A Level Psychology at Spalding Grammar School

Loftus & Palmer's research is (to me, at any rate) a bit creepy. I mean, if we don't really remember things when we remember things, then how can we be sure about anything at all?

A recap: Elizabeth Loftus showed students film of a car crash then quizzed them about what they remembered; one of the questions contained a critical verb ("How fast were the cars going when the cars SMASHED into each other") and if participants got asked this "smash" question, they 'remembered' the cars going faster and many also 'remembered' broken glass - even though there was no broken glass!

Loftus' idea is that when we recall things, we're not really replaying some mental videotape of the event. She says that memory is "reconstructive". In other words, we make it up! Every memory is a made up thing, made up partly out of actual events that happened, partly out of information we learned after the event and largely out of "schema" or stereotypes about how things tend to happen in general.

Let me give you an example from a different study. Ira Hyman et al. got parents together with their college-aged children to share childhood stories. Actually, the parents were asked to include one false story of a childhood event that never happened - either an overnight stay in hospital with a fever or a birthday party with pizza and a clown, both at age 5. Participants were tested and recalled over 80% of the true events and none recalled the false one. THey were then tested again a week later, but now 20% said they recalled something about the false event. One person remembered being hospitalised, but added that he remembered a doctor, a female nurse and a friend from church who came to visit him there!

Loftus has also shown that we can get false memories from TV!!! Apparently, there are loads of people who remember fetching Hovis bread from the bakery or getting Werther's Originals from their grandad or having Bisto gravy with the family roast - they've seen so many adverts, they think it actually happened to them! Loftus tested this buy showing people a promotional video for Disneyland; these were all people who had visited Disneyland as children. One version had been doctored to show kids cuddling someone dressed as Bugs Bunny. Later, members of the audience "recalled" meeting Bugs at Disneyland. But this would have been impossible, since Bugs Bunny is a creation of Warner Bros, not Disney. They got the memory from watching the video!

So if we can't trust our own memories, what can we trust?

If you like the idea of memories being messed with, here is my top 5 list of Messing With Memories Movies:

1. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004)

Jim Carey in Serious Actor Mode as the sadsack whose kooky girlfriend (ever-excellent Kate Winslett) dumps him then visits a newfangled clinic to have all her memories of him wiped away. Peeved, Carey goes for the same treatment. He's happy as the memories of their recent unhappy relationship are wiped but as the treatment starts unearthing and deleting the happier memories from further back he resists, trying to find a way to hold on to his memories of the girl he loves.

2. MEMENTO (2000)

Guy Pearce is the insurance investigator with improbable abs who gets shot in the head. THe brain damage means he can't make new memories and forgets everything within half a minute of it happening. Trying to find the gunman who killed his wife, he has instructions tattooed onto his own body and Polaroid snaps stuck up everywhere to tell him what to "remember". Oh, and the film happens backwards!!! And the ending will screw you up!!!

3. OPEN YOUR EYES (1997)

If for some reason you can't watch foreign subtitled films (i.e. you are deeply retarded) then you could find the Hollywood remake, VANILLA SKY starring Tom Cruise, but be warned, it's not as good.

4. RANDOM HARVEST (1942)

Or maybe you can't bring yourself to watch old Black-and-White weepies? Now you're making me mad. In this one, Ronald Colman is the British officer who comes back from World War I with no memory. He meets his true love then, when the memories come back, forgets about her. From there on, it twists and turns like a twisty-turny thing. Keep a box of Kleenex nearby: much sobbing.

5. MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001)

It's a David Lynch film and - what a shock! - it makes almost no sense. But it comes so close to making crazy dreamworld anti-logic sense that it's brilliant. Rita (Laura Elena Harring) has no memory and Betty (Naomi Watts) is trying to help her discover who she is. But is Rita really dead? Or is it all just Betty's dream? Is Betty really Diane and did she kill Rita?

Any other "messing with your memories" suggestions are welcome!