Much has been said lately about the proliferation of fake news on the internet, a phenomenon to which some attribute, for example, a decisive influence on the victory of Donald Trump . And a few days ago, a young gunman broke into a Washington pizzeria to take the law into his own hands: he had believed a conspiracy theory that placed the establishment as the center of operations of a pedophile ring sponsored by Hillary Clinton herself. .
It is an extreme case, but according to a study from the University of Warwick (UK), not only are we astonishingly vulnerable to trolls , but there is also a strong human predisposition to store false memories as if they were true, as they have already shown. other works.
This time, the researchers, led by Kimberley Wade, did an experiment with about 400 volunteers , who “implanted” fictitious childhood experiences, such as having flown in a balloon or having done some mischief at school. They did so by repeating the event and urging them to imagine it .
The result was that 30% of the participants fully assumed the false memory – they even described images of it – and 23% showed that they had believed it in some way. That is, the “brainwashing” technique was effective with about half of the study subjects.
“Our research adds to others that show the influence of adulterated beliefs on people’s behavior, intention and attitude, ” says Wade. The ease with which false memories intrude on the human brain should sow reasonable doubts, for example, about certain testimonies from police investigations or the experiences that patients tell mental health professionals .
