Psychological science: Curious ways our memories work

[guysanto*]

<p align=justify>People Believe a 'Fact' That Fits Their Views Even if It's Clearly False

By SHARON BEGLEY

Funny thing, memory. With the second anniversary next month of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, it's only natural that supporters as well as opponents of the war will be reliving the many searing moments of those first weeks of battle.

The rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch. U.S. troops firing at a van approaching a Baghdad checkpoint and killing seven women and children. A suicide bomber nearing a Najaf checkpoint and blowing up U.S. soldiers. The execution of coalition POWs by Iraqis. The civilian uprising in Basra against Saddam's Baathist party.

If you remember it well, then we have grist for another verse for Lerner and Loewe ("We met at nine," "We met at eight," "I was on time," "No, you
were late." "Ah yes, I remember it well!"). The first three events occurred. The second two were products of the fog of war: After being reported by the media, both were quickly retracted by coalition authorities as erroneous.

Yet retracting a report isn't the same as erasing it from people's memories. According to an international study to be published next month, Americans tend to believe that the last two events occurred -- even when they recall the retraction or correction. In contrast, Germans and Australians who recall the retraction discount the misinformation. It isn't that Germans and Australians are smarter. Instead, it's further evidence that what we remember depends on what we believe.

"People build mental models," explains Stephan Lewandowsky, a psychology professor at the University of Western Australia, Crawley, who led the study that will be published in Psychological Science. "By the time they receive a retraction, the original misinformation has already become an integral p
art of that mental model, or world view, and disregarding it would leave the world view a shambles." Therefore, he and his colleagues conclude in their paper, "People continue to rely on misinformation even if they demonstrably remember and understand a subsequent retraction."

For the study, the scientists showed more than 860 people in Australia, Germany and the U.S. a list of events -- some true (the first three examples above), some reported but retracted (the second two), some completely invented ("Iraqi troops poisoned a water supply before withdrawing from Baghdad"). Each person indicated whether or not he or she had heard of the event and rated its likelihood of being true. People were pretty good at weeding out the invented reports. Then, for each report they said they had heard, they noted whether it had subsequently been retracted.

If the report had been retracted, surely people would no longer regard it as true, would they? Here is where memory parts ways with reason. The Germans and
Australians responded as you'd expect. The better they recalled that a claim had been taken back, the less true they judged that claim. They did not believe in events they knew had been erroneously reported.

But for the Americans in the study, the simple act of remembering that they had once heard something was enough to make them regard it as true, retraction be damned. Even many of those who remembered a retraction still rated the original claim as true.

That comes as no surprise to memory researchers. Time and again, lab studies show that people have an astonishing propensity to recall things that never happened. If you read a list of words such as pillow, bed and pajamas, and are later asked whether another word was there, you may well "remember" related words that were never presented. "Sleep" was on the list, wasn't it?

In this case, people's mental model is "words about sleep." In the case of memories about Iraq, people's mental model is why the U.S
. invaded. The Germans and Australians in this study were skeptical of the official justification, namely, to find weapons of mass destruction. The Americans were more credulous on that point. How suspicious or credulous people were strongly affected whether they judged a retracted claim to be true or not.

"People who were not suspicious of the motives behind the war continued to rely on misinformation," Prof. Lewandowsky said, "believing in things they know to have been retracted." They held fast to what they had originally heard "because it fits with their mental model," which people seek to retain "whatever it takes."

In contrast, those who were suspicious of the WMD justification believed the retractions. The reason is probably that they weren't sold on the original, erroneous reports -- all of which cast the U.S. in a good light and Iraqi forces in a bad one. These people "are more willing to discard elements of a mental model that turn out to be wrong," says Prof. Lewandowsky.

The
news media would do well to keep in mind that once we report something, some people will always believe it even if we try to stuff the genie back in the bottle. For instance, six months after the invasion, one-third of Americans believed WMDs had been found, even though every such tentative claim was disconfirmed. The findings also offer Machiavellian possibilities for politicians. They can make a false claim that helps their cause, contritely retract it -- and rest assured that some people will nevertheless keep thinking of it as true.

[Gelin*]

....By the time they receive a retraction, the original <U>misinformation has already become an integral part of that mental model</U>, or world view, and disregarding it would leave the world view a shambles.....

This is soooooo true. It's particularly hard on people who have good memory, or a good reason to <U>believe</U> the misinformation they have received. On a personal level, it's hard for me sometimes to 'vomit' such things and remove them from my system...but it's always good to try.

gelin

[Marilyn*]

CounterPunch, March 3, 2005: http://www.counterpunch.org/cloughley03032005.html

They Have Fooled Lots of People for Most of the Time

Headlines, Beliefs and Deceptions


By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY


The headline of February 22 was eye-catching and unambiguous. It read "Europe, Canada and Mexico Opposed to Spread of Democracy", which isn't the sort of thing you see every day. It not only caught my attention, it made me sit up and stare in disbelief. How could any sane person imagine for an instant that the twenty-five nations of the European Union and two other democratic countries could actually oppose the spread of the very system of governance they have themselves chosen? Could anyone believe this rubbish to be true?

Yes, th
ey could. The crackpots of The Conservative Voice believe it. They must do, otherwise they wouldn't have published that plain and clear-cut headline. But the truth, hidden in the text, was that an Associated Press poll showed "a majority of people in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, South Korea and Spain do not believe that the United States role should be to spread democracy throughout the world." To be blunt: The Conservative Voice headline was an outright lie. The words "Opposed to Spread of Democracy" and "do not believe that the United States role should be to spread democracy" convey very different meanings. But this doesn't matter to the cretins whose idol, Bush, has set a standard of flagrant mendacity they are trying hard to equal. Unfortunately, the lying doesn't stop there. And the effects of the lies are both startling and depressing.

Last month a Harris poll showed that 64 per cent of Americans believe Sadda
m Hussein had strong links to Al Qaeda, that 47 per cent believe Saddam helped plan and support the 9/11 attacks, and that 44 per cent believe several of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis. It is staggering that so many millions of Americans can have got it entirely wrong. Surely they must have read at least some coverage of the 9/11 Commission Report which states "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al-Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States"? There wasn't a newspaper or radio or television station, even in deepest, darkest Bushland, that claimed the 9/11 terrorists included Iraqis. It appears that millions of people are so grotesquely gullible as to continue to imagine there were "strong links" between Saddam and Al Qaeda when an independent Commission determined that this was not so. Do they not read the responsible newspapers? - for example, the Washington Post recorded "The Sept. 11 commission reported yesterday that it has found no "collabora
tive relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda". How can so many people be fooled for so much of the time?

The reason they believe that up is down, round is square, lies are truth, is that Bush and Cheney told them there was cooperation between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. In his 2003 State of the Union Address Bush declared "Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaeda." There is no double-meaning in that pronouncement. The words are as clear as the headline in The Conservative Voice about Europe being opposed to the spread of democracy. And they are equally false and deceitful. The President assured the American people that Saddam Hussein aided and protected members of Al Qaeda. He said he had evidence to prove it. He lied.

This isn't a matter of Clinton's "I did not have relations
with that woman" or even Nixon's "You can say I don't remember. You can say I don't recall." The lies of Clinton were absurd and pathetic, and those of Nixon dark and squalid. But their lies were not told with the intention of encouraging the American people to support an illegal and disastrous war that would kill or main thousands of young Americans and tens of thousands of blameless Iraqi citizens.

Clinton's lies didn't work, and he was disgraced. Neither did Nixon's, and he was forced to resign. But the lies by Bush have worked very well. And he goes from depth to depth, telling more and more lies that are believed by many millions of Americans.

Bush and his coterie were determined to invade Iraq, and there was no better way of whipping up support for the attack than the Nazi device of the Big Lie. If the people of the United States were to be deceived into supporting his war, then it would take the biggest lies conceivable - real whoppers - to persuade them.[/b
] And that's what they got: exactly what Hitler's Germany got in the 1930s. Little wonder the people who see only Fox News and consider their patriotic local newspapers to be next thing in credibility to the Gospel failed and still fail to realize they are lied to by experts. But they aren't the only ones. It may seem bizarre, but some quite intelligent people believe that Saddam and Al Qaeda worked together. Last June Cheney told the James Madison Institute, a conservative organisation based in Florida that Saddam Hussein "had long established ties with al-Qaeda'." This is a flat, outrageous and easily identifiable lie, but these people lapped it up, and they are not low in the IQ department. Yet they cannot believe - they refuse to credit - the 9/11 Commission's finding that "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al-Qaeda co-operated on attacks against the United States."

Let there be no doubt: if the 9/11 Commission had found the slightest, tiniest, most miniscule pointer that might possib
ly have indicated the remotest connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, they would have told the American people about it. But there wasn't, so they didn't. But it made no difference. The brainwashed faithful believers follow the false prophets.

Thirty years ago Nora Beloff, a British political analyst, wrote that "a Communist will always put the interests of the party and class war above the bourgeois concept of objective truth". She wrote in the context of Marxist influence in the UK press, but her observation is applicable today in Washington. All we have to do is replace 'a Communist' with 'Bush', 'Cheney', Rumsfeld' or 'Rice', to realize that truth is no longer important or even relevant to the country's rulers. The present 'class war' is between the regime in power and the people they are willfully deceiving.

Contrary to the ideals of providing (or permitting) objective truth, there was constant repetition of the false claim that Al Qaeda was linked to Iraq. On Octob
er 7, 2002 Bush said "We know that Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy: the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al-Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade . . . We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases." [b]All lies. But clever lies, because the American people were mesmerized by terrorism to the point of believing anything. When Bush strung together 'terrorist', 'al-Qaeda', 'poisons' and 'Iraq' in his speech, his audience leapt to the obvious conclusion they were meant to draw: Iraq was a deadly threat to the United States.

On January 21, 2003, Cheney announced on NPR that "There's overwhelming evidence there was a connection between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government. I am very confident that there was an established relationship there." There was no evidence whatever. Little wonder that Conservatives and Madisons and hosts of others have been thoroughly br
ainwashed. They are brought up to believe that a Republican president and vice-president can think no wrong, say no wrong, do no wrong, and they lack the strength of will to question anything. Just like poor little Britney Spears they believe that "Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens."

Even when evidence is produced by impeccable sources and shows, absolutely without doubt, with no possibility of it being contradicted, that Bush and Cheney were and are lying in their teeth, the loony tunes team continue believing the lies. They have to. They have no alternative to unconditional belief, even when the lies are so blatant and obvious. Because [b]if they were to begin to question what Bush and Cheney tell them as truth, the whole edifice, the whole artifice, of the Bush administration would crumble to dust[/b:87741d2
968].

Three days after his lying announcement that Saddam Hussein "aids and protects" members of Al Qaeda, Bush was asked a penetrating question (not, of course, by one of the White House press spaniels) at a joint press conference with the equally mendacious Tony Blair, prime minister of Britain:

QUESTION. One question for you both. Do you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?

BUSH: I can't make that claim.

BLAIR: That answers your question.

No; Bush avoided the question. Blair came to the aid of his fellow-conspirator and finessed the potentially embarrassing situation, but nobody was allowed to pursue the subject to the point that Bush would have to answer "No", which, to anyone less devious and deceitful, would be the honest answer. But even if he had been honest for once in his life, and actually d
ared to say 'No' (although "I can't make that claim" is pretty clear, at that), the Conservatives and the Madisons and their like would continue to believe that up is down and black is white because "we should just trust our president".

We are caught in a sticky web of sordid mendacity, spun by swindlers whose only loyalty is to the cause of power. A lying headline in a third-rate amateur publication may not seem of much importance; but it is, because it is an example of what Bush and Cheney have sponsored and encouraged, and of what they stand for. They have lost touch with truth. That wouldn't be too bad in itself, if it wasn't for the fact that they have dragged an awful lot of good people down into the gutter with them.


Brian Cloughley writes on military and political affairs. He can be reached through his website www.briancloughley.com