<HTML>Elisabeth Loftus Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington spoke at BA Science Festival in Glasgow:
There has been much attention on finding ways of accessing autobiographical memory because it is an important fundation of one's self-concept. Yet virtually no research has examined memories of brand experiences, in particular childhood ones, and the manner in which advertising influences those recollections.
Our study investigated whatever autobiographical advertising can prompt customers to image their childhood experiences so their memory become more consistent with the images evoked in the ads.
We focused on a central childhood experience: visiting Disney World and, specifically shaking hands with Mickey Mouse. From past research we know that pictures or images can trigger stronger "remembering" and that actions can be of superior value for prompting reconstruction because they typically form the unique attribute of a specific event.
For that reason, we designed our ad to incorporate various images from the park... The ad began with "Remember the Magic" and describes a day in a park from a child perspective, with culmination being shaking hands
with MM.
Participants viewed an ad for Disney that suggested that they shook hands with MM as a child. The ad increased their confidence that they personally had shaken hands with MM during visit in Disney World.
This could have been due to a revival of a true memory or a creation of a new,false one.
Next we tried to determine whatever false information in ad about childhood experienced at Disney could make customers believe that those events had happened to them. Participants viewed ad for Disney that suggested that they shook hands with an impossible characted (eg Bugs Bunny, not a Disney character). Again the ad increased participants confidence that they had shaken hands with the impossible character as a child.
****This is my own shortened version of the article which appeared in todays (05.09.01) "Guardian" newspaper -D.P.
If even a childhood memories appear to be dynamic and not permanently fixed it might point to the possibility that our recollection as adults is a dynamic process to. IMO it might explain "alien abduction" and similar phenomenons since the publicity created around first "abductees" seems to be abble to create a "cascade" effect and might be abble to create a false memories in wider and wider circles of readers and viewers of the story.
Regards D.P.</HTML>
