Do humans form false memories? According to a Northwestern study that applies magnetic resonance imaging to pinpoint the brain’s false memory regions, the answer is yes.

“Our motivation is to understand the basic organization of memory functions within the brain,” said psychology Prof. Paul Reber, co-investigator of the study.

Despite its real-world limitations, the study is the first to point to specific areas of the brain responsible for false memories and gives a deeper understanding of the encoding process involved in creating memories.

About two years ago, Reber collaborated with five other researchers to monitor brain activity of 11 paid adult participants at the Feinberg School of Medicine.

The results of the experiment recently were released in the October issue of the journal Psychological Science.

The experiment consisted of two phases.

In the first phase, participants were placed in an MRI machine and were asked to read simple words — some paired with pictures, some without. In the second phase subjects were asked what they remembered.

On average, about one-third of the time, the subjects claimed they saw a picture of the object when in fact they had only imagined it, according to the study.

“We were interested in comparing real memories with memories for imagined events,” said psychology Prof. Ken Paller, a co-investigator of the study.

“Imagined events are sometimes misremembered as if they really happened because a vivid visual image can leave a memory trace in the brain very similar to that of a visual perception,” he continued. “Our research showed that particular brain events are essential for the type of false memories that were produced.”

The study substantiates previous research by demonstrating that memory is fundamentally unreliable and subject to distortion.

Researchers emphasized that the study’s results are relevant only for a group of individuals and that it would be premature to use the same approach to test the validity of one memory, such as that of an eyewitness testifying in court.

“I don’t think we’ve developed the techniques that make it that sensitive,” said radiology Prof. Todd Parrish, co-investigator and contributor to the study.

Parrish also said that further studies of memory formation could lead to methods of treatment for neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

“You’d certainly want to know why a memory went bad,” he said. “If you can identify where it breaks down, it would be useful.”

Reach Ilya Bunimovich at [email protected].