I still think it was a banana: memorable 'lies' and forgettable 'truths'.

Full Abstract

Interpersonal influences on cognition can distort memory judgements. Two experiments examined the nature of these 'social' influences, and whether their persistence is independent of their accuracy. Experiment 1 found that a confederate's social proximity, as well as the content and the confidence of their utterances, interactively modulates participants' immediate conformity. Notably, errant confederate statements that 'lied' about encoded material had a particularly strong immediate distorting influence on memory judgements. Experiment 2 revealed that these 'lies' were also memorable, continuing a day later to impair memory accuracy, while accurate confederate statements failed to produce a corresponding and lasting beneficial effect on memory. These findings suggest that an individual's 'informational' social influence can be selectively heightened when they express misinformation to someone who suspects no deceptive intent. The methods newly introduced here thus allow multiple social and cognitive factors impinging on memory accuracy to be manipulated and examined during realistic, precisely controlled dyadic social interactions.

Author information

Author/s: Allan, Kevin (K); Gabbert, Fiona (F);

Affiliation: Cognitive Electrophysiology and Memory Laboratory, School of Psychology, College of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 2UB, UK. k.allan(-atsign-)abdn.ac.uk

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Acta psychologica (Acta Psychol (Amst)), published in Netherlands. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Feb; vol 127 (issue 2) : pp 299-308

Dates: Created 2008/01/21; Completed 2008/04/11;

PMID: 17692270, status: MEDLINE (last retrieved date: 2/18/2009)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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