One of the first experiments on false memory was done in 1959 by James Deese. He showed people lists of related words like “bed, rest, awake, tired, dream” but left out the word “sleep.” Surprisingly, many people later claimed to have seen the word “sleep” on the list when they tried to recall it.

This finding helped lead to more research on the misinformation effect by Elizabeth Loftus in the 1970s. Her studies showed how memories can become mixed up by misleading information given after an event happens. For example, people who watched video of a car accident were more likely to say they saw broken glass if they were asked “Did you see the broken glass?” even if there was no broken glass.

More recently, scientists have looked at how easily entirely fake childhood memories can be suggested and planted. Studies were able to get many people to vividly “remember” fictional events that never occurred, like getting lost in a mall as a kid.

Our memories are more maleable than we think!

False memories can create serious issues and misunderstandings for teams. A team member may sincerely “remember” key details about requirements, deadlines, or previous decisions that did not actually occur as they remember it. This can lead to costly rework, personal conflicts over seemingly agreed-upon matters, and poor decision-making based on faulty recollections.

Similarly, performance reviews and retrospectives can be heavily skewed based on inaccurate memories of how events truly unfolded. managers giving feedback may conflate or misremember specific examples, while team members may “remember” contributing more (or less) than they truly did. These discrepancies breed resentment and make it challenging to learn from past efforts.

Even something as simple as recounting the details of a conversation or meeting from the day before opens the door for false memories to creep in, especially across multiple retellings. Minor inaccuracies can subtly escalate and alter the collective understanding of reality among the team over time.

Note that False Memory is related to the Misinformation Effect, but is not the same phenomenon. False Memories may not be influenced by outside factors. They generally happen when we reconstruct our memory of an event. Whereas the misinformation effect is directly influenced by outside factors specifically.