We think of memory as a reliable record of our lives. But we also have false memories, often tied to community experience. Those false memories shape our identity in the same way that real memories do. I was 11 years old when the 9/11 attacks happened. I vividly remember walking home from school in the UK with my grandmother that day. We passed a shop with a large window with televisions facing the street. We stood there for a while with a large group of strangers, watching the attacks live on the news. While others were shocked or crying, I felt calm.
But I know this memory is false. There were no TV shops in our village, and my grandmother never walked me home from school – she lived too far away. It’s normal to have false memories. We are all made up of real and false memories, said Gerald Echterhoff, a social psychologist specializing in memory at the University of Munster in Germany. “Memories are constructed dynamically. They are susceptible to social influences or unintentional changes [y]“Our own memories,” Echterhoff said.
This memory of standing in front of the TV shop may have been taken from disaster movies or stories of other people watching the news. We tell ourselves that we are our memories. We hold on to memories to understand our past and create the story of our lives, comparing them to other people’s memories and asking, “What was I like then?”
And if I can remember more vivid memories, I can create a fuller story of my life, and so I can know myself more. The reverse also seems to be true: if you lose memories, you become less of the person you feel you were. Dementia or age blurs memories: you forget yourself. But if so many of our memories are false or forgotten, how can we know who we really are – our true identity? The answer starts with how our memories are stored in the brain.
How is memory stored in the brain?
Scientific research shows that memory is firmly embedded in the brain’s structure. The brain physically stores memories as connections between neurons, particularly in the hippocampus or amygdala brain regions. New memories are formed when neurons form new synapses with other neurons, creating a web of neuronal connections. Memories need to be actively retained to be retained long-term. Recalling a memory strengthens the connections between neurons that form through memories.
Then there is forgetting. Forgetting is the act of “cutting off” the connections between neurons. Neglect or confusion destroys memory. We tend to fill in the blanks with what others tell us. The problem is that those false memories – memories of things we did not experience the way we remember them – are stored in the brain in exactly the same way as our real memories are stored. The same is true of biased information.
Researchers and psychologists have tried to distinguish between reality and lies, but so far no one has devised a completely reliable “recipe” for distinguishing between accurate and false memories, Echterhoff said. The Paul Ingram case: When false memories get scary. In 1988, Paul Ingram was arrested by the Washington State Police in the US. His two daughters had accused him of sexually abusing and sacrificing their daughters.
Ingram initially denied the allegations, saying he had no memory of any of the alleged incidents. Police also found no physical evidence of the alleged abuse or any ritual sacrifice. But they began to doubt his pure memory, saying, “My girls know me. They wouldn’t lie about something like this.” Ingram, a very religious man, prayed for guidance and began to imagine what it would be like to abuse his daughters. During Ingram’s interrogation, a psychologist told Ingram that it is common for sex offenders to repress their memories of the crimes. The psychologist effectively helped guide Ingram’s imagination and “memory” of abusing his children. Ingram believed that God was telling him the truth.
Eventually, Ingram confessed to the charges, even discussing them in detail during the trial, which led to Ingram having “memories” of performing satanic, ritualistic sacrifices of animals and infants. Ingram received a 20-year prison sentence. But a second psychologist doubted that Ingram’s memories were real. After extensive interviews with Ingram, the second psychologist concluded that Ingram’s memories were implanted into his brain through established methods of suggestion during the interrogation process. This report was not available for use at trial.
Ingram’s case (State of Washington v. Ingram) is a textbook example of how strong, false memories can be established by social interactions, Echterhoff said. Scary scenes from fictional movies are also known to serve as inspiration for false memories in witnesses’ descriptions of horrific events. In a review of memory in judicial proceedings published in 2015, Mark Howe and Lauren Knott write that therapists can sometimes transform fictional scenes into powerful false memories, especially when therapists suspect repressed abuse.
But, even then, memories of horrific abuse that emerge years after an incident can be real memories, whether suppressed or otherwise. The #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements have shown this.
How #MeToo made memory political
The notion that memories can be easily falsified came under strong criticism during socio-political movements such as #MeToo and Black Lives Matter (BLM). #MeToo showed how victims of sexual and physical abuse are often discredited through rhetoric that their memories were false or distorted. Lawyers used the “false memory” defense to discredit abuse victims during the Harvey Weinstein rape trial. But it didn’t work – Weinstein’s victims came together to present a common memory of the abuse they suffered. Weinstein’s defense failed and he was convicted of rape and sexual misconduct.
Echterhoff said campaigns like #MeToo and BLM helped change our perception of how memory shapes our identities. Memory can be in service of a shared, cultural experience, not just an individual remembrance. This notion echoes older ideas from research, she said. The boundaries of the “self” based on individual memories are now considered porous: Our memories and other people’s memories bleed into each other based on shared experiences.
“There is now a strong idea of communities based on shared memories of the past, often based on suffering. This is very powerful in bringing people together and building cultural identity,” Echterhoff said. But highlighting a country’s cultural memories can also create divisions, as Germany is finding when debating its history of colonialism. I’m sure my false memories of watching the 9/11 attacks on TV helped build my sense of cultural identity, sharing a defining moment of the 21st century with a group of strangers.
I still hold on to that false memory, almost preferring it to the similar memory I had when I heard about the attacks at school the next day, because I missed hearing the event in real time. In the false memory, I saw a shared history.
