Project description
False memories as functional features – not flaws – of the human mind
Human memory is remarkably malleable – conversation alone can reshape recollections or implant entirely false memories of events that never occurred. While this is typically viewed as a flaw in an otherwise useful system, the ERC-funded FRAME project proposes a radical alternative: that the construction of false memories may be functional and adaptive. By flipping conventional false memory experiments to measure downstream benefits rather than accuracy failures, FRAME will test whether memory malleability helps us maintain psychological well-being, strengthen social bonds and prioritise survival-critical information. The findings could fundamentally reframe how psychologists and cognitive scientists understand human memory, recasting its apparent bugs as evolved features serving beneficial outcomes.
Objective
Decades of research have demonstrated that autobiographical memory is highly malleable: simple conversation can reshape memories or even plant entirely false memories of events that never happened. This malleability is a seemingly universal feature of the human condition. Despite this, false memories are generally regarded as – at best – a side effect of a flexible memory system. FRAME will explore a radically different possibility: that the construction of false memories is functional and adaptive in and of itself.
Cognitive psychologists are preoccupied with memory accuracy, such that deviations from accuracy are referred to in our theoretical memory models as errors, distortions, and failures. However, memory did not evolve to act as a recording device. It evolved under the same selective pressures as anything else in the natural world - survival and reproduction. In many situations, there may be a functional and adaptive tendency to sacrifice accuracy in favour of another outcome, such as improved wellbeing or social cohesion.
FRAME will develop a functional account of false memories using largely experimental methods – manipulating memory in unconventional ways and often flipping standard false memory paradigms so that downstream benefits of false memories can be tested. FRAME will experimentally test how memory malleability may allow us to be happier in ourselves (Q1) and to integrate more effectively within our social groups (Q2), but memory accuracy may be prioritised for survival-related information (Q3). FRAME will also explore how we can investigate and harness functional false memories in an ethical way (Q4) and will culminate in a new model of false memories (Q5).
Empirical evidence for this functional account of false memories would represent a paradigm-shift in the way we think about human memory, reframing our bugs as features. This project has the potential to promote a profound transformation in how we think about memory... flaws and all.
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Keywords
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) ERC-2025-STG
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T12 YN60 Cork
Ireland
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