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Martin Conway's influential theorising about the self-memory system (Conway, M. A., & Pleydell-Pearce, C. W. (2000). The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system. Psychological Review , 107 (2), 261-288) illuminated how the "working self" influences the construction of autobiographical memories. Moreover, his constructive view of self and memory is compatible with the occurrence of various kinds of errors and distortions in remembering. Here we consider one of the "seven sins" of memory (Schacter, D. L. (2021). The seven sins of memory updated edition: How the mind forgets and remembers . Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) that we believe is most closely related to the operation of Conway's self-memory system: bias, which refers to the role of current knowledge, beliefs, and feelings in shaping and sometimes distorting memories for past experiences and attitudes. More specifically, we discuss recent research on three forms of bias - consistency, self-enhancing, and positivity biases - that illuminate their role in influencing how people remember the past and also imagine the future. We consider both theoretical and applied aspects of these biases and, consistent with Conway's perspective, argue that despite sometimes contributing to inaccuracies, bias also serves adaptive functions.

The seminal Lost in the Mall study has been enormously influential in psychology and is still cited in legal cases. The current study directly replicated this paper, addressing methodological weaknesses including increasing the sample size fivefold and preregistering detailed analysis plans. Participants ( N  = 123) completed a survey and two interviews where they discussed real and fabricated childhood events, based on information provided by an older relative. We replicated the findings of the original study, coding 35% of participants as reporting a false memory for getting lost in a mall in childhood (compared to 25% in the original study). In an extension, we found that participants self-reported high rates of memories and beliefs for the fabricated event. Mock jurors were also highly likely to believe the fabricated event had occurred and that the participant was truly remembering the event, supporting the conclusions of the original study.

ABSTRACT The seminal Lost in the Mall study [Loftus, E. F., & Pickrell, J. E. (1995). The formation of false memories. Psychiatric Annals , 25(12), 720-725. https://doi.org/10.3928/0048-5713-19951201-07] has been enormously influential in psychology and is still cited in legal cases. The current study directly replicated this paper, addressing methodological weaknesses including increasing the sample size fivefold and preregistering detailed analysis plans. Participants ( N  = 123) completed a survey and two interviews where they discussed real and fabricated childhood events, based on information provided by an older relative. We replicated the findings of the original study, coding 35% of participants as reporting a false memory for getting lost in a mall in childhood (compared to 25% in the original study). In an extension, we found that participants self-reported high rates of memories and beliefs for the fabricated event. Mock jurors were also highly likely to believe the fabricated event had occurred and that the participant was truly remembering the event, supporting the conclusions of the original study.

ABSTRACT Deception is often a necessity in rich false memory studies, but is this deception acceptable to participants? In the current study, we followed up with 175 participants who had taken part in a replication of the Lost in the Mall childhood false memory study (Loftus & Pickrell, 1995), as either a research subject or a familial informant. We found that both participants and informants were generally very positive about their experience, did not regret taking part and found the deceptive methods acceptable. Importantly, the vast majority reported that they would still have taken part had they known the true objectives from the beginning. Participants also reported learning something interesting about memory and enjoying the nostalgia and family discussions that were prompted by the study. We would encourage other researchers to assess the ethical implications of false memory research paradigms and to incorporate the valuable feedback from participants and informants.

Many legal cases hinge on evaluating the veracity of two versions of events ("he said, she said"). Expert witnesses are often called upon to testify on the malleability of memory, most often testifying for the defence. This may lead to the theoretically unfounded assumption that it is only victims who are vulnerable to distorted memories of a crime. Inspired by this question, we conducted a series of five experiments in which 2010 participants played a novel version of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Participants could either betray their partner in the game ("winners") or be betrayed by their partner ("losers"). We exposed participants to misinformation concerning the other player's statements to assess whether winners and losers may be differentially susceptible to false memories of the event in question. Across our experiments, including where real financial rewards were at stake, we found that winners were just as susceptible as losers to memory distortion. We highlight the need to consider the possibility of faulty memory affecting all parties to in legal cases, though further research is needed beyond this highly artificial paradigm.

Exposure to fake news stories can result in false memories for the events portrayed, and this effect can be enhanced if the stories conform to the reader's ideological position. We exposed 1299 UK residents to fabricated news stories about Brexit. 44% of participants reported a false memory for at least one fabricated story, with a higher rate of false memories for stories that reflected poorly on the opposing side. This effect of ideological congruency was somewhat greater among participants who were exposed to a threat to their social identity as a Leave or Remain supporter; however, this moderating effect was only statistically significant in exploratory analyses using a more conservative definition of false memory. Participants with higher cognitive ability and analytical reasoning scores were less susceptible to false memories. Individuals with better knowledge about Brexit showed better discrimination between true and false stories, while self-reported engagement with the Brexit debate was associated with an increased tendency to "remember" any story, regardless of its truth. These results implicate a combination of social and individual factors in the development of false memories from fake news, and suggest that exposure to social identity threats may enhance the polarising effects of fake news.

Deception is often necessary in false memory studies, especially when the study aims to explore the effect of misinformation on memory. At the end of the study, participants are debriefed, but does this eliminate the influence of misinformation? In the current study, we followed up 630 participants six months after they participated in a study in which they were exposed to fabricated political news stories. We compared the memories of these "continuing participants" for both novel and previously seen news stories to the memories of 474 newly recruited participants. Relative to new recruits, continuing participants were less likely to report a false memory for a story that they had been previously exposed to, and they were also less likely to report a false memory for a novel fake news story. Continuing participants were more likely to report a memory for previously seen true events than novel true events. Both groups of participants reported enjoying the experience and feeling confident that they understood which stories were fabricated. Importantly, this study did not find any negative long-term effects of participating in our false memory experiment, and even exhibited some positive effects.

Previous research has identified perceptual load - the amount of perceptual processing required by a scene - as a potentially important factor in eyewitness memory. Here, we investigated whether effects of perceptual load on eyewitness memory for a simulated crime are moderated by individual differences in cognitive ability. We presented participants with a video of a simulated crime that imposed either high or low perceptual load, followed by a written narrative which contained a mixture of neutral and misleading descriptions of critical details. We examined the effects of three cognitive variables (working memory capacity, verbal cognitive ability and analytical reasoning) on participants' ability to accurately recall details of the video in both the misinformation and control conditions, and to detect a change in the clothing of a main character. General cognitive ability was associated with improved global memory for details of the event, and enhanced change detection under load. Greater WM capacity and a tendency towards analytical reasoning were both associated with resistance to misinformation under conditions of high perceptual load. We conclude that higher levels of cognitive ability, assessed across a number of domains, may enable eyewitnesses to withstand the effects of perceptual load and preserve the accuracy of their memories.

People are more likely to recall both true and false information that is consistent with their pre-existing stereotypes, schemata and desires. In addition, experts in a particular field are more likely to experience false memory in relation to their area of expertise. Here, we investigate whether level of interest, as distinct from level of knowledge, and in the absence of self-professed expertise, is associated with increased false memory. 489 participants were asked to rank 7 topics from most to least interesting. They were then asked if they remembered the events described in four news items related to the topic they selected as the most interesting and four items related to the topic selected as least interesting. In each case, three of the events depicted had really happened and one was fictional. A high level of interest in a topic increased true memories for the topic and doubled the frequency of false memories, even after controlling for level of knowledge. We interpret the results in the context of the source-monitoring framework and suggest that false memories arise as a result of interference from existing information stored in domain-related schemata.