way in which we store the context and interpretation of an event. strength hypothesis the strength hypothesis states that in strong situations (situations where one course of action is encouraged more than any other course of action due to the objective payoff) people are expected to demonstrate rational behavior, basing their behavior on the objective payoff. an example of this is the laws of a country. most of its citizens, no matter how daring, will conform to these laws, because the objective payoff is personal safety. construction hypothesis the construction hypothesis says that if a true piece of information being provided can alter a respondent's answer, then so can a false piece of information. construction hypothesis has major implications for explanations on the malleability of memory. upon asking a respondent a question that provides a presupposition, the respondent will provide a recall in accordance with the presupposition (if accepted to exist in the first place). the respondent will recall the object or detail. skeleton theory loftus developed what some refer to as "the skeleton theory" after having run an experiment involving 150 subjects from the university of washington. loftus noticed that when a presupposition was one of false information it could only be explained by the construction hypothesis and not the strength hypothesis. loftus then stated that a theory needed to be created for complex visual experiences where the construction hypothesis plays a significantly more important role than situational strength. she presented a diagram as a "skeleton" of this theory, which later became referred to by some as the skeleton theory. the skeleton theory explains the procedure of how a memory is recalled, which is split into two categories: the acquisition processes and the retrieval processes. the acquisition processes are in three separate steps. first, upon the original encounter, the observer selects a stimulus to focus on. the information that the observer can focus on compared to all of the information occurring in the situation as a whole, is very limited. in other words, a lot is going on around us and we only pick up on a small portion. this forces the observer to begin by selecting a focal point for focus. second, our visual perception must be translated into statements and descriptions. the statements represent a collection of concepts and objects; they are the link between the event occurrence and the recall. third, the perceptions are subject to any "external" information being provided before or after the interpretation. this subsequent set of information can reconstruct the memory. the retrieval processes come in two steps. first, the memory and imagery are regenerated. this perception is subject to what foci the observer has selected, along with the information provided before or after the observation. second, the linking is initiated by a statement response, "painting a picture" to make sense of what was observed. this retrieval process results in either an accurate memory or a false memory. natural factors for the formation of false memories individual differences greater creative imagination and dissociation are known to relate to false memory formation. creative imagination may lead to vivid details of imagined events. high dissociation may be associated with habitual use of lax response criteria for source decisions due to frequent interruption of attention or consciousness. social desirability and false memory have also been examined. social desirability effects may depend on the level of perceived social pressure. individuals who feel under greater social pressure may be more likely to acquiesce. perceived pressure from an authority figure may lower individuals' criteria for accepting a false event as true. the new individual difference factors include preexisting beliefs about memory, self-evaluation of one's own memory abilities, trauma symptoms, and attachment styles. regarding the first of these, metamemory beliefs about the malleability of memory, the nature of trauma memory, and the recoverability of lost memory may influence willingness to accept vague impressions or fragmentary images as recovered memories and thus, might affect the likelihood of accepting false memory. for example, if someone believes that memory once encoded is permanent, and that visualization is an effective way to recover memories, the individual may endorse more liberal criteria for accepting a mental image as true memory. also, individuals who report themselves as having better everyday memories may feel more compelled to come up with a memory when asked to do so. this may lead to more liberal criteria, making these individuals more susceptible to false memory. there is some research that shows individual differences in false memory susceptibility are not always large (even on variables that have previously shown differences—such as creative imagination or dissociation), that there appears to be no false memory trait, and that even those who have highly superior memory are susceptible to false memories. trauma a history of trauma is relevant to the issue of false memory. it has been proposed that people with a trauma history or trauma symptoms may be particularly vulnerable to memory deficits, including source-monitoring failures. possible associations between attachment styles and reports of false childhood memories were also of interest. adult attachment styles have been related to memories of early childhood events, suggesting that the encoding or retrieval of such memories may activate the attachment system. it is more difficult for avoidant adults to access negative emotional experiences from childhood, whereas ambivalent adults access these kinds of experiences easily. consistent with attachment theory, adults with avoidant attachment styles, like their child counterparts, may attempt to suppress physiological and emotional reactions to activation of the attachment system. significant associations between parental attachment and children's suggestibility exist. these data, however, do not directly address the issue of whether adults' or their parents' attachment styles are related to false childhood memories. such data nevertheless suggest that greater attachment avoidance may be associated with a stronger tendency to form false memories of childhood. sleep deprivation sleep deprivation can also affect the possibility of falsely encoding a memory. in two experiments, participants studied drm lists (lists of words that are semantically associated with a non-presented word) before a night of either sleep or sleep deprivation; testing took place the following day. one study showed higher rates of false recognition in sleep-deprived participants, compared with rested participants. sleep deprivation can increase the risk of developing false memories. specifically, sleep deprivation increased false memories in a misinformation task when participants in a study were sleep deprived during event encoding, but did not have a significant effect when the deprivation occurred after event encoding. false memory syndrome main article: false memory syndrome false memory syndrome is defined as false memory being a prevalent part of one's life in which it affects the person's mentality and day-to-day life. false memory syndrome differs from false memory in that the syndrome is heavily influential in the orientation of a person's life, while false memory can occur without this significant effect. the syndrome takes effect because the person believes the influential memory to be true. however, its research is controversial and the syndrome is not included in the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. false memory is an important part of psychological research because of the ties it has to a large number of mental disorders, such as ptsd. false memory can be declared a syndrome when recall of a false or inaccurate memory takes great effect on a person's life. such a false memory can completely alter the orientation of one's personality and lifestyle. psychiatry therapists who subscribe to recovered memory theory point to a wide variety of common problems, ranging from eating disorders to sleeplessness, as evidence of repressed memories of sexual abuse. psychotherapists tried to reveal "repressed memories" in mental therapy patients through "hypnosis, guided imagery, dream interpretation and narco-analysis". the reasoning was that if abuse couldn't be remembered, then it needed to be recovered by the therapist. the legal phenomena developed in the 1980s, with civil suits alleging child sexual abuse on the basis of "memories" recovered during psychotherapy. the term "repressed memory therapy" gained momentum and with it social stigma surrounded those accused of abuse. the "therapy" led to other psychological disorders in persons whose memories were recovered. memories recovered through therapy have become more difficult to distinguish between simply being repressed or having existed in the first place. therapists have used strategies such as hypnotherapy, repeated questioning, and bibliotherapy. these strategies may provoke the recovery of nonexistent events or inaccurate memories. a recent report indicates that similar strategies may have produced false memories in several therapies in the century before the modern controversy on the topic which took place in the 1980s and 1990s. according to loftus, there are different possibilities to create false therapy-induced memory. one is the unintentional suggestions of therapists. for example, a therapist might tell their client that, on the basis of their symptoms, it is quite likely that they had been abused as a child. once this "diagnosis" is made, the therapist sometimes urges the patient to pursue the recalcitrant memories. it is a problem resulting from the fact that people create their own social reality with external information. the "lost-in-the-mall" technique is another recovery strategy. this is essentially a repeated suggestion pattern. the person whose memory is to be recovered is persistently said to have gone through an experience even if it may have not happened. this strategy can cause the person to recall the event as having occurred, despite its falsehood. hypnosis laurence and perry conducted a study testing the ability to induce memory recall through hypnosis. subjects were put into a hypnotic state and later woken up. observers suggested that the subjects were woken up by a loud noise. nearly half of the subjects being tested concluded that this was true, despite it being false. however, by therapeutically altering the subject's state, they may have been led to believe that what they were being told was true. because of this, the respondent has a false recall. a 1989 study focusing on hypnotizability and false memory separated accurate and inaccurate memories recalled. in open-ended question formation, 11.5% of subjects recalled the false event suggested by observers. in a multiple-choice format, no participants claimed the false event had happened. this result led to the conclusion that hypnotic suggestions produce shifts in focus, awareness, and attention. despite this, subjects do not mix fantasy up with reality. effects on society legal cases therapy-induced memory recovery has made frequent appearances in legal cases, particularly those regarding sexual abuse. therapists can often aid in creating a false memory in a victim's mind, intentionally or unintentionally. they will associate a patient's behavior with the fact that they have been a victim of sexual abuse, thus helping the memory occur. they use memory enhancement techniques such as hypnosis dream analysis to extract memories of sexual abuse from victims. in ramona v. isabella, two therapists wrongly prompted a recall that their patient, holly ramona, had been sexually abused by her father. it was suggested that the therapist, isabella, had implanted one of the sexual abuse memories in ramona after use of the hypnotic drug sodium amytal. after a nearly unanimous decision, isabella had been declared negligent towards holly ramona. this 1994 legal issue played a massive role in shedding light on the possibility of false memories' occurrences. in another legal case where false memories were used, they helped a man to be acquitted of his charges. joseph pacely had been accused of breaking into a woman's home with the intent to sexually assault her. the woman had given her description of the assailant to police shortly after the crime had happened. during the trial, memory researcher elizabeth loftus testified that memory is fallible and there were many emotions that played a part in the woman's description given to police. loftus has published many studies consistent with her testimony. these studies suggest that memories can easily be changed around and sometimes eyewitness testimonies are not as reliable as many believe. another notable case is maxine berry. maxine grew up in the custody of her mother, who opposed the father having contact with her (berry & berry, 2001). when the father expressed his desire to attend his daughter's high school graduation, the mother enrolled maxine in therapy, ostensibly to deal with the stress of seeing her father. the therapist pressed maxine to recover memories of sex abuse