“Luke, I Am Your Father”: The Formation of False Memories

You must have heard the famous phrase attributed to Darth Vader in Episode V of the Star Wars saga, revealing to Luke Skywalker that he was his father: "Luke, I am your father." However, the fact is that this phrase was never said in this way. From a quick search on YouTube, it is possible to find the original scene of the film, in which it is possible to observe that the phrase spoken by Darth Vader, in fact, is: “No, I am your father." This is not an isolated example. Another case is found in the animated movie Snow White. Some people imagine that the phrase spoken by the Queen when talking to her mirror begins with the expression: "Mirror, mirror" when, in fact, in the 1937 Disney movie, the phrase uttered by the Queen begins, "Magic mirror on the wall."

This phenomenon is known as Mandela Effect and is characterized by the formation of false collective memories, in which many people share the same mistaken memory. It is unknown who proposed the term “Mandela Effect." But this name is due to the false memory that some people have that the South African leader, who died in 2013 at the age of 95, died in the 1980s while in prison. But why do we form these false memories? First, it is important to highlight that the Mandela Effect has nothing to do with paranormal experiences or the existence of parallel worlds, as suggested in some discussions in internet forums.

Memory is usually understood as a storage location. This model is also quite popular for common sense as memory is frequently compared with information storage devices, such as hard drives or flash drives. This model for understanding memory has some limitations. One is that it does not reflect the nature of mnemonic processes. With a computer hard drive, for example, the saved information is literally 100% recovered; that is, it is recovered in the same way as when it is stored. However, when one analyzes human memory, the "saved" information is not literally 100% recovered. There is lost information, distortions, and the creation of new memories.

It was in this sense that Elizabeth Loftus, an American psychologist, introduced the concept of false memory. In her studies (Loftus, 1997, 2002) she deals with the influence of false memories in judicial contexts, taking into account that the creation of false memories is strongly influenced by imagination, beliefs, and social influence. Even if we don't realize it, we are constantly creating memories of facts that didn't exist, based on suggestions that we receive all the time from the environment.

One of the elements that can contribute to the formation of false memories is the discourse of other people that is reproduced in many situations, giving meaningfulness even when the information is false. Then, the mass sharing of misinformation can shape people’s memories. After a while, people tend to remember the misinformation as something real. This feature of forming false memories is reported in social suggestion experiments (Loftus et al., 1996), in which people tended to create a false memory event a little while after being exposed to a suggestion (false event reported by other people).

Returning to the examples at the beginning of this post, the formation of false memories can be attributed to the constant repetition of the misinformation in various places in an intense way. For example, the phrase, "Luke, I am your father" seems to be more meaningful and impactful than "No, I am your father." So, the phrase “Luke, I am your father” may have started to circulate much more frequently than the original phrase, making people remember it as if it were real. The same reason can be attributed to the case of the Queen in Snow White, but in this case, there is one more element: Although the phrase spoken in the Disney film starts with “Magic mirror on the wall ...” in the original German text written by the Grimm brothers, the expression used is “spieglein, spieglein," which is “mirror, mirror” in English. It is observed that “mirror, mirror" also appears in English translations of the story, as in the Red Fairy Book edited by Andrew Lang. In this sense, it seems that the expression used in the original translation of the book became more significant and at a given time it was assigned to the Disney movie. Once again, people's discourse plays a role in contributing to and reinforcing the formation of the false memory, as more and more individuals believe and claim that “mirror, mirror" is said in the movie.

It is important to consider that for the reasons presented above, people are constantly susceptible to creating false memories. It is difficult to find a way not to create them. People naturally modify what they remember from the meanings they build in and of the world under the influence of other people’s discourse. That is why it is important to always check any type of information by looking for reliable sources and by always questioning the information. After all, a lie told a thousand times can become a false memory.