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  • Interrogators are known for their ways of making you talk . And they can make you talk.

  • Even about things that never happened.

  • Hello viewers, Trace here for DNews. You may think your memory is perfect, or you may be

  • like me and occasionally forget your own name. But there is an interesting third option for

  • memory; you may remember things that never even happened.

  • A study in Psychological Science showed that by using the right, or rather the wrong techniques,

  • people can be led to think theyve done things they never did. Serious things that

  • got the police involved. Things you would and should probably remember doing.

  • Lead researcher Julia Shaw and her team contacted the caregivers of 60 students from the University

  • of British Columbia. They asked them to give them specific accounts of events in the students

  • lives from when they were 11 to 14.

  • Then the researchers brought in the students for a series of 3 interviews each a week apart.

  • In the first interview the students were told about 2 events from adolescence, except one

  • of them wasn’t real. The researchers would tell them the student had either committed

  • some sort of crime like assault or theft, or had experienced some emotional trauma like

  • being attacked by a dog. Even though the story overall was fake, the researchers sprinkled

  • in some real details from that time in the student’s life.

  • Then the subjects were asked to explain what had happened, and when they understandably

  • struggled to remember the thing they had never done, interviewers encouraged them to try

  • anyway and focus on specific details. In the second and third interviews the students were

  • asked again to describe both events.

  • If you think you would have called shenanigans at this point, youre probably wrong. 71%

  • of the students who were told they had committed a crime in their youth actually believed they

  • had done it. 55% of them gave detailed accounts of their dealings with the police. The subjects

  • that were told they had emotional trauma didn’t fare better, with 76% of them giving specific

  • details and confidently recounting the experience.

  • You may think people with better memories would be more resistant to being inceptioned,

  • but that’s not the case. A study at UC Irvine tested ordinary people along with some who

  • had Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory. The subjects with HSAM could remember what

  • day of the week specific dates were, and could tell you exactly when major events took place.

  • These people have no excuse for forgetting anniversaries.

  • And yet when they were baited into thinking they had seen things they hadn’t, like footage

  • of United flight 93 crashing in Pennsylvania on September 11th, subjects with super memory

  • took the bait as often as everyone else, about a fifth of the time.

  • These studies highlight just how malleable our memories are, and how they can be shaped

  • with a little coaxing. It has big implications for police interviews and interrogations,

  • and now I really want to listen to all of Jay’s interviews from Serial again.

  • For more proof that your brain is a dirty liar, Anthony elaborates on false memories

  • here.

  • What’s another quirk of the human brain you think is interesting? If there’s one

  • we haven’t covered, let us know in the comments and well check it outIf we remember

  • to. See you next time on DNews.

Interrogators are known for their ways of making you talk . And they can make you talk.

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