Introduction
The concept of memories is ingrained in the human experience. It can be disconcerting to consider the existence of false memories and the vulnerability of memories to external influences.
The movie "Inception" explores the importance of memories in human interaction and self-perception. However, it remains uncertain if the concept of implanting false memories has any scientific foundation. The plot focuses on Cobb, a skilled scientist, who is tasked by Saito (a Japanese businessman) to infiltrate Fischer's subconscious and insert a memory of destroying his father's energy company. Cobb and his team manipulate Fischer's mind to achieve their client's objectives. In order for the idea to be accepted naturally, Cobb and his team must carefully construct a simplified version of it (Ty & Kilbourn, 2013).
During this process, individuals must construct multi-layered dream situations where the
...subject can generate their own ideas and appear self-generated. Similarly, Fischer is given the illusion of making choices out of his own will, even though his decisions have been manipulated from the beginning. Studies in neuroscience have concluded that when someone is asleep, particularly during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the brain replays patterns of everyday events, potentially guiding neural networks on how to store memories. However, these studies have not provided details about the subjective history of dreaming or why dreams incorporate elements from real-life experiences with fantasy. In the movie Inception, Cobb's mentor is a professor at a college in France who shares scientific information about navigating the mind through reasoned dreaming. The professor criticizes Cobb for choosing to become a mind thief, extracting information to benefit corporate moguls (Botz-Bornstein, 2011).
The film demonstrates how advance
techniques and technologies, originally created to address social issues, can be manipulated by influential individuals such as Saito for personal gain in the capitalist world.
Current research
This proposed study aims to examine the representation of memories in the brain and explore the potential for implanting false memories in others. The research will use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a procedure that measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. By investigating false memories involving errors in context or content, this study seeks to understand the formation of false memories. The hypothesis is that employing this approach will induce false memories of recognizing items shown during the misinformation phase when participants are interrogated about the main event phase.
Method
Participants
A total of twenty fluent English speakers, regardless of gender, will be recruited from Johns Hopkins University. The participants must be between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four and right-handed. All participants should have no prior knowledge of the hypotheses or experimental materials, and they must give written informed consent. Compensation will be provided for their time.
Materials
The materials that will be used consist of eight separate vignettes, each consisting of fifty digital slide images in various colors.
Out of the total of 50 slides, 12 will be classified as critical slides. These critical slides will feature an item that will change between the original phase and the misinformation phase, serving as the misinformation for the events. Two different groups of critical slides will be included for each vignette and their placement will be randomized among the participants. Furthermore, all slide images will be edited to a size of 300 x 300 pixels.
The recognition test will consist of detailed
questions focusing on the content presented in the initial phase of the events. In total, there will be 18 questions for the eight vignettes, with 12 of them designated as critical questions specific to the critical slides that undergo changes.
The text states that there will be six control questions regarding the slides which will be consistent. These control questions will be similar to the critical questions, which include a question about where a man is hiding after stealing a girl's wallet and crossing the street. The control questions will have the same details as the critical questions. An example of a control question is "What type of shop is situated to the left of the video shop?". In addition to the recognition test for the eight vignettes, there will also be a memory test conducted immediately after completing all eight tests of recognition. This memory test will ask participants from which presentation they found the answers they indicated on the previous recognition test.
There will also be a memory test for each recognition test of the eight vignettes. All the memory tests will be administered on paper.
Procedure
In the first session, there will be two stages, both of which will take place in the fMRI scanner. In the original phase, the participants will watch eight vignettes displaying different events (Okado & Stark, 2005).
The purpose of the study is to determine whether memory for events is improved with one or two presentations. The vignettes will depict various situations, such as a man appearing helpful while stealing a girl's wallet, or a student waiting for a class and interacting with friends. Each presentation of the vignette will be separated
by break periods. After a delay, participants' brain images will be obtained, and the second phase of the study will begin. During this phase, participants will unknowingly be exposed to misinformation about each event. They will be shown what they believe to be the same vignettes with eight events, but certain crucial slides of each vignette will be slightly altered. In the original event stage mentioned earlier, the man will hide behind a post, while in the misinformation stage, he will hide behind a tree.
During the misinformation phase, the presentation style will be the same as the original event stage. In the second session, there will be two phases occurring outside the scanner after forty-eight hours. The participants' memory for events will be tested. In the first phase, participants will be asked to recall what they observed in the original events from the first session. To simplify the retrieval cue, a three-alternative forced test of recognition will be used. Following the recognition phase, a surprise memory test will be conducted based on participants' responses in the recognition test. This aims to increase the experimenter's confidence in distinguishing between correct and false memories. Participants will indicate the source of their memory for each question answered during the first test.
Imaging will be performed on a Philips Gyroscan scanner that has a brain sense coil. By utilizing the sensitivity profiles of different surface coils, sensitivity encoding imaging can sample k-space with fewer phase encoding steps. This allows for a full field of view without aliasing, resulting in reduced acquisition time and distortion due to magnetic susceptibility.
Predicted results
The aim of this research is to explore how memories are represented
in the brain and investigate the potential for implanting false memories in individuals. Original events with important elements will be accurately recognized and confirmed as true memories (option A in the first group of presentations or option D). Misinformation with crucial elements will be inaccurately recognized and confirmed as false memories (option A in the first group of presentations or option C in the two sets of presentations). In the recognition task, students should significantly approve misinformation items more often than foil items.
The paradigm suggests that false memories of items shown in the misinformation stage will be reliably created and recognized when participants are asked about the original phase. To evaluate the quality of these false memories and eliminate obvious guesses from the analysis, participants will take a source test of memory, indicating which source they remembered the answers from on their recognition test. The data from this test should show a higher percentage of trials classified as correct memories, indicating that participants either saw the item during the first phase or noted conflicting items across the phases if it was approved on the recognition test. If the item from the misinformation stage is recognized, a smaller percentage of trials will be classified as false memories, suggesting participants saw it in either phase one or both phases.
Discussions
Some neuro imaging research has focused on distinguishing between false and true memories instead of exploring the contributions of false memories.
This study highlights the important role of encoding processes in the formation of false memory. The creation of false memory is influenced by misinformation. The neural activities during the encoding of both the original and misinformation events can determine
whether correct or incorrect information will be recalled later. Previous research on memory has shown that encoding activity can predict what will be remembered. This study aims to demonstrate that the misinformation effect can apply to both true and false memories. The left hippocampus tail and the left perirhinal cortex are regions where the misinformation effect is observed. When encoding activity is higher during the original event, the items from that event are more likely to be remembered later.
When there is higher encoding activity in the misinformation stage, the items from that stage are subsequently remembered (Anderson,1990). Therefore, if an item is remembered later, whether from the misinformation phase or the original phase, activity in both regions is correlated with successful encoding. Although some behavioral studies have investigated the misinformation effect, this study will be the first to uncover the underlying mechanisms using neuro-imaging techniques. It is evident that the interaction of encoding processes is crucial for creating both accurate and false memories in this paradigm, as activities observed during both encoding phases can predict whether information from the original event or inaccurate misinformation will be reported. This study will enhance our understanding of false memory creation and the operational methods of normal memory systems.
References
- Ty, E., ; Kilbourn, R. J. A. (2013). The memory effect: The remediation of memory in literature and film.
- Botz-Bornstein, T. (2011). Inception and Philosophy: Ideas to Die For. New York: Open Court.
- Raju, Prasad. (2014). Gre Word List: Vocabulary With Memory Triggers. Partridge Pub.
Anderson, J. R. (1990). Cognitive psychology and its implications . WH Freeman/Times Books/Henry Holt ; Co.
(2004). The cognitive neurosciences. MIT press. Okado, Y., ; Stark, C. E. (2005).
According to the article titled "Neural activity during encoding predicts false memories created by misinformation" published in Learning ; Memory, volume 12, issue 1, pages 3-11, it is suggested that neural activity during the encoding process can be used to predict false memories that are formed as a result of misinformation.
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