The Misinformation Effect
(reading time – 1 min.)

Our memories of particular events also tend to be heavily influenced by things that happened after the actual event itself, a phenomenon known as the misinformation effect. A person who witnesses a car accident or crime might believe that their recollection is crystal clear, but researchers have found that memory is surprisingly susceptible to even very subtle influences.

In one classic experiment by memory expert Elizabeth Loftus, people who watched a video of a car crash were then asked one of two slightly different questions: “How fast were the cars going when they hit into each other?” or “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?”

When the witnesses were then questioned a week later, the researchers discovered that this small change in how questions were presented led participants to recall things that they did not actually witness. When asked whether they had seen any broken glass, those who had been asked the “smashed into” version of the question were more likely to report incorrectly that they had seen broken glass.


Topic: #CognitiveBiases
Source: verywell.com