Discuss how one area of cognitive psychology can help us to understand any aspect of everyday life.
Autobiographical knowledge has the function of “defining identity, linking personal history to public history, supporting a network of personal goals and projects across the life span and ultimately in grounding the self in experience” (Conway, 2001). However, as the mind is malleable and self-informed, autobiographical knowledge is subject to the potential incorporation, creation, or retention of false memories due to discrepancies in imagery and memory recall (Roediger & McDermott, 1995 & Pavio, 1969). This essay will examine the cognitive process of imagination inflation, or the memory fallacy in which imagining an event increases an individual’s confidence that the event actually occurred. Through defining and explaining imagination inflation effects and breaking down the cognitive theories of source monitoring and misattribution, this essay will suggest the potential societal implications in everyday life of imagination inflation in terms of cognitive therapy and criminal justice.
While a constructive memory system allows us to creatively solve problems (Howe et al., 2011), update memories with new information (Lee, 2009), and recombine details to imagine the future (Schacter & Addis, 2007), the downside of this flexible system is the possibility of a conjunction error. Conjunction errors are likely to occur when corresponding details from separate autobiographical memories are partially recombined and influenced by increased plausibility or ease of simulation in recombining scenarios (Devitt et al., 2016). Imagination has been shown to increase the phenomenological quality of an experience (Johnson et al., 1993) and processing fluency (Garry & Wade, 2005), however imagining a false scenario increases the likelihood of forming a conjunction error or false memory, a phenomena known as imagination inflation.
Garry et al. (1996) first examined the possibility of whether imagining events from one’s past could affect childhood event memories. Garry et al. developed a three-stage procedure in which they asked adult participants to indicate whether an event had happened from a life events inventory (LEI). Two weeks later, the participants were asked to imagine several of these events and were subsequently given the list once more to indicate whether or not the events had happened to them. The results showed that subjects who had initially reported that an event did not happen, but later imagined it had, were more likely to increase their confidence that it had occurred when asked later. A paired t test showed that the mean difference was 8.2% greater for imagined items than for not-imagined items [t (7) = 5.48, p = .0009, SE = 1.49], implying that this one-time imagination task increased the confidence in fictitious event beliefs. Goff and Roediger (1998) extended this work by examining the effect of repeated imaginings on imagination inflation, finding that the more times subjects imagined performing actions such as “breaking a toothpick”, the more likely they were to incorrectly claim they had actually performed them. Additionally, Thomas and Loftus (2002) found these findings could be extended to familiar and bizarre imagined actions. The implications of these findings suggest that if imaginings occur repeatedly, an imagined event becomes increasingly like a memory for a genuine experience, and therefore subjects are more likely to confuse reality and imagination. This possibility would have repercussions across much of everyday life.
To understand the mechanisms behind why the imagination inflation effect and the subsequent memory fallacy occur, the source-monitoring framework may be explored. According to the framework, memories are attributed to particular sources of past experiences which describe qualitative characteristics (sensory information, contextual information, semantic details) to determine the credibility of memories (Johnson et al., 1993). The clarity of qualitative characteristics allows us to determine whether events are imagined or real, yet errors occur when qualitative cues are falsely encoded (Thomas et al., 2003). These errors occur perhaps due to global misattribution of familiarity, in which exposure to a fictitious event causes increased familiarity (Garry et al., 1996), or due to misattribution of specific memory characteristics, in which the vivid imagination of events is more likely to result in vivid false memories (Drivdahl & Zaragoza, 2001). As aforementioned, to understand ourselves, we ground ourselves in the knowledge of our inherent identity and personal experiences. The possibility of experiencing the imagination inflation effect, which may result in the encoding of false or confused memories, raises concerns in everyday life as to ways in which we may be able to discern whether it has occurred or avoid this memory fallacy.
The imagination inflation effect may have societal implications for situations in which memory authenticity is of the utmost importance. Lindsay & Read (1994) and Loftus (1993) have argued that certain therapeutic practices, and their attempt in “recovering” lost memories, may in reality be creating new memories due to imagination inflation. For example, patients in therapy may show indications of having been abused (depression, substance abuse, low self-esteem), but lack memories of actually being abused. The fear therefore, is that through a therapist encouraging memory recovery using discussion or guided imagery, patients may create false memories of abusive events that never occurred with their initial symptoms stemming from alternative causes. This idea may be applied in establishing an effective justice system as it is imperative to understand memory may be distorted under certain conditions. A witness to a crime may falsely incorporate event details for those of other memories or some imagined conjunction event, such as imagining an interrogation (Kassin & Gudjonsson, 2004; Leding, 2012). Essentially, the imagination inflation effect speaks to the need of a societal awareness in understanding memory fallacies due to imagined experiences.
This essay has reviewed the imagination inflation effect, a subsect of autobiographical memory studies, as a cognitive process with the potential to affect everyday life through its ability to distort memory. Future work should perhaps explore the type of individual who may be more susceptible to imagery persuasion or suggestion, however recognizing the influence of imagination may aid in a better understanding of memory and cognition.