Researchers Can Now Implant False Memories Into People's Brains

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Japanese researchers have developed a trick to implant false visions into people’s brains, altering the way they experience the world and potentially even the way they think. Describing the new technique in the journal Current Biology, the scientists reveal how they were able to achieve this effect without actively engaging with their subjects’ thoughts, instead prompting them to unwittingly warp their own sense of perception.

Speaking to Stat, lead researcher Takeo Watanabe explained that this simple brainwashing exercise could one day lead to new treatments for cognitive disorders such as depression and autism. By provoking people to rewire their own brains, he hopes to help patients strengthen certain healthy connections and erase other less desirable ones.

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Given that they were given no guidance on how to regulate their mental activity, each person had their own unique thoughts when carrying out the task – and, when asked, not one of them claimed to have visualized the color red. Nevertheless, after repeatedly carrying out the experiment more than 500 times over three days, volunteers soon began to get the gist of it, and regulated their mental functioning so that, whatever they were thinking about when looking at the black lines, the activity in their primary and secondary visual areas resembled patterns associated with the color red.

In the process, they unknowingly conditioned themselves to associate all grated lines with this type of brain activity, like crimson-slobbered Pavlov’s dogs.

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this actually isn't completely new. researchers of false memory have been more proactive in implanting memories by more intentional methods, typically priming. our memories are basically an attempt to visualize painting that we've created over time and are often terrible reflections of the actual past. while i'm trying to create a thread that doesn't involve people shooting others, it tangentially applies b/c eyewitness testimony is very unreliable for this reason. that's why we have to wait for all evidence to come out before we jump to conclusions.

for an older example via priming, Bugs Bunny at Disneyland?

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After reading through the ad, which featured a picture of Bugs just outside the Magic Kingdom, the participants were asked whether they had met Bugs while on a visit to the theme park, and whether they had shaken his hand.

About one-third of the participants who had read the phony ad featuring Bugs said they either remembered, or at least knew, they had indeed met Bugs at Disneyland and shaken his hand. Or foot, as the case may be.

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