The aim of the study was to determine if false memories of autobiographical events can be created through the power of suggestion.

3 males and 21 females were the participants. Before the study, a parent or sibling of the participant was contacted and asked two questions.  First, could you retell three childhood memories of the participant?  Second, do you remember a time when the participant was lost in a mall?

The participants then received a questionnaire in the mail. There were four memories that they were asked to write about and then mail back the questionnaire to the psychologists. Three events were real and one was “getting lost in the mall.” They were instructed that if they didn’t remember the event, they should simply write “I do not remember this.”  

The participants were interviewed twice over a period of four weeks. They were asked to recall as much information as they could about the four events.  Then they were asked to rate their level of confidence about the memories on a scale of 1 - 10.  After the second interview, they were debriefed and asked if they could guess which of the memories was the false memory.

About 25% of the participants “recalled” the false memory.  However, they also ranked this memory as less confident than the other memories and they wrote less about the memory on their questionnaire.

Although this is often seen as strong evidence of the power of suggestion in creating false memories, only 25% had them.  The study does not tell us why some participants were more susceptible to these memories than others.

It was possible to verify the memories through the involvement of parents and siblings.

Ecological validity was high as people were talking about their childhood memories.

The research has been applied in the areas of eyewitness testimony and therapy.

It is difficult to know whether this is a "true" false memory or a distortion of another memory of being lost.

There are ethical concerns about the deception used in this study.

The fact that the questionnaire was filled out at home could lead to contamination - that is, they could have consulted with someone.

There could be demand characteristics - such as social desirability effect.