Neural Evidence That Vivid Imagining Can Lead to False Remembering

Abstract

ABSTRACT-The imperfect nature of memory is highlighted by the regularity with which people fail to remember, or worse, remember something that never happened. We investigated the formation of a particular type of erroneous memory by monitoring brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging during the presentation of words and photos. Participants generated a visual image of a common object in response to each word. Subsequently, they sometimes claimed to have seen photos of specific objects they had imagined but not actually seen. In precuneus and inferior parietal regions of the cerebral cortex, activations in response to words were greater when participants subsequently claimed to have seen the corresponding object than when a false memory for that object was not subsequently produced. These findings indicate that brain activity reflecting the engagement of visual imagery can lead to falsely remembering something that was only imagined.

Comparison of neural activity that leads to true memories, false memories, and forgetting: An fMRI study of the misinformation effect

“…Consistent with the reality-monitoring framework described by Johnson and Raye, there is considerable behavioral evidence that imagery can contribute to false memories (see, e.g., Garry, Manning, Loftus, & Sherman, 1996;Goff & Roediger, 1998;Hyman & Billings, 1998;Johnson, Foley, & Leach, 1988), including in the misinformation paradigm (Dobson & Markham, 1993). Gonsalves et al (2004) were among the first to report using f MRI to examine the neural activity associated with the formation of false memories related to reality-monitoring errors (see also Gonsalves & Paller, 2000). Results showed that the formation of false memories was associated with greater activity in anterior cingulate cortex, precuneus, and right inferior parietal cortex than were correct rejections.…”

Memory and law: what can cognitive neuroscience contribute?

“…The critical result is that participants also classify new, related items as 'old' much more frequently than new, unrelated items; these incorrect responses to the related items constitute evidence for false memories (e.g., [24][25][26][27] ). Other neuroimaging studies have examined false memories that result from confusing perception and imagination 28,29 . For example, after seeing pictures of some objects (e.g., a photo of a car) and imagining others in response to a verbal cue (e.g., 'imagine a ball'), participants sometimes falsely remember that they saw a picture of an item that they only imagined (i.e., a ball).…”

“…A growing number of neuroimaging studies have shown that instructing people to remember actual past events from their personal pasts and imagine hypothetical events that might occur in their personal futures recruits a common core network comprised of medial temporal lobes including hippocampus, medial prefrontal and medial parietal regions including retrosplenial cortex and posterior cingulate, and lateral temporal and lateral parietal regions (e.g., 46 ). Moreover, neuroimaging studies have also shown that cognitive confusions between imagination and memory sometimes reflect increased activity in regions associated with visual imagery during memory encoding or retrieval 28,29 . These findings provide information concerning the neural basis of imagination and memory that could be helpful in further developing jury instructions that explain how and why the former can be mistaken for the latter.…”

Maintenance of real objects and their verbal designations in working memory

“…The precuneus has been strongly linked to mental imagery, which has been proposed as a key strategy in visual working memory [4,26]. This brain region has been shown to be strongly involved in memory tasks, when the use of mental imagery is encouraged by the stimuli and task demands [9] or when imagery leads to false remembering [12]. In mental imagery of objects the precuneus is more strongly related to a general level of abstraction [11].…”