Power of Suggestion

By Evan Favermann

Psychology 1306: Thought and LanguageNovember 20, 2008

Human Memory

“The way human memory works is very different from that of a video tape recorder - our memories are actually reconstructions of bits and pieces of information we have obtained over time. Sometimes those reconstructions are very similar to what we experienced; other times we are ‘tricked’ and remember things differently than how they actually happened.”

(Braun-LaTour, et al. 2004)

Loftus on Memory and Misinformation

Misinformation Effect - reduced memory after exposure for misinformation

“In other words, they adopted the misinformation and they claimed it for their own memory”

How Rumors Can Engender False Memories in Preschoolers

We see this misinformation effect is highlighted in studies with young children.

“Results from a delayed interview showed that naturally occurring exposure to peer witnesses substantially elevated false claims of actually seeing, as opposed to merely hearing about, nonwitnessed events.” (Principe et al. 2006)

Experiment 1 (Principe et al. 2006)

Purpose: To determine whether peer conversations can influence the reports of children even when none of them actually witnessed the event in question

Design: 175 3-to 5 year-olds were assigned to four groups that differed in the level of exposure to the rumor (overheard vs. classmate vs. control vs. witness). Within these groups, there were two conditions that differed in type of intervening interview (suggestive vs. neutral)

Experiment 1 (Principe et al. 2006)Method: During the first session, a magician failed at pulling

a rabbit out of his hat.• Witness Condition: Children saw a live loose rabbit eating

carrots in their classroom following the show • Overheard Condition: Children overheard a dialogue between

a teacher and an unfamiliar adult confederate regarding the failed magic trick the fact that a rabbit was loose in the classroom

• Classmate Condition: Children in the same class as those in the overheard condition had the potential to hear

discussion of what was said by the adults• Control: Children were not exposed to any rumors regarding the rabbit

Experiment 1 (Principe et al. 2006)

Method (continued): In the intervening interview, both the neutral and suggestive formats began with open-ended questions.

If the rabbit had not been mentioned, the interviewer asked a specific question (e.g. “Did anything happen to Mumfry’s rabbit?”)

Once recall was exhausted, children in the suggestive-interview condition were asked forced-choice questions (e.g. “What did Mumfry’s rabbit eat when he got loose in your school?”)

In the final interview, open-ended recall was again exhausted and a specific question about the rabbit was asked if it had not been mentioned. The subset of children who reported the target event were also asked about the source of the information; whether they had heard about the event or if they actually saw it occur (e.g. “did you see the rabbit eating carrots in your classroom with your own eyes, or did you hear about it from someone?”)

Experiment 1 Results

Conclusion: Young children readily incorporate overheard rumors into their own recollections, even in the absence of direct exposure to an adult source or to suggestive questioning.

Experiment 1 Results

“A bias toward believing other people’s accounts, an immature understanding of false belief, and the familiarity of remembering past events with other people may make young children especially prone to incorporating into their recollections information heard during everyday conversations.” (Principe et al. 2006)

Experiment 1 Results

As anticipated, children in the control condition were less likely to report the target event than those in the witness condition.

Children in the overheard and classmate conditions were as likely to report the target event as were those in the witness condition, despite not having personally witnessed it

Exposure to rumor was more powerful than exposure to suggestive questioning in producing spontaneous fabrications

Narrative detail is not diagnostic of accuracy when children have been exposed to sources of false information.

Two Different Views on MemoryReproductive: The traditional view implies that stored

mental representations of past experiences are recalled as intact units (Reber 1985)

A retrieval cue arouses or activates an existing memory stored in the brain

Post-experience information does not alter how people remember the experience

Reconstructive: Memory is a complex reconstruction by which we give meaning to our experiences, influenced both by what we knew before the experience transpired and what we learned afterward (Bartlett 1932)

Reconstruction is the mixing of fact and interpretation in such a way that they become indistinguishable

Post-experience information can alter how people remember the experience

How and When Advertising Can Influence Memory for Consumer Experience

Research on reconstructive memories has implications for advertising to consumers

Types of Advertising:Forward-Framing: where advertising is presented before

the experiencePost-Experience: where advertising received after an

experience can exert an impact by influencing how that experience is remembered

(Braun-LaTour, et al. 2004)

“Because consumers may use the advertising as a cue to recollect their past experience, there is the possibility that these recently generated advertising images may alter what consumers ultimately remember about their own childhood.” (Braun, et al. 2002)

Consumer Experiment Paradox: “Experiences have the potential for malleability and

manipulation yet consumers trust their experiences most within their decision making.” (Hoch 2002)

How and When Advertising Can Influence Memory for Consumer Experience

Remember the Magic

Experiment 2 (Braun et al. 2002)

Purpose: To determine whether autobiographically focused advertising could directly affect how consumers remember a prior childhood experiences.

Design: Half of the 107 participants received a Disney autobiographical ad, the other half received a control, non-Disney ad

Experiment 2 (Braun et al. 2002)

Method: Week 1:

• Participants were given a Life-Events Inventory (LEI) survey: 20 childhood events and asked to indicate whether they had happened (scale of 0 to 100, where 0 = definitely did not and 100 = definitely did happen)

• TARGET: “Met and shook hands with a favorite TV character (e.g. Mickey) at a theme resort” (appeared fourth on the LEI survey)

Week 2: • Participants were shown an ad (either Disney or control) for 5 minutes

and were required to rate ad on four bipolar attitude scales (unfavorable - favorable, bad - good, unpleasant - pleasant, negative - positive).

• This was followed by 5-minute distraction task and (due to “losing the first set of data) participants were asked to fill out the LEI survey again

• Finally, participants were asked to rate a trip to Disney before they were 10 years old on the dimensions of pleasantness, emotional involvement in experience, centrality to childhood, and personal importance to childhood

Experiment 2 (Braun et al. 2002)

Experiment 2 Results

Significantly, more people who received the Disney ad went up on the LEI (90% vs. 47% control)

Thus, autobiographical advertising can make consumers more confident that they had experienced an advertised-suggested event as a child

Experiment 2: Routes to Memory Retrieval What might be happening as

participants recall the shaking-hands event:

(1) People who rated the shaking-hands experience high on both the LEI pre and posttests (they did not need the ad to retrieve that memory)

(2) Ad encourages participants to recover true memory

(3) Ad encourages participants to recover false memory

PROBLEM: • We cannot determine

whether participants had ever shaken hands with Mickey!

A Potential Solution

But Do You Remember Bugs?You May Remember The Magic,

Experiment 3 (Braun et al. 2002)

Purpose: To determine whether false information in advertising about childhood experiences at Disney could make consumers believe those events had happened to them.

Design: The 167 participants were divided among three groups: Bugs Bunny (Warner Bros. character), Ariel (Disney character not yet introduced), and a nonautobiographical Disney ad (control group)

Experiment 3 (Braun et al. 2002)

Method: • Participants were given a Life-Events Inventory (LEI) survey: 20

childhood events and asked to indicate whether they had happened (scale of 0 to 10, where 0 = definitely did not and 10 = definitely did happen)

• TARGET: “Met and shook hands with a favorite TV character at a theme resort” (Bugs and Ariel were burried within the LEI survey list)

• Some screening occurred: Those who had visited Six Flags were eliminated to reduce a possible source-confusion error

• There was also a distinction made between “seeing” and “meeting” (e.g. shaking hands with). Participants were asked to put an X next to names they had “met”

• The LEI was filled out again in the second session, similarly to the way it was done in Experiment 2, but following viewing ads with Bugs and Ariel

Experiment 3 (Braun et al. 2002)

Experiment 3 Results

While all groups showed a tendency to increase in change in LEI, it was more pronounced in the conditions that received an autobiographical ad

Conclusion: Featuring impossible events in autobiographical advertising can cause people to believe they had experienced the events (Bugs - 16%, Ariel - 7% even though both are clearly impossible)

Pictorial vs. Verbal Cues in Advertising

VERBALEdell and Staelin (1983): Verbal cues were necessary for

pictures to be processed and later remembered

PICTORIALChilders and Houston (1984): Picture superiority effect

on memoryThere is an advantage for information presented as picture

over words

Experiment 4 (Braun-LaTour et al. 2004)

Purpose: To determine how the presentation of false information through various modalities (verbal, pictorial, and both) lead to the creation of false memories

Design: The 100 participants were randomly assigned to one of the three false information conditions

Method: The ads (which all featured Bugs Bunny) were passed out within a questionnaire. Participants were asked to rate their attitude, affect, and likelihood of visiting Disney in the future. They were asked about their own past experience visiting Disney and whether they had seen certain characters at the park.

Experiment 4 Results

There was a picture superiority effect; both conditions that had pictorial representations created the greatest number of false memories and showed the fewest number of “Bugs detectors” (people who recognized Bugs was not a Disney character

False memory creators scored higher than “Bugs detectors” in emotional involvement with the advertising (measured on Wells scale)

“Bugs detectors” had negative feelings about the misleading ad that affected their feelings about Disney in general.

Conclusion: The modality of the testing instrument is a critical decision advertisers need to consider when assessing advertising influence (words may access one type of memory, pictures another)

PBS: When Memory Lies