María García de Viedma y María Jesús Maraver
Centro de Investigación Mente, Cerebro y Comportamiento (CIMCYC), Universidad de Granada, España
(unsplash) Clement Falize.
Human memory is not a perfect recording device, but rather a dynamic system that reconstructs past events. And this reconstructive nature is what makes false memories surprisingly common. These memory errors are particularly frequent in the daily lives of older adults and have a strong impact on their autonomy and well-being. Previous research has shown that false memories can be corrected in younger adults using various strategies, but is it possible to correct them also during aging?
“Yesterday I got a call from the nursing home saying that Grandpa had lost his balance in the shower. Later, however, I remembered that he had fallen down. However, this never actually happened.” This example shows how we often make assumptions and draw conclusions about what happens around us by combining information from the environment with the previous knowledge and experiences stored in our memory. This process of making inferences is a consequence of the reconstructive nature of memory (Schacter, 2012) and it can lead to error or distortions in recall. Such memory errors, or false memories, are common and, in many cases, even useful: they help us anticipate what is happening around us by filling the gaps in memory with what our experience tells us that is most likely that occurred. However, as we age, they become more frequent and vivid, turning memory into a less reliable system and making it more difficult, for instance, to remember if we took our medication or turned off the stove before leaving home, or if we only believe we did it.
Sentences that contain pragmatic inferences are one of the tools we can use to investigate false memories in the laboratory, by employing statements that describe everyday actions (Brewer, 1977). For example, when studying the sentence “the baby stayed awake all night” it is likely that we later misremember that the baby “was crying all night”. This may occur because we draw inferences from what we already know or have experienced before, that is, from our prior mental schemas (e.g., babies who are awake at night usually cry; Conway 2000). Different theories attempt to explain why these errors happen. One of them, the Activation-Monitoring Theory (AMT; Roediger et al., 2001), proposes that false memories are generated by two distinct processes: first, the semantic activation of related ideas triggered by studying the sentence (“baby”, “night”, and “awake” activate the concept of “crying”), and second, a monitoring failure, that is, struggling to distinguish if the false memory stems from what was actually studied (“the baby was awake”) or from the semantically activated concepts (“the baby cried”).
False memories are common, and older adults are especially vulnerable to them due to age-related declines in executive functions (Devitt & Schacter, 2016). However, current evidence shows that there are strategies to reduce these memory errors. In young adults, it has been demonstrated that false memories can be corrected when followed by corrective feedback, that is, information that allows us to detect our mistakes. Mullet and Marsh (2016) conducted a study using sentences with pragmatic inferences and found that, to correct false memories, it is not enough to simply tell participants whether their recall was right or wrong. The key is to provide the correct answer so that they can clearly recognize the nature of their error. Moreover, they found that the use of a metacognitive strategy (e.g., answering the question: Was your previous response correct?), which encourages participants to self-monitor their answers during the task, further increased the correction of false memories.
In a recent study, Montoro-Membila et al., (2025) expanded the research of Mullet and Marsh (2016) to older adults. They explored if this metacognitive strategy would also benefit the correction of false memories in older adults, as well as to what extent repeated retrieval practice could enhance the effect of feedback. Their study included a group of young participants (18-35 years old) and a group of healthy older adults (60-82 years old, without a diagnosis of dementia). In the first experiment, participants studied a list of sentences with pragmatic inferences and were later asked to recall them, both before and after receiving simple feedback (they only saw the correct sentence, the same one they had studied), while another group received combined feedback (they saw the correct sentence along with a metacognitive question, specifically: “Was your previous response correct?”). Both age groups corrected their false memories after receiving corrective feedback, but no additional benefit of combined feedback was observed. In the second experiment, when a new cycle of retrieval practice was introduced (that is, a new attempt to study and recall new information), the group of older adults showed the greatest reduction in false memories. Moreover, the benefits of repeated practice extended over to the learning of new material, suggesting that the correction strategies acquired could transfer to other learning contexts, both in younger and older adults.
This study shows that repeated retrieval practice benefits memory. Actively retrieving the information we study, elaborating on it, and noting our mistakes allows us to remember better and make fewer memory errors. Our research suggests that, for older adults, it may be especially useful to incorporate small recall exercises into daily life, such as remembering task lists or the daily menu. These exercises are more effective when they include feedback (by comparing the recalled information with the original, e.g., they planned weekly menu) and an assessment on how the information was recalled (metacognitive strategies such as: which part was the most difficult? or, which image or word helped me remember it?). Practicing these kinds of exercises daily, which involve an active effort to recall and organize information, not only strengthens retrieval strategies but also helps keep memory active, promoting autonomy and well-being in older adults. As the world’s population grows older, advancing our understanding of the mechanisms underlying memory error detection and correction becomes even more critical.
References
Brewer W. F. (1977). Memory for the pragmatic implications of sentences. Memory & Cognition, 5, 673–678.
Conway, M. A., y Pleydell-Pearce, C. W. (2000). The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system. Psychological Review, 107, 261–288.
Devitt, A. L., y Schacter, D. L. (2016). False memories with age: Neural and cognitive underpinnings. Neuropsychologia, 91, 346–359.
Montoro-Membila, N., Maraver, M. J., Marful, A., y Bajo, T. (2025). How do older adults correct memory errors? The effects of practice and metacognitive strategies. Neuropsychology, Development, And Cognition. B: Aging, Neuropsychology And Cognition, 32, 659-689.
Mullet, H. G., y Marsh, E. J. (2016). Correcting false memories: Errors must be noticed and replaced. Memory & Cognition, 44, 403–412.
Roediger III, H. L., Balota, D. A., y Watson, J. M. (2001). Spreading activation and arousal of false memories. The Nature of Remembering: Essays in Honor of Robert G. Crowder, 95-115.
Schacter D. L. (2012). Constructive memory: Past and future. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 14, 7–18.
Manuscript received on March 31st, 2025.
Accepted on September 9th, 2025.
This is the English version of
García de Viedma, M., y Maraver, M. J. (2025). Falsos recuerdos en el envejecimiento: ¿es posible corregirlos? Ciencia Cognitiva, 19:3, 103-105.
