Host: The Japanese Society for Cognitive Psychology
Previous studies have shown that people's memories are changeable, and systematic incorrect memories (e.g., false memory) can be created. We predict that people's belief about the real world can be changed similarly to the way systematic false memories are created and systematic memory-based false belief are generated. We also predict that since the systematic nature of memory-based false belief is consistent with environmental structure in the real world, memory-based false belief works adaptively in making inferences about the real world. We conducted behavioral and simulation studies in order to examine our predictions about people's memory-based false belief and inference about the real world. The results of behavioral experiment and computer simulations supported our predictions.
