Memory for Fact , Fiction , and Misinformation

Media coverage of the 2003 Iraq War frequently contained corrections and retractions of earlier information. For example, claims that Iraqi forces executed coalition prisoners of war after they surrendered were retracted the day after the claims were made. Similarly, tentative initial reports about the discovery of weapons of mass destruction were all later disconfirmed. We investigated the effects of these retractions and disconfirmations on people’s memory for and beliefs about war-related events in two coalition countries (Australia and the United States) and one country that opposed the war (Germany). Participants were queried about (a) true events, (b) events initially presented as fact but subsequently retracted, and (c) fictional events. Participants in the United States did not show sensitivity to the correction of misinformation, whereas participants in Australia and Germany discounted corrected misinformation. Our results are consistent with previous findings in that the differences between samples reflect greater suspicion about the motives underlying the war among people in Australia and Germany than among people in the United States. Media coverage of the Iraq War of 2003 was characterized by frequent corrections, retractions, and disconfirmations of tentative earlier information. Although typical of news reports (Millis & Erdman, 1998), this piecemeal updating of information may amplify two known limitations of human information processing, namely, people’s propensity to remember falsely things that are implied but never presented and people’s inability to discount corrected information. False memories can be readily induced in the laboratory (e.g., Roediger, 1996; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). For example, false memory for the nonpresented word sleep occurs reliably following study of a list of associates such as blanket, pillow, dream, and night. In a real-life analogue, the Iraq War gave rise to many reports of the possible discovery of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Although the initial reports were usually identified as tentative and were always followed by explicit disconfirmations, these qualifications may have been insufficient to prevent false memories for the discovery of WMDs. In other instances, war-related information was unexpectedly corrected after first being presented as factual. For example, Prime Minister Blair’s claim that the Iraqis executed coalition prisoners of war after they surrendered (March 27, 2003) was substantially qualified by United Kingdom defense officials the next day. Similarly, during the first days of the war, reports that an entire Iraqi division had surrendered to coalition forces were later corrected by official sources. If information that was initially presented as factual is subsequently retracted by a highcredibility source, people should discount the original version of events. However, there is much evidence that people continue to rely on misinformation even if they demonstrably remember and understand a subsequent retraction (e.g., Johnson & Seifert, 1994, 1998; Seifert, 2002; Wilkes & Reynolds, 1999). For example, Johnson and Seifert (1994) found that when people read a story about a hypothetical jewelry theft, they continued to infer the guilt of a person initially presented as a suspect even though the story later provided an alibi for that person. This persistent reliance on misinformation occurred despite the fact that virtually all participants correctly recalled the alibi. Moreover, reliance on discredited information is not confined to text processing: Mock jurors continue to rely on inadmissible evidence even when instructed to disregard it (e.g., Fein, McCloskey, & Tomlinson, 1997; Kassin & Sukel, 1997). Address correspondence to Stephan Lewandowsky, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, W.A. 6009, Australia; e-mail: [email protected]. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 190 Volume 16—Number 3 Copyright r 2005 American Psychological Society Misinformation is most likely to be discounted if the retraction also provides people with an alternative to the initial message, either by direct suggestion or by inducing suspicions about the ulterior motives underlying the misinformation. For example, if a story about a jewelry theft concludes with an alternative culprit being arrested, people no longer infer that the original suspect is guilty (Johnson & Seifert, 1994). Similarly, if jurors are made suspicious of inadmissible evidence (e.g., if a judge notes that its introduction might represent a deliberate attempt to manipulate the jury), verdicts are unaffected by the discredited information (Fein et al., 1997). It follows that corrections of war-related misinformation may not have been fully effective, except in cases in which people were suspicious about the motives underlying its dissemination. By implication, corrections may have been less effective in coalition countries—especially the United States, where the public was largely supportive of the war—than in countries that opposed the war, in which the public was generally suspicious of the stated reasons for and all issues surrounding the war. We examined the extent to which people resisted false memories and discounted misinformation by querying memory for and beliefs about war-related events in two coalition countries (Australia and the United States) and one country that opposed the war (Germany). The critical manipulation involved the type of event: We asked about events that were thought to be true, events that were initially presented as true but then retracted, and freely invented fictional events.