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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 25, 2026

The Deese-Roediger-McDermott DRM Task: A Simple Cognitive Paradigm to Investigate False Memories in the Laboratory

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Published on: January 31, 2017

Memory blindness: Altered memory reports lead to distortion in eyewitness memory.

Kevin J Cochran¹, Rachel L Greenspan², Daniel F Bogart²

¹Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697-7085, USA. kjcochra@uci.edu.

Memory & Cognition

|February 18, 2016

Summary

People often fail to notice changes to their own memory reports, demonstrating choice blindness. Misleading memory reports can alter eyewitness accounts, impacting memory accuracy.

Keywords:

Choice blindness False memory

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Eyewitness Testimony Research

Background:

Choice blindness describes susceptibility to misinformation regarding one's own choices.
Limited research exists on the long-term impacts of choice blindness on memory.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if individuals detect alterations in their own memory reports.
To determine if manipulated memory reports influence participants' actual memories.

Main Methods:

Participants viewed crime slideshows and provided initial memory reports (episodic details or suspect identification).
Memory reports were subsequently manipulated and presented back to participants.
Eyewitness memories were re-tested after exposure to altered reports.

Main Results:

A majority of participants did not detect the alterations in their memory reports.
Exposure to manipulated memory reports led to changes in participants' memories, aligning them with the altered reports.

Conclusions:

Choice blindness extends to memory reports, indicating a vulnerability in memory recall.
Eyewitness memory is susceptible to post-event misinformation presented as one's own report.
Findings have significant implications for the reliability of eyewitness testimony.