Social interactions can strengthen memories, but they can also contaminate them, for instance, when individuals integrate misinformation from social sources into their own memories. In two experiments, we examined such social contagion in a novel recognition-based collaboration task. Groups of three subjects studied lists of words in isolation, but unbeknownst to subjects, only half of these words were shared by the whole group. The remaining words were shared by two individuals within the group, or they were unshared, studied by single individuals only. Subjects completed a first recognition test collaboratively, and we examined how this group recognition task affected subsequent individual recognition, both for originally studied and unstudied items. Moreover, for some subjects an initial individual test was placed before collaboration, to examine if prior individual retrieval influences social contagion. Three main findings emerged: First, collaboration enhanced individual memory for initially studied information, but mostly for information shared within the group. Second, collaboration entailed robust social contagion effects, which were more pronounced when the misinformation was shared by both other group members. Third, an individual memory test before collaboration reduced social contagion. We discuss the powerful effects of memory retrieval and how social interactions can simultaneously enhance and distort memories.

中文翻译：

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社交互动可以同时增强和扭曲记忆：来自协作识别任务的证据。

社交互动可以增强记忆力，但也可能污染记忆，例如，当个人将来自社会资源的错误信息整合到自己的记忆中时。在两个实验中，我们在基于识别的新型协作任务中研究了这种社会传染。三个主题的小组单独研究单词列表，但对于主题不为人所知，整个团队仅共享了其中一半的单词。其余单词由组内的两个人共享，或者不共享，仅由单个人研究。受试者共同完成了第一项识别测试，我们研究了该小组识别任务如何影响后来的个人识别，无论是最初研究的还是未研究的项目。此外，对于某些科目，在进行协作之前先进行了一次单独的测试，检查先前的个人检索是否影响社会传播。出现了三个主要发现：首先，协作增强了最初学习的信息的个人记忆力，但主要是增强了小组内共享信息的记忆力。其次，合作带来了强大的社会传染效应，当其他两个小组成员共享错误信息时，这种效应就更加明显。第三，在合作之前进行个人记忆测试可以减少社会感染。我们讨论了记忆检索的强大效果，以及社交互动如何同时增强和扭曲记忆。合作带来了强大的社会传染效应，当其他两个小组成员共享错误信息时，这种效应就更加明显。第三，在合作之前进行个人记忆测试可以减少社会感染。我们讨论了记忆检索的强大效果，以及社交互动如何同时增强和扭曲记忆。合作带来了强大的社会传染效应，当其他两个小组成员共享错误信息时，这种效应更加明显。第三，在合作之前进行个人记忆测试可以减少社会感染。我们讨论了记忆检索的强大效果，以及社交互动如何同时增强和扭曲记忆。