Research on the Effects of Lying on Memory: A Scientometric Analysis and a Call for New Studies

Orally retrieved negative autobiographical events are associated with increased heart rate as compared with fabricated ones

While it is well-established that authentic emotional autobiographical memories elicit physiological responses, research suggests that this elicitation can also occur for fabricated autobiographical memories. Yet challenges arise from awareness discrepancies when considering two research fields: Participants in memory studies may be unaware of producing false memories, while liars are aware of fabricating false events. Hence, in two experiments, we compared the psychophysiological pattern of true autobiographical memories with fabricated memory narratives. Using noninvasive biometric devices to measure heart rate (HR) and skin conductance level (SCL), participants were tasked with recalling both true and fabricated negative and neutral autobiographical experiences in a written (Experiment 1) and oral (Experiment 2) way. While in Experiment 1, no statistically significant differences were detected in participants' physiological responses across different recall types, in Experiment 2 we found higher HR responses during the recollection of true negative memories as compared with true neutral and fabricated memory accounts. These latter findings confirm that negative autobiographical memories might be associated with increased HR responses when they are recalled verbally. Furthermore, they suggest that people's awareness of memory authenticity (i.e., recalling true versus fabricated events) may be linked to corresponding physiological reactions linked to specific recollections.

The effects of deception on memory: a comparative study of actors and eyewitnesses accounts

Deception is a common occurrence in daily life and has been shown to impair memory. This study investigated the memory-undermining effects of deception in a simulated daily life scenario, focusing on the potential moderating effect of the liars' role (i.e., actor vs. eyewitness). In a 2 × 2 between-subjects design, 128 participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: actors who told the truth, actors who lied, eyewitnesses who told the truth, and eyewitnesses who lied. Participants engaged in a simulated shopping task, followed by an interview where they either provided truthful or deceptive responses about the items they bought (actors) or observed (eyewitnesses). Two days later, participants completed a series of memory tests assessing item memory, source memory, destination memory, and non-believed memories. Results showed that deception impaired source memory, with a greater impairment observed for actors than eyewitnesses. Deception also led to more non-believed memories and impaired item and destination memory, regardless of the liars' role. These findings suggest that the role of liars moderates the effects of deception on memory, with self-related deception (actors) leading to greater memory impairments than other-related deception (eyewitnesses).

Mixed in a World of Truth and Lies: List Composition Moderates the Effects of a Lie Fabrication Manipulation on Memory and Metamemory

Research has shown that list composition moderates the effects of encoding manipulations on memory performance; differential memory performance is observed at distinct levels of the independent variable in mixed lists, but not in pure lists. The current study aims to investigate the effect of list composition on predicted and actual memory performance using a semantic lie fabrication manipulation. In Experiment 1, participants either told the truth or fabricated a lie in response to a set of general knowledge questions in a mixed-list design, made memory predictions for each response, and received a free recall test. Experiments 2A and 2B compared the effect of list composition by employing mixed and pure lists, respectively. The results showed that the lie fabrication led to a metacognitive illusion in mixed lists by inducing a crossed double dissociation between memory and metamemory. Participants produced higher memory performance and lower memory predictions for lies than the truth. In contrast, predicted and actual memory performance were similar for truth and lies in pure lists. These findings contribute to the existing body of knowledge on list composition and have implications for situations where individuals need to maintain and remember their fabricated lies.

[Trauma and memory-A contribution to the current debate in law and psychotherapy]

The recall of memories of past events, experiences and emotions is a complex process. When experiencing traumatic events, as is the case with sexual violence, a host of additional complexities and difficulties arise. This becomes especially important in court cases which rely mostly or exclusively on the testimony of the victim, where the problem of the fallibility of memory takes center stage. Some research studies emphasize the possibility of inducing, altering or suppressing memories, especially in the context of psychotherapy. This has led to the unfortunate reality that the testimony of victims who have undergone psychotherapy is often considered to be unreliable. This in turn can lead to the impression that a decision has to be made between treatment of the adverse effects of traumatic events and maximizing the chances for a conviction of the perpetrator in court. This article introduces some central concepts of our current understanding of memory and gives an overview of the relevant scientific literature and debate. Following this, it examines the dilemma as it pertains to the different groups of all involved parties (i.e., victims, members of the judiciary and psychotherapists). Lastly, it proposes a framework of how to approach a solution to this problem by focusing on research in critical areas, expansion of therapy guidelines and documentation procedures as well as communication of these efforts to all parties involved.

The effect of lying on memory in daily life: Does motivation matter?

Recently, there has been renewed interest in the effect of lying on memory. A growing body of studies has documented that lying can impair memories and cause memory disruptions, such as forgetting and false memories, to a greater degree than telling the truth. This study aimed to investigate whether motivation plays a role in the effect of lying on memory. The present study utilized a daily life paradigm and manipulated three conditions: truth telling, internally motivated lying, and externally motivated lying. We asked participants to engage in a shopping task and to tell lies (externally motivated lying group) or to choose between telling the truth (truth-telling group) and telling lies (internally motivated lying group) in the interview. Forty-eight hours later, the participants were instructed to truthfully carry out multiple memory assessments. The principal findings of this research are that lying can result in memory impairments, and internally motivated lying can lead to greater impairment in source memory than externally motivated lying. Moreover, no significant differences between the two lying groups were found in the memory tests. The empirical findings of this study provide new insights into the effect of lying on memory.

External and internal influences yield similar memory effects: the role of deception and suggestion

In legal cases, testimonies can become contaminated because of an amalgam of external and internal influences on memory. It is well-established that external influences (e.g., suggestive interviews) can hurt memory. However, less focus has been placed on the impact of internal influences (e.g., lying) on memory. In the current review, we show that the available evidence suggests that both external and internal influences exert similar effects on memory. That is, we review studies showing that suggesting non-occurrences and suggesting non-experiences can lead to omission errors and false memories, respectively. Likewise, these memory effects are also observed when focusing on internal influences. That is, false denials, feigning amnesia and fabrication have been shown to affect memory in terms of forgetting (i.e., omissions) and false memories (i.e., commissions). Also, we show that both external and internal influences can lead to changes in the belief that an event occurred. We argue that in legal cases, triers of fact should concentrate on whether both types of influences might have affected testimonial accuracy in witnesses, victims, and suspects.

A scientometric and descriptive review on the debate about repressed memories and traumatic forgetting

Recent work suggests that the debate surrounding repressed memory and traumatic forgetting continues today. To further investigate this debate, we performed preregistered scientometric analyses on publications on the debate about repressed memory to provide information about its bibliometric evolution. Furthermore, we reviewed these publications to highlight the different positions taken by scholars on this debate. We reviewed 434 publications extracted from Scopus and Web of Science from 1969 to 2022. Our scientometric analyses permitted us to visualize the development of the publications on repressed memories and identify the terminology used to label this phenomenon. We identified three waves of publications (i.e., 1994-2000; 2003-2009; 2012-2021) showing that there is a recent peak of scholarly attention into this topic. 40% of scholars supported the phenomenon of repressed memory while 29% did not. Moreover, although in the last wave of publications, 35% of articles included critical arguments against the existence of repressed memory, a sizable number of publications (21%) supported ideas in favour of repressed memory. Finally, we observed that the term dissociative amnesia is another expression used to refer to the phenomenon. Our results provide additional evidence that the debate on repressed memories (and dissociative amnesia) is far from being over.

Online dating through lies: the effects of lie fabrication for personal semantic information on predicted and actual memory performance

Research shows that people lie on online dating sites often but might fail to remember this information subsequently. This study investigated participants' predicted and actual memory performance for personal semantic information after telling the truth versus a lie in two experiments in a setup similar to online dating sites. In Experiment 1, participants responded to open-ended questions either truthfully or fabricated lies in a within-subjects design, followed by predictions for remembering their responses. Subsequently, they recalled their responses through free-recall. Using the same design, Experiment 2 also manipulated the type of retrieval task by using a free- or cued-recall test. The results showed that participants consistently had higher memory predictions for truthful than deceptive responses. However, the actual memory performance did not always produce similar results to their predictions. The results suggest that the difficulties during lie fabrication, measured through response latencies, partially mediated the relationship between lying and memory predictions. The study has important applied implications for lying about personal semantic information in online dating contexts.