Public Belief In “Memory Myths” Not Actually That Widespread, Study Argues

By Emma Young The general public has a pretty poor understanding of how memory works — and lawyers and clinical psychologists can be just as bad. At least, this is what many researchers have asserted, notes a team at University College London in a new paper, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. However, their research reveals that the idea that most people ignorantly subscribe to “memory myths” is itself a myth. The wording of earlier studies, and also discrepancies in how memory experts and the general public tend to interpret the meaning of statements about memory, have painted a bleaker picture of public understanding than is actually the case, according to a series of studies led by Chris Brewin. This has important implications for cases in which ideas about memory are highly relevant — among jurors in a court room, for example. The researchers first explored one of the “50 great myths of popular psychology”: that memory is like a video camera. The strongest support for this “great myth” comes from a 2011 nationally representative phone survey in the US, in which 24% of those surveyed “strongly agreed” and 39% “mostly agreed” with the statement (the precise wording is important): “Human memory works like a video camera, accurately recording the events we see and hear so that we can review and inspect them later.” Memory experts all disagreed. The case against the public, it seemed, was closed. But this study only asked ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Memory Methodological Source Type: blogs