Advertisements Can Alter Memory

Studies

from the this-should-be-fun dept

A new study (though, I have to admit, this sounds like an older study I heard about recently) says that advertisements can give people new memories. The example they give is where people were convinced they shook hands with Bugs Bunny as a kid at Disneyland after seeing an advertisement showing that. However, this is impossible since Bugs is a Warner Brothers’ character, and not Disney. I’m not sure if this is really “creating a new memory” or just fuzzying up an actual memory with details that are really unimportant to the overall memory. Of course, somehow I doubt banner ads will be doing any “memory altering” any time soon. My brain has ignored them so thoroughly I can barely remember the last time I saw a banner ad.