False Memories a Problem Even for Individuals with Superior Recall

Everyone -- including those with seemingly superior memory powers -- are susceptible of forming fake memories, researchers from the University of California-Irvine found in a new study.

A team of psychologists and neurobiologists teamed up to create a series of tests to determine how false information can alter the formation of memories, finding that those with "highly superior autobiographical" memory (HSAM) performed similarly as those with average memory.

People with HSAM were first identified in 2006 by UC Irvine's Center for Neurobiology of Learning & Memory. Their abilities include recalling normal daily activities going back since mid-childhood with 100 percent accuracy.

"Finding susceptibility to false memories even in people with very strong memory could be important for dissemination to people who are not memory experts," Lawrence Patihis, a graduate student in psychology and social behavior, said in a statement. "For example, it could help communicate how widespread our basic susceptibility to memory distortions is."

The researchers asked 20 people with superior memory and 38 controls to do word association exercises, recalling details of a photograph of a crime. They were then asked to discuss their recollections of video footage of the United Flight 93 crash on Sept. 11, 2001 -- footage that does not exist.

"While they really do have super-autobiographical memory, it can be as malleable as anybody else's, depending on whether misinformation was introduced and how it was processed," Patihis said regarding the results.

"It's a fascinating paradox. In the absence of misinformation, they have what appears to be almost perfect, detailed autobiographical memory, but they are vulnerable to distortions, as anyone else is."

Many mysteries still remain regarding individuals with HSAM, the researcher said, noting that further research is needed to better understand the phenomenon. 

"What I love about the study is how it communicates something that memory distortion researchers have suspected for some time: that perhaps no one is immune to memory distortion," Patihis said. "It will probably make some nonexperts realize, finally, that if even memory prodigies are susceptible, then they probably are too."

The results of the study were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.