Remember that UFO? It's easy to give kids fake memories

Children can be fooled into believing many things, even about themselves, says psychologist Henry Otgaar.

Tell a child it once got its hand stuck in a mouse trap, almost chocked on a candy, underwent a intestinal examination or was abducted by a UFO, and there is a good chance it will 'remember' it. About 30 to 40 percent of children will believe any of these things have in fact happened to them. They don't just accept it, they actually seem to recall the fake memory and give new details about it.

The examples mentioned are all part of a research project by Dutch psychologist Henry Otgaar, who obtained his doctorate at the Maastricht University last week with a thesis on this type of fake memories. That it is easy to plant fake memories into children's heads was a given, Otgaar said. He investigated under which circumstances children are most susceptible to it.

"It is an important topic," Otgaar said in a phone interview, "because in many court cases, about sexual abuse for example, children are confronted with leading questions. Not necessarily by the police; often the damage has been done because parents and teachers, for example, have done the leading questioning beforehand. That way children can easily remember things that never took place. My research focused on when the chances of pseudo memories are the highest."

And when is that?

"First of all, it is easier to create a negative, unpleasant pseudo memory than a positive one. That is important knowledge for court cases, which often deal with unpleasant incidents. There are therapists who have claimed children couldn't possibly make up such horrible and bizarre things, but my research clearly shows they can.

"Secondly, if you say something is common, that leads to a drastic rise in susceptibility. And thirdly: if a kid knows a lot about something, if you give information about how something works, that increases the chances of pseudo memories. Finally, children between ages 7 and 8 are more susceptible than those aged 11 and 12."

So how did your research work?

"We interviewed children separately, for about 10 minutes. We told them we were doing a survey about memory and told them a few stories about events they really lived through - their first day at school, a school trip, a vacation. We knew these things from their parents. Then we told them a lie, for example: your mother told us you once got your fingers stuck in a mousetrap when you were four years old, can you tell us more about that? About 40 to 45 percent of 7 and 8 year-olds and 20 to 30 percent of 11 and 12 year-olds immediately gave us all sorts of details about this incident, even though we were absolutely sure it never took place."

That is quite something, to put unpleasant memories in children's' heads. How did you find parents who were willing to cooperate with this kind of research?

"That wasn't easy. I got in touch with schools and asked if they were willing to cooperate; I worked with 10 to 15 schools for my doctoral research. Through those schools I wrote a letter to all the parents and those who were willing to contribute gave us their phone numbers, so we could call them and explain the research. Of course they all wanted to make sure their child would explicitly be explained that what we told during the interview is not real. We took our time to explain that to each individual child."

How can you be sure they don't actually go on believing they were abducted by a UFO?

"That is another issue indeed. In the past, researchers would tell a child: we fooled you, it wasn't real. We took a different approach. We said: we made a mistake in the survey, we accidentally told you the wrong story, this did not actually happen to you. There are children who insisted they could remember it. In that case we had to tell them a number of times until he or she was convinced it didn't take place. Other children immediately said: yes, I thought it was weird."

Did they really believe it in the first place, had they created a fake memory?

"This is an important theoretical question. Do those kids say they can remember it just to please us, or do they really believe it? Both scenarios are equally dangerous in a court case. But there are indications children actually believe these stories. For example, there are practically no differences between the way they described their real and their pseudo memories. We will further investigate this soon, to find out once and for all."