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formed it. It is highly unlikely that an adult can recall genuine episodic memories from the first year of life, in part because the hippocam- pus, which plays a key role in the creation of memories, has not matured enough to form and store long-lasting memories that can be retrieved in adulthood. A procedure for planting “impossible” memories about experiences that occur shortly after birth has been developed by the late Nicholas Spanos and his collabo- rators at Carleton University. Individuals are led to believe that they have well- coordinated eye movements and visual exploration skills probably because they were born in hospitals that hung swing- ing, colored mobiles over infant cribs. To confirm whether they had such an experience, half the participants are hypnotized, age-regressed to the day after birth and asked what they remem- bered. The other half of the group participates in a “guided mnemonic restructuring” procedure that uses age regression as well as active encourage- ment to re-create the infant experiences by imagining them. Spanos and his co-workers found that the vast majority of their subjects were susceptible to these memory-planting procedures. Both the hypnotic and guided participants reported infant memories. Surprisingly, the guided group did so somewhat more (95 versus 70 percent). Both groups remembered the colored mobile at a relatively high rate (56 percent of the guided group and 46 percent of the hypnotic subjects). Many participants who did not remember the mobile did recall an The the group mnemonic other things, such as doctors, nurses, bright lights, cribs and masks. Also, in both groups, of those who reported memories of infancy, 49 percent felt that they were real memories, as opposed to 16 percent who claimed that they were merely fantasies. These findings confirm earlier studies that many individuals can be led to construct complex, vivid and detailed false memories via a _ rather simple procedure. Hypnosis clearly is not necessary. In the lost-in-the-mall study, implantation of false memory occurred when another person, usually a family member, claimed that the incident happened. Corrobora- tion of an event by another person can be a powerful technique for instilling a false memory. In fact, merely claiming to have seen a person do something can lead that person to make a false confession of wrongdoing. This effect was demonstrated in a study by Saul M. Kassin and his col- leagues at Williams College, who investigated the reactions of individuals falsely accused of damaging a computer by pressing the wrong key. The innocent participants initially denied the charge, but when a confederate said that she had seen them perform the action, many participants signed a confession, internal- ized guilt for the act and went on to confabulate details that were consistent with that belief. These findings show that false incriminating evidence can induce people to accept guilt for a crime they did not commit and even to develop memo- ries to support their guilty feelings. Research is beginning to give us an understanding of how false memories of complete, emotional and self-participato- ry experiences are created in adults. First, there are social demands on individuals to remember; for instance, researchers exert some pressure on participants in a study to come up with memories. Second, ey a ae L-- memory construction by imagining events can be explicitly encouraged when people are having trouble remembering. And, finally, individuals can be encour- aged not to think about whether their constructions are real or not. Creation of false memories is most likely to occur 69 Impossible Memories How False Memories Form