This has happened to all of us at some point: You have a distinct memory of how something happened only for others who were there to correct you, saying it went down differently. And while you might think that time may have simply eroded your memory of whatever happened, it turns out false memories can be formed much quicker. Now researchers have devised an experiment to test how and how quickly this can happen.
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00:00This has happened to all of us at some point.
00:06You have a distinct memory of how something happened, only for others who were there to
00:09correct you, saying it went down differently.
00:11And while you might think that time may have simply eroded your memory of whatever happened,
00:15it turns out false memories can be formed much quicker.
00:18To reveal this, researchers set up experiments, specifically devised to test short-term memory.
00:23After asking participants to recall images a mere half second after viewing them, 20%
00:27of people had already formed a false short-term memory of what they had seen.
00:30Meanwhile, that number jumped to 30% after extending that time to just three seconds.
00:35And it turns out a lot of memory formation has to do with expectations.
00:39The experiments used the Western alphabet for the test.
00:42However, they would often show the letter in different orientations, like showing the
00:45letter D oriented like this.
00:47Since adults in the Western world are so used to seeing letters oriented correctly, they
00:51often remember them that way, whether they are or not.
00:54So what does this mean when extrapolated to real-life encounters?
00:57Well, a lot, actually.
00:58Previous studies have shown that human biases can inform what we think about individuals,
01:03specifically associating criminal activity with black faces, meaning expectations about
01:07race could lead to false memories being generated in the blink of an eye.