Susceptibility to memory distortion: How do we decide it has occurred?

ERIN K. MORRIS and CARA LANEY
University of California at Irvine

DANIEL M. BERNSTEIN
University of Washington

ELIZABETH F. LOFTUS
University of California at Irvine

When given suggestive information, some people can be led to believe that they had experiences that they did not actually have. For example, they may come to believe falsely that they got sick eating particular foods as children, and as a result of that belief they may avoid the foods. But how do we know that someone has developed a false belief or memory in this research? The criteria we choose when classifying whether someone has fallen for the suggestion are somewhat arbitrary. We reanalyze our prior data, using different criteria for deciding that a person fell for the suggestion (called a "believer") or did not (called a "nonbeliever"). Changing criteria obviously affects the percentage of people who are called susceptible and could conceivably affect the conclusions reached about that group. Comparisons between false memories and true memories could differ, too, depending on how memories are defined.