Latest / Art of the Question / Why Memories Are More Fragile Than You Think - Celine van Golde - #6
Transcript
- speaker-0: When did you first become interested in memory and how it works? speaker-1: So memory actually quite a long time ago. Even though I'm an academic in psychology now, I started off with a law degree and wasn't quite what I anticipated that it was going to be. But one of my electives was in legal psychology and specifically how people's memories, witness memories and suspects memories could be changed by the way that we ask questions. And that is when I started to get really interested in it. So then I swapped to psychology, ⁓ did all my degrees in there. And it's always been focused on memory because I think it's such a intriguing and conceptually super interesting topic where everybody has a memory and everybody has an opinion about their memory. regardless of everybody's own opinion, we see that memory goes in very specific ways and that it goes always not how a lot of laypeople anticipate it to go. It's not like this direct video recording of what we've actually experienced, of what we witnessed. It's like this reconstruction from a lot of different sources every time that we try to recall it. so it started off within a legal context that I became really interested in memory and kind of proceeded from then onwards. speaker-0: Yeah, and you immediately touch on one of the things I would really like to discuss further today, which is I believe when people think about the concept of memory, when they think about their own memories, often probably they would describe it as some sort of recording device. It's like taking a picture, taking a snapshot, taking a video perhaps, but that's not at all. how our memory works based on my understanding in preparing this conversation. Can you maybe elaborate on why that is false? speaker-1: Absolutely, yeah. So a lot of people believe that our memory works like a little bit like the video recorder on your phone. Like when we're observing something, when we're experiencing something, your eyes are like the lens from your camera and it gets recorded and then stored in your brain. And so when we try to recall what has happened then, so either we want to talk to friends or family or just want to recall it for ourselves, a lot of people believe our memory works a little bit like Netflix where... You just have to find the right episode, fast forward the screen to the scene that you want to describe, you pause the screen and then in detail you can describe everything that you can see. that is unfortunately, indeed, as you said yourself, that's not how memory works. So memory for autobiographical events, so things that we've experienced over time or episodic memory, like specific events that we've experienced, is actually reconstructive. And this means every time that we try to recall something, we'll reconstruct what has happened. And there's a lot of different factors that will impact how and what we will recall. So there always, of course, will be details that are correct and that we've actually experienced. But then at the same time, ⁓ different factors like who we're talking to will determine what and how we will recall it. So the people that if it's... ⁓ our parents, will recall completely different details than if it's our friends or if it's our grandparents or if it's a police officer, but also how we feel at the time that we recall something. So if we're very happy, we will recall a memory in a lot more positive way than if we're very sad and we're trying to recall something. There's also other factors that have like impact on memory at different stages. So Our memory is the time at one of the first stages is encoding. So this is when we observe something and we encode that information into our brain. Now very obvious factors that will impact what we will encode is, for example, how far away we are from an event. If we're very far away, we're going to see less details than if we're very close by, or if it's very dark, we're not going to see as much than if it's very bright. But there's also less obvious factors, like for example, stress. or the age. know that children will encode a lot of different information from the same event than an adult will. And then you've got the stage of storage. So when it's stored in our brain and what we see is that with over time our memory decays naturally. This decay actually happens very rapidly. So within the first few hours, we already see that we forget about 60 % of all the details of an event that we've observed. ⁓ And then we keep the remaining like 30 % of plateaus out over time. ⁓ But it's also how we store it. for example, the schemas that we have are our expectations about a specific event will determine how we connect all the details in our brain together and the tag that we give to it. And that tag, for example, if we observe a car crash, it might be that we tag the event like The two cars crashing into each other, broken glass that you see, any injuries. All these details are tagged together in our brain under the overall name car crash. And then when we later on try to retrieve that information, we use that tag to recall all the details that are attached to that name. So how we tag it, how we connect all those details will influence what and how we recall. also like how we reconstruct it. And then of course, later on when we try to retrieve it, how we feel, who we're talking to, the type of questions that are asked, but also if we've encountered other information since we've experienced it. So if we've seen a newspaper article or we've spoken to someone else that observed it as well. So we see all these different stages, three different stages, all different factors will determine what we will encode, how we will store it, but then also what we will retrieve. and how we reconstruct it because we take little bits of information that have actually happened, but then also, for example, little bits of information, what we normally expect would happen during a car crash, they can fill in the gaps in our memory or the information that somebody else has told you that also witnessed it, but you didn't remember it. Like you take that information, fill in the gaps in your memory, and then it becomes this reconstruction of partly what you've experienced and partly from a lot of different sources. speaker-0: This is incredibly interesting and I'm very curious as to why our brains work like that. Is it something that is just simply how we have to reconstruct events in order to remember them, to produce electrical signals in our brain in order to bring that image up again? Or is it perhaps also more energy efficient to do it that way? I'm not sure if there's an answer to that question, but I'm very curious if there is. Yeah. speaker-1: I think depending on the researcher and the field that they're in, who you talk to, they come up with different explanations. But I very much feel like our brain is inherently lazy. And so the least amount of energy that it has to expend, if it can find little shortcuts, it will take it. ⁓ And on one hand, we could not remember, we cannot store every single piece of information that we ever encounter. It's just impossible. ⁓ I think like this, of course, still parts that are absolutely true, but you remember the main important parts, the details that you paid attention to, that you focused on, or that were important to the concept or the idea of the event that happens. The other surrounding details are not important. And so because you cannot just store everything because it would cost too much energy and there will be just too, like an information overload. And those are things that you keep forgetting. So it's not arbitrary, the details that you forget. Central details that you focus on, that's what you remember. But then of course, because within any type of situation, ⁓ I think very important and that is also like when we talk a little bit further about gaslighting, we have one of the amazing ways that we have in our functioning is what we call cognitive schemas. And so these are specific cognitive schemas or scripts or specific ⁓ constructs that we've built about events that we have either experienced before or we've come across before. And it is this cognitive construct of like the objects, people, conversations, actions that usually take place within that situation. So for example, we all have a cognitive script about when you in the morning go and order your takeaway coffee somewhere. We know that the barista is going to be there, it's going to be in the cafe. You know, the actions that happen, you go up there, you put in your order, you provide your name, you pay, you wait till they call your name, you pick up your coffee. So all of the objects, people are all there and you know what to expect. Now, if I am trying to tell you about like last week, Tuesday, when I went to get my coffee at the cafe, I use this script with these expectations to know, like to rely on, this is what usually happens on that Tuesday, this also happens. And we remember those like script consistent details quite easily. But it becomes more difficult when, for example, you ask me, what was the collar shirt that the barista was wearing that day? All of a sudden it's like, ⁓ well, they different shirt every single day. so... We see that our cognitive schema is one of those little shortcuts that we can use to recall certain things and to memorize certain things, because these are the actions that always happen. So in that way, is quite an easy, it is a shortcut and is an energy saving exercise. really sorry. Do you hear the squeaking in the background? Sorry, I'll just take the ball away from the dog because. speaker-0: can hear some squeaking speaker-1: Dog has found a squeaky... Sorry, beans? speaker-0: No worries, no worries. speaker-1: I don't know if you can filter that out, but. speaker-0: Yeah, I think we have some pretty decent, ⁓ audio, ⁓ noise, noise cancellation technologies. I think it should be, I think it should be, ⁓ should be totally fine, but better safe than sorry not to, ⁓ yeah. And, you know, what I, ⁓ we were discussing, ⁓ how our memories sometimes fill in, fill in the blanks and that it might be a way to. operate in a more energy efficient manner. And I've always wondered, I don't know if this story is true or whether it's a Bräucheverhaal as we would say in Dutch. But I've heard stories about people, for example, ⁓ just having normal regular memories for their entire lives. And then they would have some sort of accident, right? So they would have a car crash that involves some sort of brain. trauma, something that alters the brain. And all of a sudden they have a photographic memory, meaning they can, after that incident, recall every single thing that's happening. For example, the shirt of the barista you just mentioned, they would be able to recall the exact color and dot pattern of that shirt on that specific day. But the most interesting thing from this story, again, I don't know if it's true, is that they would also have a photographic memory for events prior to the accident, which would indicate that our brains actually store all of the information, but we just filter it out in order not to overwhelm ourselves. Is there any truth to that story or not at all? speaker-1: I like it all honesty as far as I know not, but just because I don't know about it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. What is interesting about photographic memory is that photographic memory is often for like, it's more like semantic memory for like facts and for when you read something and you can say, ⁓ I know that this word is on this page on that line. And it's like the fourth word. Like you can. recall a lot of those types of details. I have not as much heard, but again, that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, that photographic memory for like autobiographical events or like for live experiences. And that is one of the other things as well. Like the type of memory that I'm talking about is about live experiences, about episodes, like episodic memory. We know, for example, when you study for an exam, you study, you can rote learn. every single detail and you will remember every single detail. But that's of course different than experiencing a live event and then trying to recall that. So they're different types of memories and they're stored in different ways and we actually they function in different ways. One interesting fact though is that even people that have photographic memories can develop false memories. So it's not that they're immune towards like then starting to believe that something happened or that they saw something while it actually didn't happen because that is one part of like your memory being reconstructive. You can come to remember something that wasn't there. You can accept like information that's incorrect and slot that into the gaps of your own memory. And even people with photographic memories can actually... come to take on this misinformation and can develop false memories for certain things, which I find intriguing that even though they are so correct in so many things, you can still trick and their memory isn't flawless, so to say. speaker-0: Super interesting. that brings me to one of the, I think it's one of the most famous studies performed on memory, which is the one, ⁓ I believe it's from Loftus and... Roman? Yes. Thank you for filling in the blank in my memory. She... ⁓ Or what they did was they showed people footage of a car crash and then they asked certain questions about, for example, the speed that the car was driving. And what they found was that by asking the question in a certain way, they could influence the memories of the people they were asking, for example, about the speed of the car. what speed it was driving. If I remember correctly, if they would say ⁓ what speed was the car driving when it smashed into the other car, very strong language, right? They found that the estimated speed was much higher than when they asked which speed was the car driving when it bumped into the other car, some more softer language. So I thought that was super interesting in how by just asking a question in a certain fashion that we can influence the way people recall an event ⁓ that you were not even part of. speaker-1: Yes. And so yeah, in that classical study, the speed estimates change. And what was even more interesting, I found with that one as well, is that when they, so they, as exactly as you said, they gave higher speed estimates when words like crashed or crash issues versus are smashed versus collided or bombed. But then as well, people that were asked, and they only changed that one word, just the verb indicating like. smashing or crashing or bumping or hitting. But then people who were asked when they smashed into each other were also more likely to report seeing broken glass at the scene of the crash while that was actually never there. And that is again because it fits within your expectations of a car crash. Like surely there's going to be broken glass. So when they then afterwards were asked like, was there broken glass in the last part of the video, they were more likely to say yes than people. that were asked when they hit each other or bumped into each other. So it is not only is it your own subjective experience of what you see gets influence and your recall of it and your interpretation afterwards, but you actually start seeing things that weren't there because they make sense within your schema of a car crash. Yeah, it was really interesting study, like with a lot of those studies that were done earlier on and. If we look at how science has evolved over time and we see the replication crisis and that we need like, the effects might not be as strong when they try to replicate it, but we do see that questions can have this massive impact on what and how we recall things. And I think it has really driven a lot of the procedural guidelines, for example, by police and how they should interview witnesses because how easily can you change a witness interpretation or recollection of what something happens. and something that might initially not have been a crime, now all of a sudden becomes a crime because you asked a question in a certain way. speaker-0: Yeah. And that's exactly where I was going with this as well. A lot of ⁓ your work has also focused on ⁓ the judicial system in the courtrooms and memory in context of the courtroom. ⁓ Would you say that the people in the courtrooms, lawyers, judges, prosecutors have an accurate understanding of how our memory works? speaker-1: I think it's growing. I think it also depends on what level in the legal system that you are. ⁓ There's been a really big push in a lot of countries and of course I'm in Australia. So I, for example, train police officers and detectives on how memory works. So when they're talking to witnesses, but also to suspects and different types of witnesses and victims, like how they ask questions can actually change. the memories of the people that they're interviewing. I know that within the Netherlands, they do similar things where they get trained in how memory works. Judges also get trained, lawyers get trained, but like the specific nuances and how far it can go changes. I work together with a barrister, which is the equivalent to an offer card. And he's currently doing his PhD. And one of the things that he did is he actually surveyed judges within Australia from like the Supreme court, the high court, like all different types of judges. And he asked them a lot of different facts about like he put like, puts a lot of different facts about memory towards them. And then he asked them if they agreed or disagreed. And he saw that with a lot of these types of things and common misconceptions, judges were. quite aware of what the shortcomings of memories were. But when it became to the more nuanced things, they sometimes, yeah, were not quite following what the science has shown just yet. And on one hand, you cannot expect them to because of course their field and the work that they do doesn't necessarily always involve memory, even though it's often does, but you cannot always expect them to keep up to date with the most, yeah. most recent research, but it does show that we need more education and more awareness because exactly what we're doing can have such a big influence on how we treat the people within the legal system and can therefore have a really big outcome on if justice is being served, if you're going to get a right or wrongful conviction, but also potentially like damage done to witnesses and victims. speaker-0: Yeah, because I think discussing the research like we did, like we're doing is super interesting. But I think the goal of a lot of this research is also to have a more, to have a fair legal system. And obviously there's many ways how you can prove something in court, but still speak and, uh, testimonies, spoken testimonies are still a very important part of. improving facts in the courtroom. So I think that having an accurate understanding of how memory works, what its flaws are, is very important to have a legal system that we can trust and that we can, yeah, build on. speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. Because when I train the detectives within the police, even if you think about it, a lot of physical evidence is actually only circumstantial evidence. Just because your fingerprint is at the scene or just because your DNA is found at the scene of the crime or on a victim doesn't mean that you've committed a crime. It just means that you were there or that you were in contact with the victim or at the crime scene. an eyewitness testimony and someone saying like, that's the person that did it to me. That's not circumstantial. That's directly linking you to the crime. And not a lot of physical evidence, because even DNA evidence doesn't necessarily mean that you've committed a crime, but an eyewitness is the only one that can directly link you. And they're all relying on memory. So if we look at a lot of procedures that have been developed for physical evidence, like we see what you see on CSI and people go in there with their little like overalls in there. hair nets and little like thingies around their shoes to not contaminate a crime scene. We need to do a similar thing when it comes to collecting memory evidence. Like we need to try to not contaminate that evidence. So it becomes really important in establishing what they witnessed, how they witnessed it, but then also like how we ask questions to not contaminate their memories. speaker-0: Yeah. And an ill-posed question would, for example, be ⁓ if we just take the car crash example, if just, I would assume open questions, which is like similar to journalism. If you want to be truthful, you ask an open question, you say, what was the weather like rather than how warm was it that day? Which indicates implicates some sort of. sunniness or whatever, which is a stupid example for the weather, but I would assume it's similar. ⁓ speaker-1: That's why they always say start with free recall, like tell me everything what happens, even the little things like I wasn't there, even things that you might not think are that important, it can become very important, so everything that you can recall. And then you use open-ended prompts to follow up on specific things that people have mentioned. But it's exactly what you say because it can, there can be so many little suggestions, you can do it by like, ⁓ how warm was it? similar to like how fast they go when they hit each other. ⁓ But it can also be like even a suggestion to us like, that sounds like a very bad person. Like we want to make sure that never happens again. Like that already puts a lot of pressure, like emphasis that this person is guilty or that it's a bad person and then that might attain your recollection as well. So it can go so easily. And I have to say myself, like having studied this for years now and looking at what is the best way to interview. I'm the worst interviewer ever. It's really difficult not to ask a leading question or to put a suggestion in the question. And especially if you look at any social interaction, often it's almost that social glue that creates the social cohesiveness by providing a little bit of insight or a little bit of feeling in there, but that can actually be very leading or very suggestive. It's quite tricky. speaker-0: I completely agree. mean, it's not even that you're trying, if I'm interviewing someone to write a story, for example, I also try to ask open questions, but it doesn't always work. And that's not because you want to stare the article in a certain way. It's like you say, it's also because you have a certain expectation and you want to let the other person know that you thought about it. in a way and that you can imagine that it would be like X, Y, Z or whatever, is possibly, ⁓ which might be a social thing to do, but it might also contain, ⁓ contain, contain, ⁓ stain or whatever one's memory. Yeah. Super, super interesting. ⁓ If we, if we then move on to, to gas lighting, which is pretty much altering people's perception of a certain event or their memory. How would you define gaslighting? I believe one of your studies that you co-authored was around this very question, finding a definition on the word and why is it so important to have a good definition of this phenomenon. speaker-1: Yes. yeah, was, I co-authored that with a very brilliant now Dr. Lillian Dark. She just finished her PhD. So it's very impressive. And yeah, so like when we're talking about gaslighting, usually it's like, it's like a psychological form manipulation or like an emotional form of abuse. And we often see it within a broader context of one of the coercive controlling behaviors. So this is a technique that we use to keep control or to manipulate in a situation so we can keep control over the person or the situation. And what is often done is it's different types of techniques used to manipulate a person to make them doubt their own memory, doubt their own sanity. their own perceptions of reality, also about like anything technically about themselves, about what was said, what was done. And it is very, it is a manipulative technique. And the reason why we looked at the definition is because depending on where you are, and of course we looked at it within a legal context, because gaslighting can happen in any context. It can happen. work, it can happen between friends, and we looked at it within a romantic relationship specifically. But we often see it is this way for control and being able to define it in a certain way within that context is important when it comes to making sure that somebody can be charged and prosecuted for a crime. And gaslighting in itself is not a crime that you can't charge someone with within Australia, and I also don't believe it's in the Netherlands. ⁓ But it does fall as in one of the techniques of coercive control, which has since has been criminalized within Australia since June or July 2024. So it is ⁓ like one of the behaviors that falls in it. And this ⁓ pattern of this abusive behaviors doesn't have to be, can be all non-physical. And it is all these controlling types of behaviors. And I think the research that we did, it was very important to find out like how do victim survivors of gaslighting actually perceive it? What do they think are the important components? Because that can then actually help in prosecution, but also in treatment, in responses from society towards it, and also help them being recognized that this has happened to them. ⁓ I think definitions are really important as well because we often start overusing certain terminology. And I don't know if it's the same in the Netherlands, but in Australia, like gaslighting is such a popular word. It's like the word in any type of TV show or any type of reality. It's like, ⁓ my God, that person is gaslighting me. When you overuse it, you do take away the seriousness from it. And having proper definitions in specific contexts actually helps you maintain the impact that it has, the effect that it can have, and also then if you want to go further within treatment, within prosecution, to make sure that you can do that. So for that reason, it's important that we have these definitions that might slightly change in the context that you're in, but it is important to recognize those definitions. Sorry, I know that's a very like convoluted explanation. speaker-0: No, it's good. good. ⁓ I thought it was funny the origin of the word gaslighting because it's a pretty strange word. it came from, if I believe it came from a pretty old movie and a play. It was a play first and then it became a movie, I believe from this couple that was ⁓ the husband was trying to gaslight his wife. or manipulate his wife because she had this inheritance. She inherited a lot of money and he wanted to get her hands on his hands on that money by trying to, um, yeah, get her, um, institutionalized. That's the word I was looking for. So he wanted to make her think that she was crazy and That's why he started dimming the gas lights inside their home and just pretending that they were actually not dimmed at all. then that she, was hiding her keys and then he would say, well, you, you left them there. So all of a sudden he was chipping away at her, at her own recollection of, of all these events. And that is in a relational setting that. Is that also, are people in an intimate relationship more susceptible to being gaslit? speaker-1: So I think it's really interesting because he, course, he was gaslighting her, it was also towards a medical thing because he wanted her to believe she was going insane and he wanted to get her institutionalized. If you look at a lot of the gaslighting literature now, it's also like your sanity, but it's also like making doubt everything that's there and also that a person hasn't... ⁓ like hasn't done certain thing or hasn't said certain things. We've been looking into so with Lillian Dark again, we looked at friendships where we actually try to make them guess by each other. And we found that it wasn't necessarily specific attributes from the relationship that they had that was predicting how successful that they were. It was just like people were either susceptible, there were a couple of other ways, but. people did take on the suggestions from their partner, from their friends easily. I have recently been conducting some work with actual couples where we try to make them gaslight. Well, they actually are not aware, but we manipulate. It's quite complicated to explain. So yeah, we technically, they're not gaslighting each other. We are gaslighting them, but we are making them believe that they're doing it to each other. And then we're looking at, yeah, no. And then we're at the, if there are specific aspects of their romantic relationship. So how they feel about the power that they have in their relationship, how they feel like their relationship satisfaction in general, but we're also looking at other parts about like how they trust or distrust their own memories in general. ⁓ so we're still collecting the data. that is TBA. ⁓ but we like, there is something because if there is a person that you really trust and often that is your partner, like why it makes from a theoretical point of view, and that's what we're testing now, it makes sense that you would take on this like information if they say like, ⁓ No, you remember that wrong, that you're more likely to take that on than if it's a person that you have no relationship with whatsoever. We know, for example, from research that looks at acceptance of misinformation, so information that, ⁓ and even suggestions and questions, we are more likely to take that on from authority figures. ⁓ We also know people that we feel are higher in power, have more authority than us, we don't question that. We know from the relationship research a study that we did where we showed romantic couples only. We showed them a video of a traumatic event. It was of a child being hit by a car. But then unbeknownst to them, they watched two slightly different versions of it. And what they did within this video, so it was, for example, like if the car was going through a red light or if it was going through an amber light or if the car was going 80 kilometers an hour or 60 kilometers an hour. But there was also like some of the conversations. So the majority of the video was identical, but it was just certain details that were different. Afterwards, we made them talk to each other and just say like, hey, Like we made them answer a couple of questions about the video in which we actually made sure that they had to discuss, for example, the color of the lights that they went through, the traffic lights or the time that it was or anything like that. ⁓ then afterwards we made them then separately recall what had happened. And what we were interested in was to see, you accepting the information that your partner has seen, but that wasn't in your video? And then we looked at specific details from their relationship. like how much power that you feel you're having your relationship, if you like the closeness in the relationship, if that predicted, if you were more likely to take on the information that your partner had provided. And the really interesting finding that we had was that it was actually the people that felt they had more power were more likely to accept information from their partner that was not in their own videos. speaker-0: Mmm. speaker-1: So this was of course not gaslighting because these were, they were unaware that they had different videos. There was no intention, so that's separate to the study that we're running at the moment. So it was mostly to see like, you more likely to take on suggestions from your partner, from a romantic partner and other certain relationship qualities that will predict that. And it was completely against what we were expecting because we were thinking like, ⁓ if you feel like you've got less power and you've got... your partner is almost like an authority figure because they have more power than you, you will take on more misinformation that they provide. And it was the reverse. it was maybe, yeah, we were still like looking into how we can best explain this, but there is a suggestion that within relationships, you are potentially more likely to take on suggestions than if it's a complete stranger to you. So when it comes to gaslighting, you might actually be more inclined to. Yeah, to go along with your partner because it is your partner and you trust them and it is this person that provides you with all this information normally. So why would they lie to you or why would they do this to you? speaker-0: Yeah, and I don't know if this is utter nonsense or not, but I can also imagine that it has something to do with the fact that we as humans hate open loops, right? It's why television shows always end on a cliffhanger. It's why well-written books, page turners, why we can't put those down is because we hate it if we don't know what happens next or whether something was true or not. I can imagine that in order to close this open loop that now exists in our brains, the shirt green or was it blue? Was it green light, red light? This uncertainty that all of the sudden gets implemented, introduced rather in our brains, we can very easily kill that ambiguity just by accepting something that doesn't really align with how we memorized it, but at least we ended the uncertainty. That's it. speaker-1: Yeah. And I do find it interesting. So I can see like how you, especially if you have a blank in your memory, but like the super intriguing thing of course about gaslighting is that you have your own memory and now somebody is questioning it and is saying like, no, you are incorrect. We recently did a study ⁓ last year in Germany with a brilliant researcher, Ikhwan Zang, where we had couples and we asked them, about just because this comes to its definitions as well, where we think that gaslighting is overused. And what we often see is that in couples, it is often the case that you don't agree about something that has happened. Like you have a memory conflict. For example, like, I'm 100 % certain that we didn't have like, I don't know, potatoes for dinner on Wednesday, but my partner knows, no. 100 % this was potatoes and you just have a normal memory conflict and you like have a little chat about it because, should we eat potatoes again? Because we already had them on Wednesday, but we didn't have potatoes. what's a normal memory conflict, but when does it become gaslighting? When does it, is my partner then trying to convince me too much that it is? And so we're trying to figure out, ⁓ within partners where like, well, when do you interpret something as gaslighting and when do you interpret something as a memory conflict? And especially when it comes towards the definition of gaslighting. So we asked them to recall memory conflicts that they had with that partner and then judge if it was gaslighting or not. And I think when we look at that, it's like with the gaslighting, it's not like, ⁓ I just forgot it. It's like, it's really that they say like, no, I truly remember that this was sad. However, my partner was completely like, they were convinced it was the opposite and they wouldn't let it go. And they were like using all these techniques or like being really nasty about it, trying to convince me that it was otherwise. And I think that's the very intriguing thing about gaslighting where people come to take it on. Like even though they have their own memory and it is clear and they believe their own memory, but then they still go along with something. So it's not even closing a loop. It's like just. changing your whole story because it fits better within the, like, is it to keep the peace within your relationship? Is it, but it really changes their memory then, like they, they accept it. And that's the question, like, do they have now a new memory or do they just accept what their partner is saying to keep the peace and it never actually changes their memory? speaker-0: Well, wasn't that one of the conclusions of some of the studies you did or indications, maybe conclusion is too strong, but that the memories were permanently altered because when you were discussing with the couples or the friends and the memory debate ⁓ was someone said, no, I'm a hundred percent sure that it happened like this. You remember it wrong. And then after you interviewed them individually, and then the wrong, the false memory, they would still repeat the false memory. Even when their partner that was challenging them before or their friend wasn't in the room with them. speaker-1: And so then they integrated that information and it became part of their memory. And even if they previously said like, it was something different, they would still take it on. And that is like, but yeah, that's that thing. Like it's not, it's like, why do they accept it? Right? It's not closing the loop because they had something else there before. They spoken about something else there before, but now all of a sudden they just have changed that. And, Yeah, it's really, we're still like looking at what are different factors and personality traits that might predict actually that you will accept it or not, or that you might take it on within the discussion, but then later on not accept it. And because there's different stages as well, right? And there's even people that say like, ⁓ listen, I don't believe it has happened anymore. I still have the memory that it happens. but I don't believe it. So they have this non-believed memory now where they have their own memory, but because their partner has challenged that memory so much, they don't believe their own memories anymore. So it's, I find it super intriguing and it has like a lot of avenues to further investigate what exactly is going on. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. mean, that is, that sounds like a, that actually sounds like an open loop because now you have this new accepted reality and your own memory, which, ⁓ yeah, you might not always think about it, but they are competing, which sounds annoying to me for sure. speaker-1: Driving you like crazy probably. speaker-0: Yeah. let me, yeah, how does this, ⁓ we've talked about the judicial system before in terms of memory. Is this research into gas lighting, ⁓ is that also very relevant for the courtrooms and potentially the judicial system? speaker-1: ⁓ I think so. As I briefly mentioned before, gaslighting is one of the techniques within coercive control. And coercive control is now criminalized within New South Wales and Australia and other states are also in different areas trying to make this a crime or ensuring that coercive control becomes a crime. you have to prove that there was this pattern of behavior, of manipulated behavior. So you need to be able to identify it and to be able to identify it, needs to be like a good definition within the legal context. And then at the same time, it's like, because it's so insidious, because that's another problem that we have at this point. And this is not just with gaslighting, but if we look just at coercive control is that The schemas that I spoke about before is they help us remember things right. If you look at coercive controlling behaviors, they're often non-physical forms of abuse. They're like psychological abuse, emotional abuse, but they can be very insidious. So for example, like, ⁓ I wouldn't go out with your friends tonight. Remember last time they let you down or they arrived very late or they didn't show up. So like, I really love you. Like, let's just spend time together. And by doing that and keep on doing that, you technically socially isolate your partner and they don't have that social support anymore because they don't go out with their friends or making comments about how they rest and preventing them from dressing in certain way, tracking them on their phone to always see where they're going. And if you look at each incident by itself, it's like, okay, just my partner saying like, don't go out, stay home with me. Is that really so bad? Like not really. Or like, ⁓ I'm... wouldn't wear that if I were you. And like, what kind of image do you want to like, portray there? Like, okay, it's a bit of a like dicky comment, but at the same time, like, yeah, of course he's my partner. Like, they are allowed to give their opinion about what I'm wearing. And what we see is that if we look at, but if this goes on and this is repeated and this is this pattern, you actually are restricting a lot of freedoms that a person has and you gain control over their social life about like, a lot of their aspects of their personality and who they are, which is a crime. But if we look at our schemas that we have for abuse or like an abusive relationship or domestic family violence, we often only think about physical violence. It's not a lot of the time that we think about like, ⁓ yeah, a person making comments about how I look, like we don't necessarily have that readily in our schemas. And so when we then later on try to remember it, because we don't have these schemas that help us recall these things, it becomes really difficult to identify what has happened. And then when you talk to the police and you're like, ⁓ like, yeah, he was very nasty to me. I'm sorry that I use gender language now, but we know that often it is. but my partner was very, very nasty to me, then it becomes really difficult to remember the specific incidences, to report a specific incident and to charge it. So, and gaslighting is one of them because if, is it just a memory conflict? Is it gaslighting? Did it really happen? Didn't it happen? So it becomes really important within a legal context that we understand how it works and also understand if people, how they recognized it, how they interpret it. And also that they don't interpret like just normal behavior as gaslighting because it can also go like the flip side of course with that as well. And that is even beyond the gaslighting that legal practitioners can do to like clients or victims to get them to do a certain thing. like, yeah, I do think it's very important within a legal context, especially if we're going to move towards making these things crimes and criminalizing specific behaviors, we need to understand what it actually does to people and how they are able to recall or talk about it later on because otherwise it's nice that it's a crime, but if nobody can actually report it because they can't, they don't interpret it properly or don't recall it, then is it serving a purpose to make it a crime? speaker-0: Yeah. And I would, I mean, this might be very difficult because the whole point of gaslighting is that your memory is being altered, that you get a different perception of the way things went down. But can people, are there ways for people to recognize when they're being gaslit? Are there certain giveaways that people can look for if they're thinking I'm my partner might be gaslighting me or my boss might be gaslighting me? Are there some ⁓ red flags to look out for? speaker-1: Because it's such a minute, like it depends of course how successful that the gas lighter is. But I would always like, especially when it comes down, when it's always challenging about a specific event. So when your boss is always challenging you about something that you've done or that you haven't done, or if your partner is about certain conversations, actually take notes for yourself. Start taking notes about those specific situations that later on when they challenge you, that they. that you can go back to your notes and say like, no, wait a minute, I took these notes when it happened at the time that it was happening. And I for a fact know that that's not the case. I think this is why they always say within the work context as well, like put everything in writing. Because as soon as it's in writing, becomes really, it's timestamped when you send your email becomes really difficult to argue against. So even if you've had a conversation with your boss and it was just like a chat in the hallway or whatever, follow up with an email, say like, hey, just summarizing what we discussed, point one, two, three, and then later on it becomes, so this is when you have an uneasy feeling or when you start to doubt like what's going on here, I get challenged all the time. When it comes to relationships, just take a note in your phone, ⁓ voice note, write it down or even on a piece of paper so that later on, You can just see like, they always challenging me? Is it also like ⁓ a genuine memory conflicts or are they actually trying to manipulate me into a certain way or try to like make themselves look better or me look worse or anything like that? Because it's very context dependent. Like we have natural memory conflicts, but it's good to look at what is the intended outcome of the person that's challenging your memory or your sense of reality. speaker-0: Yeah, and we've talked a lot about gaslighting in relationships, but you now also mentioned perhaps in a work setting, is that something perhaps from the research or some other studies that ⁓ gaslighting is also being reported a lot on the work floor? speaker-1: Yes, so there's quite a lot of research that looks indeed at workplace gaslighting. There's also medical gaslighting when it comes to words like diseases and ⁓ treatments and training of, sorry, interactions. But we see at work, it's a big thing as well because it's especially something that, because it's so insidious and it can go, it's difficult to notice and to... to put it down and we see especially when it comes to actions and responsibilities and taking responsibility, but also when it's a form of workplace bullying. there is quite a lot of, I haven't done it myself, but there is quite a lot of research as well into like gaslighting within the workplace. And we see it everywhere. It's like trying to create this sense of reality, making people doubt their own actions, their own memories, their own like perceptions of what happened in order to gain something from it. speaker-0: Yeah, think most people, I hope not, but I know for myself at least, have experienced forms of gaslighting at work. And also because there's a power dynamic, not just a one-way power dynamic, but you have, depends on the organization, but you have like the boss boss, and then you have a manager and then maybe you're underneath that manager. So I strongly recall. ⁓ from one of my previous employers, a situation where I had to look at something and then come to a certain conclusion, draw conclusion from the document. And I had my conclusion and then the manager that was working above me came to a different conclusion. And then we took it to the big boss to ⁓ present our conclusions. And then during that meeting, when ⁓ this colleague of mine started to get the feeling that I had been right, and ⁓ they presented it as if it was their opinion and if I was the ⁓ one that got it all wrong and yeah, basically gaslit me into, ⁓ no, that's not what you said at all. That was my opinion, not your conclusion. ⁓ So you feel very powerless when that happens. And I can imagine that it must be very annoying and traumatizing even if that happens, not just the ones like it did to me, but perhaps on a daily ⁓ basis. speaker-1: And then of course, like if we look the study that we've done with Lily and Doug, that was as well, we looked at how, victims thought was important because they often think like intention of course, ⁓ well, the legal, intention is important. So it only becomes a crime if you intend to do it. But then within the victim survivors. group, it becomes less about the intention and more about the outcome. And within yours, was the intention to try to make you believe that it didn't happen or just to present it to your boss boss that it didn't happen that way? And does it even matter? Because in the end, the outcome is the same. You feel powerless, they're stealing your idea, they're making you doubt, like, wait a minute, did this actually happen? Even though maybe they didn't intend for you, they just wanted your boss to believe it. that this is also when definitions become important. is intention and in which direction that the intention goes, is that important for your definition or is the outcome enough? how this happens and that it makes you doubt your own recollections of the conversations that you had beforehand. So yeah, I find that really intriguing and I am still like, yeah, investigating all of it. speaker-0: Yeah. And I mean, it would have helped if I would have written it down because I think that serves two purposes. One of them is obviously evidence-based. Like, hey, I wrote this down. I can't go back in time and change what I wrote down. But another one is also what we discussed in the beginning is that our memories quickly start to fade after a few hours even, right? speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. that's the thing is like they say it in general with any eyewitness situation type thing. As soon as you see something before you chat to anyone else, just write down for yourself what happens, because that's the most accurate recollection that you'll ever get immediately after. And that is like, if you know that it protects your memory as well, because it's actually been shown if you do one of those immediate recall. exercises, it actually protects you later on as well towards accepting misinformation. So you're less likely to accept misinformation for certain details, especially if you put them in your initial recall. that's can, so for that within gaslighting potentially could, I don't think we've looked at that yet. ⁓ At least I haven't, maybe other people have, but like if that immediate recall could potentially protect you against gaslighting. ⁓ exercises. And at the same time, it could be that for yourself, it's like, it's there. You've got it. It's your memory. Like if they question your memory, no, this is what I've done. This is what I remembered at that point in time. So I can go back towards that. speaker-0: Yeah. And speaking of immediate recall, I know this has probably not nothing to do with gaslighting, but I read that you also worked on an app called eyewitness, which has something to do with which solidifier or I don't know if that's, if, ⁓ it's not. Okay. It's a sensitive topic, but it was, it had something to do with immediate recall. speaker-1: There's brilliant researchers in the UK, Lorraine Hope and Fiona Gabbard, and they have a self-administered interview and it's based on immediate recall. And so what they did was, ⁓ this was for police when it gets to the scene of the crime, they need to do so many different things and they don't have time to talk to all the witnesses. So they hand out these paper booklets and then ask people to fill in, like it's a guided... questions like, what happened? Can you talk about like the context? Can you talk about the people present? Can you talk about, and then it is for them to just put everything down as quickly as possible. And they've seen that it really helps with determining who is a witness that can be more useful for the investigation than others, because some people just didn't even pay attention. They were like checking their phone and they didn't only hurt the commotion afterwards, or they only came They arrived like when everything had already happened. But besides from that, they've shown in a lot of different research projects that people recall more details. They recall it for a longer period of time and they're less likely to accept misinformation. ⁓ it's great. And they work with a lot of different police ⁓ forces in the UK, but also around the world ⁓ with their self-administered interview. It's really good. speaker-0: That's amazing. Is there anything regarding memory or gaslighting that we haven't touched on that would still be interesting to briefly discuss? speaker-1: so yeah, the only other thing, and this is, but I don't know. I conducted a study last year in Germany again. and, but I don't quite remember the results. haven't written it up yet. ⁓ but we looked at if certain personality traits were more likely to recognize something as gaslighting when it happened to them. ⁓ but yeah, so more likely to say like, ⁓ they're gaslighting me, but then less likely to say if they were doing it to someone else. So, and we specifically looked at dark triads and narcissism and, but I can't exactly remember what it was. it is, it is interesting to see that with gaslighting because there is already this sometimes misconception because when is it a memory conflict? When is it gaslighting? When does it go into abuse and how different people might interpret it? Like I really like as well the interpretation of certain situations and that people can just interpreted as something very benign or something very offensive against them and that is then depending on their personality traits. But yeah, that doesn't really like add anything to the discussion. speaker-0: No, that's fine. You briefly, there was another study in the works at the moment. speaker-1: So we're testing at the moment and that's where we technically try to make people not believe their own memories anymore. The couples, romantic couples, but we're pretending that it's the couples doing it to each other, but it's actually us as experimenters doing it to each other. speaker-0: You become the gaslighters for science. speaker-1: For science, absolutely, and all ethically approved. Making sure that we don't cause too much distress to our participants. speaker-0: That's great. Well, I'll be in the look out for sure. If people want to want to keep up ⁓ with the studies, where can they go if they want to follow your work? speaker-1: ⁓ So it's on ResearchGate. ⁓ I don't know if people are familiar with that. Google Scholar, that's where they once they, well, the pre-registrations where we say what we're going to do and how we're going to do it to promote open science ⁓ will be there. And then also once it's published, it's on there and ResearchGate just has a little bit about the different projects that we're working on. speaker-0: Well, Celine, was incredibly interesting. I really, really enjoyed it. And yeah, thank you so much for your time, and I hope we'll speak again in the future. speaker-1: Yeah, can give you an update on the outcomes of the other studies. speaker-0: Yeah, I'd love to. Thank you, Astrid. speaker-1: Thank you for having me.