With the increasing legalization of cannabis and its use globally, it is important to comprehend the consequences of using cannabis to an individual's memory. Research on "Cannabis Increases Susceptibility to False Memory" surveyed the delayed and severe impact of THC intoxication on vulnerability to misinformation. The research was able to affirm through evidence that THC intoxicated individuals have a higher tendency of false memory contrasted to other individuals who do not use cannabis (Kloft et al.,2020). For instance, intoxicated individuals indicated more false memories in the associative word-list at delayed and immediate tests than controlled participants. Therefore, the research findings have implications for when and how law enforcement officers should interview eyewitnesses and suspects since cannabis increases the effects of false-memory, with declining memory strength between a scenario and test item.
The article "Don't trust your memories if you're high on weed, study says" by CNN talks about the effect of cannabis on the memories of eyewitness and suspect. According to the article, although everyone is exposed to the development of misinformation, use cannabis increases the vulnerability of false memories. When eyewitness is given misinformation about a scenario that they saw, they are more likely to remember such information than the details they saw (LaMotte 2020). The use of cannabis increases the number of misinformation across all three memories. However, science has failed to explain the concept behind the number of false memories of cannabis users; but scholars believe that cannabis stimulates nerves in the hippocampus feasibly, causing the disintegration of thought, sensitive distractibility, and loosening of associations. The article retaliates the study’s find by discouraging law enforcement officers from interviewing a cannabis-intoxicated witness or suspect until a given time after they attain sobriety.
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The research utilized three distinct approaches; the first was associative word lists. This was followed by two misinformation task utilizing implied actuality. In the three approaches that were used, there was evidence for enhanced false memory impacts on precipitants who were intoxicated. The research employed a highly powered experimental design, which allowed the researchers to test acute and residual drug influences. A null hypothesis (h0) indicated that there was no substantial connection between the use of cannabis and false memories. In contrast, the alternative hypothesis (h1) showed a substantial connection between the use of cannabis and false memories (Kloft et al.,2020) . The study tested the effect of cannabis on false memory; therefore, their independent variable was false memories, while the dependent variable was the use of cannabis. To attain high reproductivity and biological validity, the false memories examples comprised an observer and a perpetrator scene, represented in a virtual-reality setting.
Both the research and the news article focused on the consequences of cannabis on false memories. Cannabis is responsible for misinformation and harms people's memory. The research uses an investigative style to report its finding, incorporating its findings with evidence and statistical data to prove that cannabis impacts false memory. On the other hand, the news article used a reporting style to report on the effect of cannabis and its influence on false memory utilizing research data. The purpose of the news article was to inform and educate the public about the effect of cannabis, while the research aimed at providing data for learning and medical institutions on the effect of cannabis on human memory. Based on the article information and how it has carefully disseminated information to the public, one can argue that it reflects the research finding. For instance, the research finding indicated that there is a high relationship between misinformation and the use of cannabis, which is the main theme in the news article.
References
Kloft, L., Otgaar, H., Blokland, A., Monds, L. A., Toennes, S. W., Loftus, E. F., & Ramaekers, J. G. (2020). Cannabis increases susceptibility to false memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 117 (9), 4585-4589.
LaMotte, S. (2020). Don't trust your memories if you're high on weed, study says. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/10/health/weed-false-memories-wellness/index.html
