Your brain can be conned into believing you committed a crime How much do you trust your brain? Were asking, because a new study published in Psychological Science provides scientific evidence that its not hard to manipulate peoples memories -- even to make them believe theyve committed a crime. Researchers from the University of Bedfordshire and University of British Columbia chose 60 test subjects with no previous charges and any police contact from 11 to 14-years-old. They then divided them into two groups: the first groups interviewer convinced them theyve committed assault or theft, while the second groups made them believe they suffered a traumatizing event, such as being attacked and injured or losing a large amount of money. During the studys three-stage interviews, the facilitators mixed the participants real memories (as told by their families and/or guardians) with clues pertaining to the false ones. Subjects were told that their families had corroborated those facts and they could use visualization techniques to recall those faux-suppressed memories. The result? Around 71 percent of the group convinced that theyve once committed a crime and 77 percent of the group manipulated to recall fake tragic events developed true false memories. That means they seriously believed those recollections were true and could recall more than 10 details of the false events. This is just an early formal study on how certain tactics can make people admit to crimes theyve never committed or which have never even occurred. The researchers expect to see more studies on the same subject to determine if this has an effect on the legal system, because its just not right sending people to prison just because humans have overly imaginative brains. [Image credit: Shutterstock / everything possible] Filed under: Science Comments Via: Ars Technica, Psychological Science ift.tt/1zntWdU
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 08:24:26 +0000
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