. If somebody feels threatened in their psychological integrity through the existence of such ads, they can simply choose not to read/watch/listen to them.

Thinking about it, my wording was pretty bad. What I meant by it working in "unwilling subjects" would be something akin to the way subliminal messages were said to work. I.e. the people who are influenced by it don't even know they're influenced and thus aren't able to give their consent. I probably should have said "nonconsenting subjects".
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Subliminal 'messages' don't work, but information can certainly be processed to some level without conscious awareness, and have various effects on perceived familiarity, affective responses, and even behaviour (as evidenced by subliminal priming studies). There are also recent claims that subliminal priming can influence preference for a consumer product under certain conditions. However, that is controversial and getting off the topic somewhat, since these ads were not subliminal and I don't think there is any evidence subliminal priming effects can last a week.

The study compared low imagery and high imagery ads. Imagery enhances memory. The participants were asked whether they had ever tried the product, not whether they had tried it one week before. If people are judging the likelihood that an event occurred, they tend to base this on perceived plausibility of the incident, which is enhanced by perceived familiarity or availability of instances in memory. If the high imagery ad enhances memory, it would enhance availability, and therefore belief in experience. Once people believe they have had an experience, they will fill in gaps in the same manner as any other false memory. Familiarity also tends to enhance liking. I don't see why is is so surprising that enhancing memory with imagery has the effects reported.

The study is not the best designed, but if you want to argue that this is due to demand you need to explain why participants who saw a high-imagery ad the week before were more prone to demand than participants who saw the low-imagery ad.
 
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