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Nicole Pernat is a friend and colleague, who worked with me in the Lifespan Cognition Lab. Here we talk about her research and interest in psychology, part 1. (Part 2 here)
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Why did you start studying psychology? Where have you acquired your education?
Nicole Pernat: I took an intro course in the first year and loved it. I received my BA (Honours) Psychology from Kwantlen, with a minor in philosophy, and ended up getting a certificate in language studies (4 courses of German) after I graduated.
Jacobsen: You published a paper with Dr. Elizabeth Loftus & Dr. Daniel Bernstein in 2011 entitled The False Memory Diet: False Memories Alter Food Preferences. What did you find in this research?
Pernat: This particular publication gathered work that had already been done—largely by Danny (Bernstein et al., 2005), professor Loftus, Dr. Alan Scoboria (U. of Windsor), Geraerts (et al., 2008), and Laney (et al., 2008). The general theme was applying false memories to food experiences. Loftus’ famous work on false memories found that people’s memories for events, including videos, could be manipulated by the wording. For example, subjects watched a video of a car accident and were asked to rate how fast the car was going. When the questions used loaded words such as “smashed” rather than “hit,” subject gave higher speed ratings. Memories can clearly be altered.
Entire memories can even be fabricated. The thesis of the book chapter was that implanting entirely false memories could change people’s food preferences and eating behavior. Through various experiments, the aforementioned authors discovered that people can develop false memories about foods, such as getting sick from a particular food (e.g., egg salad sandwich), or liking the food as a child (e.g., asparagus). People are more likely to develop false memories for uncommonly eaten foods, such as ice-cream, and less likely to develop them for common foods, such as cookies. This makes evolutionary sense; humans are wildly omnivorous—we can eat almost anything, meaning we often encountered novel foods and needed to learn quickly if that food was poisonous. Thus, we can more easily develop an aversion to novel food. In contrast, it is difficult to convince us that familiar foods that we have eaten for years suddenly turned poisonous and made us sick.
There are some commonly eaten foods, however, which are amenable to false memories. These are foods that contain naturally more “disgusting” (easily spoiled, or smell rotten) components, such as yogurt (dairy spoils) and eggs (which naturally smell of sulfur). This also makes sense in evolutionary terms. Although, pickles are also among that list, which is a bit mystifying.
Most interestingly, and to the point, they found that with false memories came corresponding attitudinal and behavioral changes. In one study, half the subjects developed the belief that they loved asparagus when they first tried it. A week later, the experimenters emailed the subject asking them to come into the lab, and pick what foods they wanted to eat; they ranked a list of sandwiches and vegetables by what they preferred. Thirty-four percent of the subjects in the Love Asparagus group indicated that they wanted asparagus. This suggests that false food memories influence preferences and behavior. In another study, subjects were told that they got sick from egg salad as a child. Thirty-five percent falsely believed that this happened. Different types of sandwiches were offered at a later session, including egg salad. There was also a follow-up four months later, disguised as an unrelated taste-test. Participants were told that the food was going to be thrown out and that they could eat as much as they wanted. Those who erroneously believed they got sick from egg salad were less likely than others to eat egg sandwiches, both shortly after and four months after receiving false feedback. They also gave lower appearance and flavor ratings to the egg.
I was not involved in the original experiments. My part was on researching applications for other health issues and disease. This focused on the “false memory diet,” suggested and coined by Danny and Loftus. It’s highly controversial idea, suggesting the implantation of false memories in order to manipulate diet choices. Nevertheless, it could be useful for neophobia (fear of trying new foods, which often results in restricted vegetable and fruit intake) and obesity. Ideally, the false memory diet would help people eat more healthy foods and fewer unhealthy ones—including alcohol.
Unfortunately, an average of merely 23% of subjects developed false food memories. So even if a false memory diet were to catch on, it would have a small market. Moreover, it’s unclear exactly who would benefit in the first place. Then there are obvious ethical concerns. First, you’re implanting fabricated memories. Second, a false memory diet could exacerbate eating disorders. That said, just as how the same medication brand may be good for one but harmful to another, false memory diets could still be helpful for some people.
Relevant references:
Bernstein DM, Laney C, Morris EK, Loftus EF. Soc Cognition. 2005a;23:11–34.
Bernstein DM, Laney C, Morris EK, Loftus EF. P Natl Acad Sci USA. 2005b;102:13724–31.
Bernstein DM, Godfrey R, Loftus EF. In: Markman KD, Klein WMP, Suhr JA, editors. The handbook of imagination
and mental simulation. New York: Psychology Press; 2009. p. 89–112.
Geraerts E, Bernstein DM, Merckelbach H, Linders C, Raymaekers L, Loftus EF. Psychol Sci. 2008;19:749–753.
Laney C, Morris EK, Bernstein DM, Wakefeld BM, Loftus EF. Exp Psychol. 2008a;55:291–300.
Laney C, Kaasa S, Morris EK, Berkowitz SR, Bernstein DM, Loftus EF. Psychol Res. 2008b;72:362–75.
Laney C, Bowman-Fowler N, Nelson KJ, Bernstein DM, Loftus EF. Acta Psychol. 2008c;129:190–7.
Scoboria A, Mazzoni G, Kirsch I, Relyea M. Appl Cognit Psychol. 2004;18:791–807.
Scoboria A, Mazznoi G, Jarry J. Acta Psychol. 2008;128:304–9
Jacobsen: You entered an emerging field co-founded by Dr. Patricia Churchland called ‘Neurophilosophy’. Can you describe the field?
Pernat: Neurophilosophy is the study of consciousness in philosophy that draws heavily on (cognitive) neuroscience and related sciences. My supervisor, Dr. Kathleen Akins, gives an excellent detailed description on her website:
“‘Neurophilosophy’ is an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of philosophy and the neurosciences. In Neurophilosophy, we attempt to understand how various traditional, long-standing problems about the nature of the mind and the world can be resolved (or at least nudged towards resolution) by current findings within the neurosciences. In this group, we use current research within neurophysiology, neuropsychology, neuroethology and psychophysics in order to understand the nature of perception, cognition, consciousness, the emotions and mental representation in general.”
(Please excuse the lack of APA style citation for the sake of ease).
I understand that ideally, there would be a 2-way dialogue between the disciplines—neuroscience informs philosophy, and philosophy can help guide neuroscience through testable hypotheses. Though I do not know how often, philosophers actually affect contemporary psychological sciences.
Neurophilosophy can be confused with the philosophy of neuroscience, but they are distinct. The latter belongs to the philosophy of science and studies the foundations of neuroscience and its methods (see Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [SEP]). SEP gives the following examples; philosophy of neuroscience might ask about different conceptions of representation and how they are employed in neuroscience. In contrast, Neurophilosophy might examine how neurological disorders affect our view of a unified self.
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Original publication on www.in-sightjournal.com.
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Image Credit: Getty Images.