Can you point me to some links on implanting false memories?

Yep. Our memories are fictions. I’ll try to dig up some really interesting articles later. But I’ll recommend Elizabeth Loftus. She’s been studying and speaking about memory for years. Here’s a brief interview with her, as well as a TED talk.

As for your question of how being a skeptic may or may not make us less prone to memory implantation – I am not sure it can. We can only be more aware of the fact that our memories are not a replay of past events. They are present creations that are reassembled and manipulated during every “recall”.

We’re learning about this and Elizabeth Loftus in my General Psych class right now.
It’s a form of hypnosis. We watched this video in class, which shows an example of it happening and him explaining his process, even though it’s more for entertainment.

When I googled, the only scientist’s name that came up is Elizabeth Loftus. What I am not seeing is the evidence that she used to show that the memories are false. I am also not seeing anything about the results being replicated by other scientists. Did I mention that I am a skeptic? The conclusion seems plausible, but I would like to know more about how it was arrived at and more about any experiments where false memories were deliberately created.

I can’t give you any information about a study, and nothing about implanting a false memory, but, but I can tell you about my personal experience with being brainwashed, and I’m sure there are similarities. I used to have an abusive person in my life. He would do something terrible to me, and then deny it happened, and then he’d do it again and again. It sounds stupid to me now, but then I was so traumatized and so vulnerable I ended up trying to believe him. I actually cooperated with him so I believed that this thing didn’t happen. I avoided thinking about it, sort of like building a wall around it in my mind. But it was always there, under the surface.

Eventually I had to avoid thinking about all the things that led up to thinking about it (sort of like building a second wall around the first), and this went on and on until I had built so many walls I had trouble finishing sentences.

Decades later my abuser has cleaned up his act and I have healed from my past, but those were painful, scary years.

There was an experiment done about eyewitness testimonies after seeing a car crash. The questions that the “policeman” asked were swayed and it showed in the eyewitnesses’ responses. For instance, the eyewitnesses estimated a higher mph when the policeman said “How fast was the car going when it smashed into the other vehicle?”, and the eyewitnesses estimated a lower mph when the policeman asked “How fast was the car going when it bumped into the other vehicle?”
We watched a video on a reenactment of the experiment in class and I can’t find the video, so all I have is this really long article on it. I’ll keep looking for the video.
I think this is the official scientific report on it.

I think it really depends on the person and how their own personal recall works. For instance. I can remember certain memories with almost total recall, but not everything. I can remember from my perspective and I do not recall colors. I can recall what was said and where it was said, and maybe other events associated with the day, and important people (to me) of that were present, but I don’t usually remember the temperature of the room, and how it felt to be cold or hot. I do also remember sounds, music and smells. I do not remember facial expressions of those present or how young or old they look. The memories of faces of love ones that I remember at a certain age are usually related to photos I remember seeing. And I can remember if someone was angry or sad if that was the main focus of the memory.
For example. I can remember at 4 being a flower girl at my uncles wedding. I don’t remember the practices, nor the ceremony. I remember wearing the dress for the first time and how beautiful it was. I felt special. I remember trying to make friends with the other flower girl and the ring bearer. He was very nice and she was very mean. I was scared of her. She was much taller than me and said some hateful things. She wanted the little boy to like her and not me.

I remember being hungry and sleepy at the reception at the wedding and asking my uncle to marry me. LOL He spoiled me and of course I adored it. I remember waking up and finding someone had taken my dress and put my pjs on. I was very upset.
I don’t remember the weather at all. At least I don’t think so. I believe it snowed but I’m not sure. One minute my mom says it was summer and the next she says it was winter and my dad had to take my coat to me and take a cab home.
So I would think, if I went to a therapist and remembered details that I do not normally remember, like expressions of other people, and the exact number of people in a group, or the weather and how it felt. Than I would wonder if it was a dream. I can often remember dream details better than reality.

For instance. My dream memory of my first fall. I remember being on a cliff and each of my siblings falling off a cliff. We had no reason to fall that I can remember, only that the option of staying on the cliff was not an option and we were afraid. Each sibling jumped and I landed on top of my 4th sibling. I survived without and injury and my brother before me was injured but not dead. Everyone else was dead. I can remember the fear as clear as day and how broken hearted I was. I didn’t want to jump but they made the sacrifice so I could live. I was maybe about 8 to 10 when I had that dream. I remember the winds wiping around the cliff, and the dark clouds and the fall that almost seemed endless. The fear of falling and thinking that I wouldn’t want to live alone and wondering where were my parents. So my point is that I never remember reality that clear. And obviously we never fell off a cliff.

At 13 I even remember a boy I liked coming onto me and kissing me. I thought I disliked him till I had this dream and it made me see him in a different light. However, he never kissed me and was interested in my friend and not me in the least. I remember every detail. It was so romantic and passionate. Now my first real passionate kiss, I remember where and what time of year. I only remember details of my own feelings reeling in my head. Not his. I remember what he said and how he approached but not colors nor his face. I remember I liked it a lot but not the intimate details like my dream version. I remember being flustered and losing all sense of control. Hormones were raging and my brain took a vacation.

Sorry this is long. But I often wondered if maybe implanted memories worked like dreams. Too much details about surrounding stuff or if maybe it is just how my memory works.

I am by no means an expert on memory, but there are some things that I know.

The old view that memories are like photographic snapshots is not correct. Memories are reconstructed. That is why we can recall some details and not others.

Our brains apparently create links between memories, so that remembering one thing can help us remember something that is related. We also try to simplify things by creating patterns of memories. This leads into the idea of cognitive dissonance. When we have memories of two conflicting views of something, there is a tendency for our brains to make changes so that the two remembered events are consistent. This can be a source of prejudices and false memories, but it can also be a defense against planting false memories. We naturally resist believing something that is inconsistent with what we know from experience.