Elevated false recollection of emotional pictures in young and older adults.

Current theories predict opposing effects of emotionally arousing information on false memory. If emotion enhances true recollection, then false recollection might be lower for emotional than for neutral pictures. However, if emotion enhances conceptual relatedness, then false recollection might increase for nonstudied but emotionally related pictures. We contrasted these 2 factors in young and older adults, using the International Affective Pictures Systems set (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 2005). Although both age groups used recollection in our task, false recollection was greatest for emotional pictures, supporting a conceptual relatedness account. Finally, even after accuracy differences were controlled, age was related to high-confidence false recollection of emotional pictures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stereotypes and retrieval-provoked illusory source recollections.

When expectations and stereotypes are activated at retrieval, they spontaneously create distorted and illusory recollections that are consistent with these expectations. Participants studied doctor (physician)-related and lawyer-related statements that were presented by 2 different people. When informed, on a subsequent source memory test, (i.e., of who presented what) that one of the study sources was actually a doctor and the other source was a lawyer, there was a strong tendency to attribute the test items in a stereotype-consistent manner. In 3 experiments, participants frequently reported recollecting specific details, such as via "remember" judgments, to justify their stereotype-consistent but incorrect responses. These experiments rule out explanations involving either the misattribution of strong familiarity or differences in the bias to making remember responses as accounts for the illusory source attributions. Instead, the illusory recollections are consistent with the notion that recollective experience is manufactured from both the information in the memory trace and information in the retrieval environment, such as an individual's expectations, stereotypes, and general knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affect influences false memories at encoding: Evidence from recognition data.

Memory is susceptible to illusions in the form of false memories. Prior research found, however, that sad moods reduce false memories. The current experiment had two goals: (1) to determine whether affect influences retrieval processes, and (2) to determine whether affect influences the strength and the persistence of false memories. Happy or sad moods were induced either before or after learning word lists designed to produce false memories. Control groups did not experience a mood induction. We found that sad moods reduced false memories only when induced before learning. Signal detection analyses confirmed that sad moods induced prior to learning reduced activation of nonpresented critical lures suggesting that they came to mind less often. Affective states, however, did not influence retrieval effects. We conclude that negative affective states promote item-specific processing, which reduces false memories in a similar way as using an explicitly guided cognitive control strategy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Illusory recollection in older adults and younger adults under divided attention.

The authors investigated the effect of divided attention, study-list repetition, and age on recollection and familiarity. Older and younger adults under full attention and younger adults under divided attention at study viewed word lists highly associated with a single unstudied word (critical lure) once or three times, and subsequently performed a remember-know recognition test. Younger adults made fewer false remember responses to critical lures from repeated study lists, whereas younger adults under divided attention and older adults both showed an increase with repetition. Findings suggest older adults' susceptibility to illusory memories is related to a deficit in available attention during encoding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

True memory, false memory, and subjective recollection deficits after focal parietal lobe lesions.

Objective: There is mounting evidence that the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) plays an important role in episodic memory. We previously found that patients with PPC damage exhibit retrieval-related episodic memory deficits. Here we assess whether parietal lobe damage affects episodic memory on a different task: the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) false-memory paradigm. Methods: Two patients with bilateral PPC damage and a group of matched controls were tested. In Experiment 1, the task was to remember words; in Experiment 2 the task was to remember pictures of common objects. Prior studies have shown that normal participants have high levels of false memory to words, low levels to pictures. Results: The patients exhibited significantly lower levels of false memory to words. One patient showed significantly elevated levels of false memory to pictures. The patients' false memories were accompanied by reduced levels of recollection, as tested by a Remember/Know procedure. Conclusions: PPC damage causes decreased levels of false memories and an abnormal Remember/Know profile. Their false memory rate is similar to the rate exhibited by patients with medial temporal lobe damage. These results support the view that portions of the PPC play a critical role in objective and subjective aspects of recollection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recollection rejection: How children edit their false memories.

A new methodology is presented for studying children's ability to suppress memory reports of false-but-gist-consistent events, one that measures children's use of a specific editing operation (recollection rejection) that suppresses false reports by accessing verbatim traces of true events. Children make memory reports under 2 instructional conditions, verbatim and gist, and the data are analyzed with fuzzy-trace theory's conjoint-recognition model. Application of the new methodology in studies of children's false memory for narrative events revealed that (a) false-memory editing increases dramatically between early and middle childhood, (b) even young children spontaneously edit their false memories, (c) measures of children's false-memory editing react appropriately to experimental manipulations, and (d) developmental reductions in the incidence of false-memory reports are primarily due to developmental improvements in verbatim memory ability (rather than to decreases in the formation of false memories). Implications for child forensic interviewing are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of memory activation in creating false memories of encoding context.

Using 3 experiments, I examined false memory for encoding context by presenting Deese–Roediger–McDermott themes (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995) in usual-looking fonts and by testing related, but unstudied, lure items in a font that was shown during encoding. In 2 of the experiments, testing lure items in the font used to study their associated themes increased false recognition relative to testing lure items in a font that was used to study a different lure’s theme. Further, studying a larger number of associates exacerbated the influence of testing lure items in a font used to study their associated themes. Finally, testing lures in a font that was encoded many times, but was not used to present the lures’ studied associates, increased lure errors more than testing lures in a font that was encoded relatively fewer times. These results favor the explanation of false recognition offered by global-matching models of recognition memory over the explanations of activation-monitoring theory and fuzzy-trace theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sensitivity reductions in false recognition: A measure of false memories with stronger theoretical implications.

Signal detection analyses of recognition memory indicate that a bias to respond "old" is large for critical words that are centrally related with previously encoded word lists, is small for words that are less related, and is not observed for unrelated words. Also, recognition sensitivity has not been previously shown to differ between those conditions, which has focused debate over how to explain false recognition on the bias differences. In 3 experiments, critical-word sensitivity was lower than sensitivity for other word types, but related-word sensitivity was not lower than sensitivity for unrelated words. Extant models that predict reduced critical-word sensitivity also predict lower sensitivity for related words than for unrelated words. These results provide crucial new constraints on theoretical explanations of false memories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Associative relatedness enhances recall and produces false memories in immediate serial recall.

The influence of permanent lexical network in immediate serial recall is well established. The corresponding influence of permanent semantic networks is less clear, although such networks are known to both facilitate memory in long-term memory tasks and to produce false memories in those same tasks. The current experiment involves the study of Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) lists for immediate serial recall. The trials in the experiment involved presenting the six strongest items from the DRM lists either in intact associatively related lists or where those items had been randomly mixed to produce unrelated lists. The results of the experiment indicated that the associatively related lists were better recalled in order than unrelated lists and the nonpresented critical lure was falsely recalled relatively frequently. The results of the experiment confirm the importance of associative semantic networks in short-term memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adults' memories of childhood: True and false reports.

In 3 experiments, the authors examined factors that, according to the source-monitoring framework, might influence false memory formation and true/false memory discernment. In Experiment 1, combined effects of warning and visualization on false childhood memory formation were examined, as were individual differences in true and false childhood memories. Combining warnings and visualization led to the lowest false memory and highest true memory. Several individual difference factors (e.g., parental fearful attachment style) predicted false recall. In addition, true and false childhood memories differed (e.g., in amount of information). Experiment 2 examined relations between Deese/Roediger-McDermott task performance and false childhood memories. Deese/Roediger-McDermott performance (e.g., intrusion of unrelated words in free recall) was associated with false childhood memory, suggesting liberal response criteria in source decisions as a common underlying mechanism. Experiment 3 investigated adults' abilities to discern true and false childhood memory reports (e.g., by detecting differences in amount of information as identified in Experiment 1). Adults who were particularly successful in discerning such reports indicated reliance on event plausibility. Overall, the source-monitoring framework provided a viable explanatory framework. Implications for theory and clinical and forensic interviews are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Generative processing and false memories: When there is no cost.

Encoding manipulations (e.g., levels of processing) that facilitate retention often result in greater numbers of false memories, a pattern referred to as the more is less effect (M. P. Toglia, J. S. Neuschatz, & K. A. Goodwin, 1999). The present experiments explored false memories under generative processing. In Experiments 1-3, using Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) lists with items that were either read or generated, the authors found recognition and recall tests indicated generation effects for true memories but no increases in false memories (i.e., generation at no cost). In Experiment 4, in a departure from the DRM methodology, a cuing procedure resulted in a more is less pattern for congruous generation, and a no cost pattern for incongruous generation. This highlights the critical distinction between these encoding contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recovered memories and false memories.

Review of book: Recovered Memories and False Memories by Martin A. Conway, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, 301 pp. Reviewed by C. Brooks Brenneis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Misattribution errors in Alzheimer's disease: The illusory truth effect.

Patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) and age-matched controls were compared on a series of tasks designed to measure errors of misattribution, the act of attributing a memory or idea to an incorrect source. Misattribution was indexed through the illusory truth effect, the tendency for participants to judge previously encountered information to be true. Cognitive theories have suggested that the illusory truth effect reflects the misattribution of experimentally produced familiarity (a nonspecific sense that an item has been previously encountered) to the veracity of previously encountered information. Consistent with earlier suggestions that AD impairs both familiarity and recollection (specific memory for contextual details of the study episode), AD patients demonstrated significantly fewer misattribution errors under conditions in which the illusory truth effect is thought to rely on relative familiarity (uncued condition), but more misattribution errors under conditions thought to rely on relative amounts of contextual recollection (cued condition). These results help further specify the precise nature of memory impairments in AD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

False memories seconds later: The rapid and compelling onset of illusory recognition.

Distortions of long-term memory (LTM) in the converging associates task are thought to arise from semantic associative processes and monitoring failures due to degraded verbatim and/or contextual memory. Sensory-based coding is traditionally considered more prevalent than meaning-based coding in short-term memory (STM), whereas the converse is true of LTM, leading to the expectation that false memory phenomena should be less robust in a canonical STM task. These expectations were violated in 2 experiments in which participants were shown lists of 4 semantically related words and were probed immediately following a filled 3- to 4-s retention interval or approximately 20 min later in a surprise recognition test. Corrected false recognition rates, confidence ratings, and Remember/Know judgments reveal similar false memory effects across STM and LTM conditions. These results indicate that compelling false memory illusions can be rapidly instantiated and that, consistent with unitary models of memory, they originate from processes that are not specific to LTM tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and recollection in the accuracy of judgments of learning.

Dual-process theories propose that episodic memory performance reflects both recollection of prior details as well as more automatic influences of the past. The authors explored the idea that recollection mediates the accuracy of judgments of learning (JOLs) and may also help explain age differences in JOL accuracy. Young and older adults made immediate JOLs at study and then completed recognition or recall tests that included a recollect/familiar judgment. JOLs were found to be strongly related to recollected items but not to items remembered on the basis of familiarity. The pattern was weaker in older adults, consistent with age-related declines in recollection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Collaboration reduces the frequency of false memories in older and younger adults.

Older (mean age = 74.23) and younger (mean age = 33.50) participants recalled items from 6 briefly exposed household scenes either alone or with their spouses. Collaborative recall was compared with the pooled, nonredundant recall of spouses remembering alone (nominal groups). The authors examined hits, self-generated false memories, and false memories produced by another person's (actually a computer program's) misleading recollections. Older adults reported fewer hits and more self-generated false memories than younger adults. Relative to nominal groups, older and younger collaborating groups reported fewer hits and fewer self-generated false memories. Collaboration also reduced older people's computer-initiated false memories. The memory conversations in the collaborative groups were analyzed for evidence that collaboration inhibits the production of errors and/or promotes quality control processes that detect and eliminate errors. Only older adults inhibited the production of wrong answers, but both age groups eliminated errors during their discussions. The partners played an important role in helping rememberers discard false memories in older and younger couples. The results support the use of collaboration to reduce false recall in both younger and older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparing recollective experience in true and false autobiographical memories.

This study investigated whether true autobiographical memories are qualitatively distinct from false autobiographical memories using a variation of the interview method originally reported by E. F. Loftus and J. Pickrell (1995). Participants recalled events provided by parents on 3 separate occasions and were asked to imagine true and false unremembered events. True memories were rated by both participants and observers as more rich in recollective experience and were rated by participants as more important, more emotionally intense, as having clearer imagery, and as less typical than false memories. Rehearsal frequency was used as a covariate, eliminating these effects. Imagery in true memories was most often viewed from the field perspective, whereas imagery in false memories was most often viewed from the observer perspective. More information was communicated in true memories, and true memories contained more information concerning the consequences of described events. Results suggest repeated remembering can make false memories more rich in recollective experience and more like true memories. Differences between true and false memories suggest some potentially distinct characteristics of false memories and provide insight into the process of false memory creation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influences of intentional and unintentional forgetting on false memories.

In 2 experiments, we examined the interplay of 2 types of memory errors: forgetting and false memory--errors of omission and commission, respectively. We examined the effects of 2 manipulations known to inhibit retrieval of studied words--directed forgetting and part--list cuing--on the false recall of an unstudied "critical" word following study of its 15 strongest associates. Participants cued to forget the 1st of 2nd studied lists before studying the 2nd recalled fewer List 1 words but intruded the missing critical word more often than did participants cued to remember both lists. By contrast, providing some studied words as cues during recall reduced both recall of the remaining studied words and intrusions of the critical word. The results suggest that forgetting can increase or decrease false memories, depending on whether such forgetting reflects impaired access to an entire episode or retrieval competition among elements of an episode. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Examining differences in the levels of false memories in children and adults using child-normed lists.

Several previous studies have demonstrated that children, when compared with adults, exhibit both lower levels of veridical memory and fewer intrusions when given semantically associated lists. However, researchers have drawn these conclusions using semantically associated word lists that were normed with adults, which may not lead to the same level of activation or gist generation in children. In the current study, the authors used similar associative word lists normed with children and then evaluated the memory of children and adults using these newly normed lists as well as the typical adult-normed lists. Results indicate that children showed lower true and false memories with both the child-normed and adult-normed lists. Thus, these data suggest that the negative relationship between age and false memories in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM; J. Deese, 1959; H. L. Roediger & K. B. McDermott, 1995) paradigm is not an artifact of the age group used to construct the lists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory variability is due to the contribution of recollection and familiarity, not to encoding variability.

It is well established that the memory strength of studied items is more variable than the strength of new items on tests of recognition memory, but the reason why this occurs is poorly understood. One account for this old item variance effect is based on single-process theory, which proposes that this effect is due to variability in how well items are initially encoded into memory (i.e., the encoding variability account). In contrast, dual-process theory argues that old items are more variable because they are influenced by both recollection and familiarity, whereas recognition of new items relies primarily on familiarity. The present study shows that increasing encoding variability did not increase old item variance and that old item variance is directly related to the contribution of recollection. These results indicate that old item memory variability is due to the relative contribution of recollection and familiarity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)