Public Attitudes on the Ethics of Deceptively Planting False Memories to Motivate Healthy Behavior

How do participants feel about the ethics of rich false memory studies?

ABSTRACTDeception is often a necessity in rich false memory studies, but is this deception acceptable to participants? In the current study, we followed up with 175 participants who had taken part in a replication of the Lost in the Mall childhood false memory study (Loftus & Pickrell, 1995), as either a research subject or a familial informant. We found that both participants and informants were generally very positive about their experience, did not regret taking part and found the deceptive methods acceptable. Importantly, the vast majority reported that they would still have taken part had they known the true objectives from the beginning. Participants also reported learning something interesting about memory and enjoying the nostalgia and family discussions that were prompted by the study. We would encourage other researchers to assess the ethical implications of false memory research paradigms and to incorporate the valuable feedback from participants and informants.

What makes us more susceptible to false memories in the era of COVID-19? A focus on vaccines and Green Pass

INTRODUCTION

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic was accompanied by an overabundance of fake news increasing the risk of developing false memories (FMs). Previous studies have shown that the relationship between fake news and FMs could be mediated by some individual variables, including attitudinal biases. We explored the role of these variables in true memories (TMs) and FMs formation, with special emphasis on vaccine- and Green Pass (GP)-related topics.

METHOD

We set up a large online survey exploring several constructs including media usage, attitude toward vaccines and GP, perceived (PK) and objective knowledge (OK) about COVID-19-related information, fear of the disease, depression and anxiety symptoms, coping mechanisms, and reasoning skills. Then, we asked participants whether they remembered certain news (true or fake), providing confidence ratings.

RESULTS

Data from 289 respondents (198 females) from the general population were analyzed. Participants with positive attitude reported a greater fear that their loved ones contracted the COVID-19, a more frequent use of traditional media, and a higher PK when compared with respondents with negative attitude. On the whole sample, participants reported higher confidence levels when required to judge their memory of true than fake news; however, participants with positive attitude reported a higher confidence for both true and fake news. The relationship between attitude and TM confidence was mediated by the PK, whereas the relationship between attitude and FM confidence was probably affected by OK.

CONCLUSION

Attitude can modulate individual behaviors in the context of health issues. The PK and OK may interact with attitude in the memory formation.

Efecto De La Personalidad Sobre El Recobro De Actos Violentos En Testigos

En el campo de investigación en psicología del testimonio se ha estudiado el efecto de múltiples factores psicológicos sobre la cantidad de detalles, la reproducción de conversaciones y las falsas memorias en el recobro de eventos autobiográficos. El objetivo de esta investigación es identificar el efecto de la personalidad sobre el recobro de testigos presenciales de actos con violencia verbal y no verbal. Participaron 40 estudiantes de psicología divididos en cuatro grupos en términos de sus puntuaciones altas en los estilos de personalidad histriónica (Grupo 1), esquizoide (Grupo 2), obsesiva-compulsiva (Grupo 3), y un grupo control con puntuaciones promedio en dichos estilos (Grupo 4). Mediante una situación experimental se presentó a los participantes un video con contenido de violencia verbal o física; posteriormente se realizó una tarea de recobro libre y se evaluó la cantidad de detalles, la reproducción de conversaciones y las falsas memorias. Los resultados mostraron que los participantes del Grupo 1 evidenciaron recobros pobres en detalles, con deficiente precisión en la reproducción de conversaciones y ausencia de falsas memorias, mientras que los participantes de los grupos 2 y 3 recobraron la información con mayor cantidad de detalles y mayor precisión en la reproducción de conversaciones, aunque el Grupo 3 obtuvo la mayor cantidad de falsas memorias. Estos hallazgos son discutidos en términos de la relación entre la forma en que se recobra la información en los procesos de Memoria Autobiográfica en escenarios jurídicos, y que hay otros constructos asociados como la personalidad y la emoción que pueden influir en el testimonio. Palabras Clave: Psicología del testimonio, recobro, personalidad, memoria autobiográfica, testimonio, contenido violento.

Deep Fakes and Memory Malleability: False Memories in the Service of Fake News

Deep fakes have rapidly emerged as one of the most ominous concerns within modern society. The ability to easily and cheaply generate convincing images, audio, and video via artificial intelligence will have repercussions within politics, privacy, law, security, and broadly across all of society. In light of the widespread apprehension, numerous technological efforts aim to develop tools to distinguish between reliable audio/video and the fakes. These tools and strategies will be particularly effective for consumers when their guard is naturally up, for example during election cycles. However, recent research suggests that not only can deep fakes create credible representations of reality, but they can also be employed to create false memories. Memory malleability research has been around for some time, but it relied on doctored photographs or text to generate fraudulent recollections. These recollected but fake memories take advantage of our cognitive miserliness that favors selecting those recalled memories that evoke our preferred weltanschauung. Even responsible consumers can be duped when false but belief-consistent memories, implanted when we are least vigilant can, like a Trojan horse, be later elicited at crucial dates to confirm our pre-determined biases and influence us to accomplish nefarious goals. This paper seeks to understand the process of how such memories are created, and, based on that, proposing ethical and legal guidelines for the legitimate use of fake technologies.

Negative memories serve functions in both adaptive and maladaptive ways

Autobiographical memories are said to serve at least three functions: they direct people's behaviour, inform their identity, and facilitate social bonding and communication. But much of the research on these three functions has not distinguished between memories that serve functions in adaptive ways from those that serve functions in maladaptive ways. Across two experiments, we asked subjects to provide either positive or negative memories. Then, to operationalise adaptive and maladaptive functions, we asked subjects to rate the extent to which those memories serve directive, self, and social functions in ways that "help" and in ways that "hurt". To investigate whether people believe the adaptive benefits of their memories outweigh any maladaptive effects, we also asked subjects how willing they would be to erase the memories if given the opportunity. We found that negative memories served functions in both helpful and hurtful ways, whereas positive memories were primarily helpful. Furthermore, the more helpful a memory was, the more reluctant subjects were to erase it. Conversely, the more hurtful a memory was, the more willing subjects were to erase it. These results suggest it is important to distinguish between adaptive and maladaptive functions when investigating the functions of autobiographical memory.

Use, Adaptivity, and Need Fulfillment: A Methodological Critique of Tests of the Functions of Autobiographical Memory

In this article, we champion the study of autobiographical memory functions. We review the proposed functions and how they have been investigated. We describe seven commonly used research designs. We argue that although each design offers unique benefits, none of these designs is ideally suited to test the functional nature of autobiographical memory with high internal validity. We stress that each design does have a unique set of benefits in the exploration of autobiographical memory and none should be abandoned. However, we encourage researchers interested in function in particular to consider designs that will illuminate the use, adaptivity, and fulfillment of needs that is inherent in the definition of function.

False memories, nonbelieved memories, and the unresolved primacy of communication

Mahr & Csibra (M&C) make a compelling case for a communicative function of episodic remembering, but a less compelling case that this is its primary function. Questions arise on whether confirming their predictions would support their account sufficiently, on the communicative function of preserving rich, nonbelieved memories, and on the epistemic benefits of developing false memories via the acceptance of misinformation.

Public Attitudes on the Ethics of Deceptively Planting False Memories to Motivate Healthy Behavior

Researchers have proposed that planting false memories could have positive behavioral consequences. The idea of deceptively planting ‘beneficial’ false memories outside of the laboratory raises important ethical questions, but how might the general public appraise this moral dilemma? In two studies, participants from the USA and UK read about a fictional ‘false‐memory therapy’ that led people to adopt healthy behaviors. Participants then reported their attitudes toward the acceptability of this therapy, via scale‐rating (both studies) and open‐text (study 2) responses. The data revealed highly divergent responses to this contentious issue, ranging from abject horror to unqualified enthusiasm. Moreover, the responses shed light on conditions that participants believed would make the therapy less or more ethical. Whether or not deceptively planting memories outside the lab could ever be justifiable, these studies add valuable evidence to scientific and societal debates on neuroethics, whose relevance to memory science is increasingly acute. Copyright © 2016 The Authors Applied Cognitive Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.