How to Manufacture False Memories

The bit about “Xiaowang’s family” in the déjà vu episode was actually adapted from a false-memory experimental paradigm—the DRM paradigm, named after the initials of the three scientists who devised it. The method is pretty simple: first, have participants look at a list of words, such as snow, skating, and flu… After some time, show them another list containing words they saw earlier as well as words they did not, and ask them to judge which ones they saw before.

Here’s the little trick: the new list includes the word “cold.” The words participants studied earlier—snow, skating, and flu—are all associated with “cold,” but the word “cold” itself was never actually shown before.

And the result? Most people will say they saw the word “cold” earlier, and they’ll give that judgment a very high confidence rating, signaling that they’re strongly convinced they saw it. Just like that, a false memory has been manufactured.

Notes

• This article in the “New Findings in Psychology” series was a short popular-psychology essay / ramble written at the time to accompany material related to Zhichao Wei: A Course on New Findings in Psychology. It was published on the now-closed platform Fantuan, and the original link no longer exists.