How Permanent Are Memories for Real Life Events?

Abstract

Participants viewed a slide sequence depicting an auto-pedestrian accident, responded to a questionnaire that included information either consistent or inconsistent with a detail of the slide sequence, and took a forced-choice recognition test for that detail. Consistent with previous findings of Loftus, Miller, and Burns, the misleading information had a large debilitating effect on test performance. The prevailing view of this phenomenon is that misleading information presented after the viewing of an event replaces the original memory. An alternative interpretation of these findings was proposed based upon Underwood's frequency theory of recognition memory. Predictions concerning the effect of a second presentation of the slide sequence were derived from this alternative interpretation, and these predictions were confirmed. These and earlier results are consistent with the no-