Fake news shapes memories

Spektrum der Wissenschaft

2.4.2020

Translation: machine translated

Our memory is surprisingly easy to trick. Psychologists have repeatedly pointed this out in recent decades. It is not only the case that we unconsciously add details to a story. Under certain conditions, we sometimes even think we remember events that never happened.

Gillian Murphy and her colleagues from University College Cork have now discovered that fake news can also evoke such false memories. The researchers presented more than 3,000 Irish test subjects
six news texts, two of which were made up. All of the reports dealt with the topic of abortion; the experiment took place in the week before a referendum in which the majority of Irish people voted in favour of relaxing the country's strict ban on abortion in May 2018. In one of the two fake news texts, people who were in favour of relaxing the ban were accused of illegal acts; the other defamed prominent figures who campaigned against the change in the law.

After reading the book, the participants were asked to state whether they had ever heard of the events described in it and whether they remembered them. In addition, all participants stated whether - and if so, how - they would vote in the referendum. Last but not least,
they completed a test of their cognitive abilities.

Almost half of the test subjects stated that they remembered at least one of the fictitious events and described it in detail. Some test subjects even invented information that was not included in the fake news. It was particularly easy for participants to fall for fake news that put opponents of their own position in a bad light. This was particularly the case for those who, according to the test, had weaker
cognitive abilities according to the test. But even test subjects who had achieved good test results were not immune to this. Even when the scientists pointed out to the participants that some of the news was fictitious and asked them to identify fake news as such, many subjects held on to their false memories.

Renowned memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus from the University of California in Irvine, who was involved in the study, believes this is an important finding in times when it is becoming easier and easier to spread fake news and fake videos
spread. In the next step, the researchers want to investigate what role false memories played in the Brexit referendum and in the "MeToo" movement.

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