Children's Acquisition of False Memories in Virtual Reality (2009) [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

Children's Acquisition of False Memories in Virtual Reality (2009) [pdf]

vhil.stanford.edu

19 pointsjcr9 comments

Though the induced false memories are attributable to "source monitoring errors" (i.e. not realizing an invalid source), there is another, more prevalent, side to the "source monitoring error" problem; poor quality sources. For example, a poor quality "news" source (or intentionally biased "news" source) can easily influence and manipulate both your perspective on and memory of particular events.

As far as I know, there has never been a "perfectly accurate, factual, and unbiased" news source, so the learned skill of "source monitoring" is vitally important to maintaining a well-informed perspective. From the paper, children are more susceptible to intentional influence and false suggestions, but even as adults, we're still susceptible.

Any volunteer to summarize and translate from Academic to Lay?

I'm definitely not "qualified" and I'm not an "expert" (or even vaguely informed), but after reading four of other papers from Jeremy Bailenson, I can tell you this much; he tends to write in an easily readable and approachable style, and gives solid support both through his own data and prior research references.

The phase "source monitoring" is a term of the (academic) trade, and as far as I know, it roughly means, being aware (monitoring) of how our experiences are occurring and have occurred in the past (i.e. from various sources). For example, did you read it in a book? Or read it in an article? Or see it happen live? Or see it in a movie? Or hear it happen live? Or hear it told to you second-hand? Or are you remembering it from a dream you had? Or ... The methods by which our experiences occur has an impact on how they are perceived, and an impact on how they are later remembered.

Though "false memories" sure seems like bad linkbait phrase to use in a title, it's also a term of the academic trade. It means you're unable to differentiate between memories of actual "live" experiences you've had in real life, and memories of perceived or "make believe" experiences.

The paper cites previous work showing how children are more susceptible to false memories in general than adults, and then goes on to show how children are especially susceptible to false memories induced through immersive virtual reality.

If I'm _really_ lucky, maybe someone from the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL) will show up and correct me where I'm wrong, but the above is the best I can give you.

Does this explain certain political and cultural narratives obsessed with historical guilt and victim categorization?

It has an interesting relationship to the moral panic regarding "ritual satanic abuse" and certain trials purporting to discover crimes in repressed memories. Those issues, which had a certain cultural currency at certain times, almost created this particular kind of research on memory which is now decades old.

I don't know. What sort of media do you think might be inducing false memories that are related to those subjects?

Pretty much anything and everything Viacom and Disney put their trademark on.

I haven't seen much if any media from Viacom or Disney that involves depicting the viewer doing something they didn't actually do. Can you be a bit more specific?

elaborate on your theory. What do you mean by 'historical guilt'?

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