Misinformation effect

Loftus and colleagues conducts early misinformation effect studies in 1974 and 1978. Both studies involved automobile accidents. In the latter study, participants were shown a series of slides, one of which featured a car stopping in front of a stop sign. After viewing the slides, participants read a description of what they saw. Some of the participants were given descriptions that contained misinformation, which stated that the car stopped at a yield sign. Following the slides and the reading of the description, participants were tested on what they saw. The results revealed that participants who were exposed to such misinformation were more likely to report seeing a yield sign than participants who were not misinformed. Similar methods continue to be used in misinformation effect studies. Standard methods involve showing subjects an event, usually in the form of a slideshow or video. The event is followed by a time delay and introduction of post-event information. Finally, participants are retested on their memory of the original event. The original study paved the way for multiple replications of the effect in order to test things such as the specific processes initially causing the effect to occur and how individual differences influence susceptibility to the effect. ==Neurological causes==

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) from 2010 pointed to certain brain areas which were especially active when false memories were retrieved. Participants studied photos during an fMRI. Later, they viewed sentences describing the photographs, some of which contained information conflicting with the photographs. One day later, participants returned for a surprise item memory recognition test on the content of the photographs. Results showed that some participants created false memories, reporting the verbal misinformation conflicting with the photographs. During the original event phase, increased activity in the left fusiform gyrus and the right temporal/occipital cortex was found which may have reflected the attention to visual detail, associated with later accurate memory for the critical item(s) and thus resulted in resistance to the effects of later misinformation. ==Susceptibility==

It is important to note that not everyone is equally susceptible to the misinformation effect. Individual traits and qualities can either increase or decrease one's susceptibility to recalling misinformation. Young children—especially pre-school-aged children—are more susceptible than older children and adults to the misinformation effect. However, children are also more likely to accept misinformation when it is presented in specific questions rather than in open-ended questions. This contrasting perspective holds that the defining factor when it comes to age, at least in adults, depends largely on cognitive capacity, and the cognitive deterioration that commonly accompanies age to be the typical cause of the typically observed decline. Working memory capacity Individuals with greater working memory capacity are better able to establish a more coherent image of an original event. Participants performed a dual task: simultaneously remembering a word list and judging the accuracy of arithmetic statements. Participants who were more accurate on the dual task were less susceptible to the misinformation effect, which allowed them to reject the misinformation. Personality traits The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator is one type of test used to assess participant personalities. Individuals were presented with the same misinformation procedure as that used in the original Loftus et al. study in 1978 (see above). The results were evaluated in regards to their personality type. Introvert-intuitive participants were more likely to accept both accurate and inaccurate post-event information than extrovert-sensate participants. Researchers suggested that this likely occurred because introverts are more likely to have lower confidence in their memory and are more likely to accept misinformation. Individual personality characteristics, including empathy, absorption and self-monitoring, have also been linked to greater susceptibility. Paired participants Some evidence suggests that participants, if paired together for discussion, tend to have a homogenizing effect on the memory of one another. In the laboratory, paired participants that discussed a topic containing misinformation tended to display some degree of memory blend, suggesting that the misinformation had diffused among them. ==Influential factors==

Time Individuals may not be actively rehearsing the details of a given event after encoding, as psychologists have found that the likelihood of incorporating misinformation increases as the delay between the original event and post-event information increases. At times people recognize a discrepancy between their memory and what they are being told. People might recollect, "I thought I saw a stop sign, but the new information mentions a yield sign, I guess I must be wrong, it was a yield sign." Additionally, research has found that collaborative pairs showed a smaller misinformation effect than individuals, as collaborative recall allowed witnesses to dismiss misinformation generated by an inaccurate narrative. Furthermore, there is some evidence suggesting that witnesses who talk with each other after watching two different videos of a burglary will claim to remember details shown in the video seen by the other witness. State of mind Various inhibited states of mind such as drunkenness and hypnosis can increase misinformation effects. The same was true of participants under the influence of hypnosis. Arousal and stress after learning Arousal induced after learning reduces source confusion, allowing participants to better retrieve accurate details and reject misinformation. In a study of how to reduce the misinformation effect, participants viewed four short film clips, each followed by a retention test, which for some participants included misinformation. Afterward, participants viewed another film clip that was either arousing or neutral. One week later, the arousal group recognized significantly more details and endorsed significantly fewer misinformation items than the neutral group. Similarly, research also suggests that inducing social stress after presenting misinformation makes individuals less likely to accept misinformation. Anticipation Educating participants about the misinformation effect can enable them to resist its influence. However, if warnings are given after the presentation of misinformation, they do not aid participants in discriminating between original and post-event information. As a result of taking R273, people used stricter source monitoring and attributed their behavior to the placebo and not to themselves. In contrast, a different school of thought holds that sleep deprivation leads to greater vulnerability to the misinformation effect. This view holds that sleep deprivation increases individual suggestibility. This theory posits that this increased susceptibility would result in a related increase in the development of false memories. Other Most obviously, leading questions and narrative accounts can change episodic memories and thereby affect witness' responses to questions about the original event. Additionally, witnesses are more likely to be swayed by misinformation when they are suffering from alcohol withdrawal or sleep deprivation, when interviewers are firm as opposed to friendly, and when participants experience repeated questioning about the event. == Struggles with addressing the misinformation effect ==

The misinformation effect can have dire consequences on decision making that can have harmful personal and public outcomes in a variety of circumstances. For this reason, various researchers have participated in the pursuit of a means to counter its effects, and many models have been proposed. As with Source Misattribution, attempts to unroot misinformation can have lingering unaddressed effects that do not display in short term examination. Although various perspectives have been proposed, all suffer from a similar lack of meta-analytic examination. False confirmation One of the problems with countering the misinformation effect, linked with the complexity of human memory, is the influence of information, whether legitimate or falsified, that appears to support the false information. The presence of these confirmatory messages can serve to validate the misinformation as presented, making it more difficult to unroot the problem. This is particularly present in situations where the person has a desire for the information to be legitimate. Directly oppositional messages A common method of unrooting false concepts is presenting a contrasting, "factual" message. While this would intuitively be a good means of portraying the information to be inaccurate, this type of direct opposition has been linked to an increase in misinformation belief. Some researchers hypothesize that the counter message must have at least as much support, if not more, than the initial message to present a fully developed counter-model for consideration. Otherwise, the recipient may not remember what was wrong about the information and fall back on their prior belief model due to lack of support for the new model. Exposure to the original source Some studies suggest that the misinformation effect can occur despite exposure to accurate information. This effect has been demonstrated when the participants have the ability to access an original, accurate video source at whim, and has even been demonstrated when the video is cued to the precise point in time where video evidence that refutes the misinformation is present. Written and photographic contradictory evidence have also been shown to be similarly ineffective. Ultimately, this demonstrates that exposure to the original source is still not guaranteed to overcome the misinformation effect. == Strategies to reduce the misinformation effect ==

There are a few existing evidence-based models for addressing the misinformation effect. Each of these, however, have their own limitations that impact their effectiveness. Increased self regard Some evidence has been shown to suggest that those suffering from the misinformation effect can often tell they are reporting inaccurate information but are insufficiently confident in their own recollections to act on this impression. As such, some research suggests that increased self-confidence, such as in the form of self-affirmative messages and positive feedback, can weaken the misinformation effect. This model, however, has two primary limitations: its effects only seem to hold for one item at a time, and data supports the idea that it increases the impact of the information on the subsequent point of data. Pretesting also, paradoxically, has been linked with a decrease in accurate attributions from the original sample. Post-misinformation corrections and warnings Correcting misinformation after it has been presented has been shown to be effective at significantly reducing the misinformation effect. Similarly, researchers have also examined whether warning people that they might have been exposed to misinformation after the fact impacts the misinformation effect. A meta-analysis of studies researching the effect of warnings after the introduction of misinformation found that warning participants about misinformation was an effective way to reduce—though not eliminate—the misinformation effect. However, the efficacy of post-warnings appears to be significantly lower when using a recall test. Warnings also appear to be less effective when people have been exposed to misinformation more frequently. ==Implications==

Current research on the misinformation effect presents numerous implications for our understanding of human memory overall. Variability Some reject the notion that misinformation always causes impairment of original memories. Standard post-event information claimed the weapon was a screwdriver and participants were likely to choose the screwdriver rather than the hammer as correct. In the modified test condition, post-event information was not limited to one item, instead participants had the option of the hammer and another tool (a wrench, for example). In this condition, participants generally chose the hammer, showing that there was no memory impairment. Daily applications: eyewitness testimony The misinformation effect can be observed in many situations. In particular, research on the misinformation effect has frequently applied to eyewitness testimony and has been used to evaluate the trustworthiness of eyewitnesses' memory. If a witness remembers a mustache or a weapon when there was none, the wrong person may be wrongly convicted. ==See also==