Department of Psychology, University of Hagen, 58084 Hagen, Germany;
Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Mar 30;118(13). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2026447118.
False memories of autobiographical events can create enormous problems in forensic settings (e.g., false accusations). While multiple studies succeeded in inducing false memories in interview settings, we present research trying to reverse this effect (and thereby reduce the potential damage) by means of two ecologically valid strategies. We first successfully implanted false memories for two plausible autobiographical events (suggested by the students' parents, alongside two true events). Over three repeated interviews, participants developed false memories (measured by state-of-the-art coding) of the suggested events under minimally suggestive conditions (27%) and even more so using massive suggestion (56%). We then used two techniques to reduce false memory endorsement, source sensitization (alerting interviewees to possible external sources of the memories, e.g., family narratives) and false memory sensitization (raising the possibility of false memories being inadvertently created in memory interviews, delivered by a new interviewer). This reversed the false memory build-up over the first three interviews, returning false memory rates in both suggestion conditions to the baseline levels of the first interview (i.e., to ∼15% and ∼25%, respectively). By comparison, true event memories were endorsed at a higher level overall and less affected by either the repeated interviews or the sensitization techniques. In a 1-y follow-up (after the original interviews and debriefing), false memory rates further dropped to 5%, and participants overwhelmingly rejected the false events. One strong practical implication is that false memories can be substantially reduced by easy-to-implement techniques without causing collateral damage to true memories.
自传体事件的虚假记忆会在法医环境中造成巨大的问题（例如，虚假指控）。尽管多项研究成功地在访谈环境中诱发了虚假记忆，但我们提出了研究试图通过两种生态有效的策略来逆转这种效果（从而减少潜在的损害）。我们首先通过两种技术成功地植入了两个合理的自传体事件的虚假记忆（由学生的父母提出，以及两个真实事件）。在三次重复访谈中，参与者在最小提示条件（27%）下发展出了建议事件的虚假记忆（通过最先进的编码进行测量），甚至在使用大量提示时（56%）更是如此。然后，我们使用了两种技术来减少虚假记忆的认可，即来源敏感化（提醒受访者记忆中可能存在的外部来源，例如家庭叙述）和虚假记忆敏感化（提高记忆访谈中无意中产生虚假记忆的可能性，由新访谈者提供）。这扭转了前三个访谈中的虚假记忆积累，使两种提示条件下的虚假记忆率恢复到第一个访谈的基线水平（即分别为约 15%和 25%）。相比之下，真实事件记忆的认可程度总体上更高，并且不太受重复访谈或敏感化技术的影响。在 1 年的随访（在原始访谈和汇报后）中，虚假记忆率进一步下降到 5%，参与者压倒性地拒绝了虚假事件。一个强有力的实际意义是，虚假记忆可以通过易于实施的技术大大减少，而不会对真实记忆造成附带损害。
