BehindTheMedspeak: Speak, Memory

A study whose results appear in the latest (March 2005) issue of the Journal of Consumer Research indicates that, at least among older individuals, repeatedly telling them something is false may result in their remembering, after several days, that it is true.

"The more often older adults were told that a claim was false, the more likely they were to remember it erroneously as true after a three-day delay," reported the authors of the study.

The experiment involved 32 men and women ages 25 or under and 32 adults over 70.

They were shown statements about medical claims that were immediately identified as being true or false.

Some statements and their accuracy appeared once, while others appeared three times.

After three days the younger adults were more likely to remember which statements were true or false the more times they'd seen them.

In the older group repetition of the false information made it more likely they would identify it as true than if they'd only seen it once.

What does this mean?

Well, for one thing advertising, especially that aimed at older individuals, may be likely to have an effect opposite from that intended.

I'm reminded, in this vein, of an occasion back in the day when I was instructing anesthesiology residents in the art and science of the specialty, as a faculty member at the University of Virginia.

A resident asked me, while we were at a quiet place during a case, if a paper I'd authored had shown that X resulted in Y (I don't remember the particulars) and what its implications might be for Z.

What I do remember is that for the life of me I couldn't recall if the paper showed that X was good for Y or bad for Y.

I mean, I remembered it was about X and Y, for sure, but I simply couldn't recall the results and our conclusions.

And this occurred no more than six or seven years after I'd written the paper, and I certainly wasn't old at the time.

I told the resident I honestly didn't recall, and he looked at me kind of funny.

So I can see how one could get confused about things.

As long as they spell my name right, I'm good.

Here's the abstract of the paper in the Journal of Consumer Research.

How Warnings about False Claims Become Recommendations

Telling people that a consumer claim is false can make them misremember it as true.

In two experiments, older adults were especially susceptible to this "illusion of truth" effect.

Repeatedly identifying a claim as false helped older adults remember it as false in the short term but paradoxically made them more likely to remember it as true after a 3 day delay.

This unintended effect of repetition comes from increased familiarity with the claim itself but decreased recollection of the claim's original context.

Findings provide insight into susceptibility over time to memory distortions and exploitation via repetition of claims in media and advertising.