The more we know, the easier we are to deceive

Dr Ciara Greene, University College Dublin

This confirms the reason academics, scientists and reputable journalists don't print things without thoroughly confirming their sources. At least two sources for a piece of information before posting anything. When I see anything posted with only a single source, I discount it until I have a chance to confirm the story from other independent sources.

I'm not alone in this, and this research clarifies why this is such an important practice.

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The more we know, the easier we are to deceive

Knowing a lot about a subject means you are more likely to have false memories about it. That is the paradoxical conclusion of research presented by Dr Ciara Greene from University College Dublin to the annual conference of the British Psychological Society's Cognitive Psychology Section in Barcelona.

Dr Greene and Anthony O'Connell, then a Masters student at University College Cork, asked 489 participants to rank seven topics (football, politics, business, technology, film, science and pop music) from most to least interesting.

They were then asked if they remembered the events described in four news items about the topic they selected as the most interesting and four items about the topic selected as least interesting. In each case, three of the events depicted had really happened and one was fictional.

The results showed that if someone was interested in a topic, this increased the frequency of accurate memories relating to that topic. But it increased the number of false memories too -- 25 per cent of people experienced a false memory in relation to an interesting topic, compared with 10 per cent in relation to a less interesting topic.

And having a high level of knowledge about a topic -- as measured by the number of true memories recorded -- rather than just an interest, increased the frequency of false memories too. People who were more knowledgeable about a subject were nearly twice as likely to remember incidents relating to that topic that never happened.

Dr Greene said: "Increasing scientific and public understanding of the causes of false memory is an important goal, particularly in light of some of the more negative consequences associated with the phenomenon, including faulty eyewitness accounts and the controversies surrounding false memories of traumatic childhood events. I hope that promotion of knowledge about false memories may provide some inoculation against their harmful effects."

Story Source:  Materials provided by British Psychological Society (BPS).  "The more we know, the easier we are to deceive."  ScienceDaily, 25 August 2016.