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Iraq War Stories Play Tricks On The Mind
By Anna Salleh
ABC Science Online - Australia
3-9-5
Research on the way people processed media reports about the
Iraq war tells us more about how we create our beliefs and
memories.
Psychologist Professor Stephan Lewandowsky of the University
of Western Australia and team report their study of more
than 800 people from Australia, the US and Germany, in the
March issue of the journal Psychological Science.
Lewandowsky says the study, which was conducted in 2003
during the closing phases of the war and soon afterwards,
was triggered by the number of retractions that occurred in
the media at the time.
"It struck us as remarkable how many things were reported
and then subsequently corrected," he says.
The first part of their study looked at how people processed
corrections that occurred in the early days of the war.
The researchers asked whether people believed statements
based on two kinds of press reports: one type that had been
retracted and one that continued to be reported as fact.
The four statements based on reports that participants knew
had been retracted were:
ï The allies captured an Iraqi general during the first one
to two weeks of the war
ï Allied POWs (Prisoners of War) were executed by the Iraqis
after being captured and/or surrendering
ï Toward the end of the first week of the war, there was a
significant civilian uprising against the Iraqi Baath Party
militia in Basra, and
ï During the first few days of the war, an entire Iraqi
division (some 8000 soldiers) was captured and/or
surrendered to the allies.
"We tried to be as balanced as possible whether it put the
Iraqis in a bad light, or the Coalition forces, to the
extent that that was possible," Lewandowsky says.
Sceptics and non-sceptics
The researchers also classified people as sceptical if they
disagreed with the official reason given for war, ridding
Iraq of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
The results showed there were far fewer sceptics in the US
than in Germany and Australia. And that such sceptics were
less likely to believe statements that they knew had been
retracted than those people classified as non-sceptical.
"The main finding about suspicion is confirming what we have
known for quite a while from laboratory studies," says
Lewandowsky.
"People do not discount corrected information unless they
are suspicious about it or unless they are given some other
hypothesis with which to interpret the information."
He says this has important implications in the judicial
system where judges often instruct juries to disregard
certain information.
"It turns out that jurors don't disregard information even
if they are directed to do so unless they are being made
suspicious about why the information was actually used in
the first place. So, exactly what we found."
False memories
The study also supports certain theories about the formation
of false memories, says Lewandowsky.
"The constant hinting at WMDs was sufficient to make some
people believe that they have been found," he says.
Lewandowsky says the study confirmed previous findings that
around 30% of US respondents say weapons of mass destruction
have been found in Iraq since the war started.
By contrast, he says, only 17% of Australians and only 5% of
Germans believe this was the case.
"Given that that is in fact not true, given that none has
ever been discovered, we would classify those responses as a
false memory," says Lewandowsky.
He can't explain why this is the case but thinks that
scepticism may also play a role.
"Overall, our scientific understanding of human memory
reveals it as a device that is prone to considerable error
and distortion," says Lewandowsky, referring to other
research on the ability of victims to remember perpetrators
of a crime.
"Even when they are not being actively manipulated, there is
consistent evidence that people often mistakenly identify
'perpetrators' from a line-up of entirely innocent people."
http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1316359.htm
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1587154838/thedanclorenecro/
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-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
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