Presentation modality and mode of recall in verbal false memory.

False memories were investigated for aurally and visually presented lists of semantically associated words. In Experiment 1, false written recall of critical intrusions was reliably lower following visual presentation compared with aural presentation. This presentation modality effect was attributed to the use of orthographic features during written recall to edit critical intrusions from visually presented lists. As predicted by this hypothesis, the modality effect was eliminated when the mode of recall was spoken rather than written. In Experiment 2, the modality effect in written recall was again replicated and then eliminated with an orienting task that ensured orthographic encoding even of aurally presented words. Thus, the modality effect appears to depend on using orthographic information to distinguish true from false verbal memories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do children "DRM" like adults? False memory production in children.

The Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm was used to investigate developmental trends in accurate and false memory production. In Experiment 1, DRM lists adjusted to be more consistent with children's vocabulary were used with 2nd graders, 8th graders, and college students. Accurate and false recall and recognition increased with age, but semantic information appeared to be available to all age groups. Experiment 2 created a set of child-generated lists based on the free associations by a group of 3rd graders to critical items. The child-generated associates were different from those generated by adults; long and short versions of the child-generated lists were therefore presented to 2nd, 5th, and 8th graders and college students in Experiment 3. Second graders exhibited few false memories, whereas 5th graders were similar to adults in low-demand conditions and more similar to younger children in high-demand conditions. Findings are discussed in terms of developmental changes in automatic and effortful processing and the use of semantic networks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

False memories in children and adults: Age, distinctiveness, and subjective experience.

This study investigated developmental trends associated with the Deese/Roediger-McDermott false-memory effect, the role of distinctive information in false-memory formation, and participants' subjective experience of true and false memories. Children (5- and 7-year-olds) and adults studied lists of semantically associated words. Half of the participants studied words alone, and half studied words accompanied by pictures. There were significant age differences in recall (5-year-olds evinced more false memories than did adults) but not in recognition of critical lures. Distinctive information reduced false memory for all age groups. Younger children provided with distinctive information, and older children and adults regardless of whether they viewed distinctive information, expressed higher levels of confidence in true than in false memories. Source attributions did not significantly differ between true and false memories. Implications for theories of false memory and memory development 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)     

Encoding and memory for visible speech and gestures: A comparison between young and older adults.

Two experiments explored whether older adults have developed a strategy of compensating for slower speeds of language processing and hearing loss by relying more on the visual modality. Experiment 1 examined the influence of visual articulatory movements of the face (visible speech) in auditory–visual syllable classification in young adults and older adults. Older adults showed a significantly greater influence of visible speech. Experiment 2 examined immediate recall in three spoken-language sentence conditions: speech alone, with visible speech, or with both visible speech and iconic gestures. Sentences also varied in meaningfulness and speech rate. In the old adult group, recall was better for sentences containing visible speech compared with the speech-alone sentences in the meaningful sentence condition. Old adults' recall showed no overall benefit of the presence of gestures. Young adults' recall on meaningful sentences was not higher for the visible speech compared with the speech-alone condition, whereas recall was significantly higher with the addition of iconic gestures. In the anomalous sentence condition, both young and old adults showed an advantage in recall by the presence of visible speech.… (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)     

Goal-directed memory: The role of cognitive control in older adults' emotional memory.

The present study revealed that older adults recruit cognitive control processes to strengthen positive and diminish negative information in memory. In Experiment 1, older adults engaged in more elaborative processing when retrieving positive memories than they did when retrieving negative memories. In Experiment 2, older adults who did well on tasks involving cognitive control were more likely than those doing poorly to favor positive pictures in memory. In Experiment 3, older adults who were distracted during memory encoding no longer favored positive over negative pictures in their later recall, revealing that older adults use cognitive resources to implement emotional goals during encoding. In contrast, younger adults showed no signs of using cognitive control to make their memories more positive, indicating that, for them, emotion regulation goals are not chronically activated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mere memory testing creates false memories in children.

It has been reported that initial recall tests inoculate true memories against forgetting without creating false memories. This is not true of recognition tests. In 2 experiments with 5- and 8-year-olds, initial recognition tests elevated children's false-memory responses (false alarms to unpresented distractors) on delayed tests. In Experiment 1, false-memory creation exceeded true-memory inoculation in 5-year-olds, producing net losses in accuracy over time. In Experiment 2, false-memory creation exceeded true-memory inoculation at both age levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental reversals in false memory: Now you see them, now you don't!

A developmental reversal in false memory is the counterintuitive phenomenon of higher levels of false memory in older children, adolescents, and adults than in younger children. The ability of verbatim memory to suppress this age trend in false memory was evaluated using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Seven and 11-year-old children studied DRM lists either in a standard condition (whole words) that normally produces high levels of false memory or in an alternative condition that should enhance verbatim memory (word fragments). Half the children took 1 recognition test, and the other half took 3 recognition tests. In the single-test condition, the typical age difference in false memory was found for the word condition (higher false memory for 11-year-olds than for 7-year-olds), but in the word fragment condition false memory was lower in the older children. In the word condition, false memory increased over successive recognition tests. Our findings are consistent with 2 principles of fuzzy-trace theory's explanation of false memories: (a) reliance on verbatim rather than gist memory causes such errors to decline with age, and (b) repeated testing increases reliance on gist memory in older children and adults who spontaneously connect meaning across events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affective valence influences participant's susceptibility to false memories and illusory recollection.

This study examined the influence of emotional valence on the production of DRM false memories (Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Participants were presented with neutral, positive, or negative DRM lists for a later recognition (Experiment 1) or recall (Experiment 2) test. In both experiments, confidence and recollective experience (i.e., “Remember-Know” judgments; Tulving, 1985) were also assessed. Results consistently showed that, compared with neutral lists, affective lists induced more false recognition and recall of nonpresented critical lures. Moreover, although confidence ratings did not differ between the false remembering from the different kinds of lists, “Remember” responses were more often associated with negative than positive and neutral false remembering of the critical lures. In contrast, positive false remembering of the critical lures was more often associated with “Know” responses. These results are discussed in light of the Paradoxical Negative Emotion (PNE) hypothesis (Porter, Taylor, & ten Bricke, 2008). (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)     

Age differences in context integration in memory.

This research examined the role of contextual integration in memories of younger and older adults. In 2 experiments, recall of a target picture to a context picture cue was better when sentences were generated that integrated the picture pair and when the picture pairs were already related to each other. Age differences were smallest when sentences were generated for semantically related pairs. Older adults generated the same type sentences as younger adults, although they generated fewer integrations for unrelated pairs. In a 3rd experiment, younger adults could not differentiate between younger- and older-generated sentences from Experiment 1, and the sentences did not differentially affect recall performance. The results are discussed in terms of age differences in self-initiated processing when using context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Effects of Age and Dementia of the Alzheimer's Type on Phonological False Memories.

The authors conducted 3 experiments that examined the effects of age and dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT) on phonological false memories. In addition, the study was designed to investigate the role of inhibitory control in mediating phonological false memories. In Experiment 1, both young-old and old-old participants exhibited increased susceptibility to false remembering, compared with young adults. In Experiment 2, auditory Stroop interference was used as an index of inhibitory abilities and was found to account for a significant percentage of the variance in false recollection. Experiment 3 provided converging evidence for the importance of inhibitory control in phonological false memories by demonstrating that DAT patients are more susceptible to false recall and recognition than healthy older adults. The results are discussed within the inhibitory deficit framework of cognitive aging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Constructive processing in children's event memory.

To examine effects of general event knowledge on specific event memories, nursery-school and kindergarten children participated in either 1 creative movement workshop (the episodic condition) or 4 workshops (the repeated condition), and recalled the workshops 4 weeks later. One half of the children also recalled the workshops on the same day. It was predicted that recall in the repeated condition would be more complete, better organized, but less accurate than in the episodic condition because of constructive processing. Results confirmed that (a) children recalled more from the first workshop (but not the last) in the repeated condition, (b) kindergarten children's recall in the repeated condition was better sequenced, and (c) more intrusions were reported in the repeated condition. Furthermore, (d) children recalled more activities with age, and (e) recall practice and specific cues increased amount, but not accuracy, of recall. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

False Memories: Young and Older Adults Think of Semantic Associates at the Same Rate, but Young Adults Are More Successful at Source Monitoring.

Two experiments explored whether the higher vulnerability to false memories in the DRM (J. Deese, 1959; H. L. Roediger & K. B. McDermott, 1995) paradigm in older compared to young adults reflects a deficit in source monitoring. In both experiments, adding together the number of falsely recalled critical lures and the number of critical lures produced on a post-recall test asking participants to report items that they had thought of but did not recall, indicated that the critical lures were activated during the experiment equally often in young and older adults. However, older adults were more likely than young adults to say that they had actually heard the lures. When strongly encouraged to examine the origin of memories (Experiment 2), the warning substantially reduced false recall in young but not older adults. These results are consistent with the idea that older adults have more difficulty later identifying the source of information that was activated as a consequence of intact semantic activation processes. (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)     

Aging and memory for words and action events: Effects of item repetition and list length.

We were concerned with the effects of item repetition, list length, and class of item on free recall in elderly as compared with young adults. In Experiment 1, samples of young and elderly adults recalled a list of 27 words and a list of 27 action events (minitasks performed by the subjects). Some items were presented once and some twice. Although the younger subjects showed better recall on both types of lists, the older sample benefited from item repetition as much as did the younger sample. This finding was replicated in Experiment 2. A second finding in Experiment 2 was a significant aging effect in the recall of long but not of short lists of both words and action events. The absence of an Age?×?Repetition Effect interaction was ascribed to the strength nature of the repetition manipulation. The age effects in the recall of the long lists were attributed to possible deficits in retrieval proficiency. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Subjective hierarchies in spatial memory.

Two experiments investigated the structure of spatial memories. Subjects learned locations of objects in spatial layouts (Experiment 1) or locations of object names on maps (Experiment 2). Physical and perceptual boundaries were absent in these spatial arrays. Subjects then participated in three tasks: item recognition, in which the variable of interest was spatial priming; free and cued recall; and Euclidean distance estimation. Ordered-tree analysis of individual subjects' recall protocols produced hierarchical trees consistent with regularities in output order. Spatial priming and distance estimations depended on whether pairs of objects appeared in the same subtree or in different subtrees. These findings indicate that spatial memories have a hierarchical component, even when physical and perceptual boundaries are nonexistent. Priming also increased with depth of clustering in ordered trees. This result supports spreading-activation theories of retrieval but provides evidence against several "non-spreading-activation" theories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of memory strength in reality monitoring decisions: evidence from source attribution biases

Reality monitoring of verbal memories was compared with decisions about pictorial memories in this study. Experiment 1 showed an advantage in memory for imagined over perceived words and a bias to respond "perceived" on false alarms. Experiment 2 showed the opposite pattern: an advantage in memory for perceived pictures and a bias to respond "imagined" on false alarms. Participants attribute false alarms to whichever class of memories has the weakest trace strengths. The relative strength of memories of imagined and perceived objects was manipulated in Experiments 3 and 4, yielding changes in source attribution biases that were predicted by the strength heuristic. All 4 experiments generalize the mirror effect (an inverse relationship between patterns of hits and false alarms commonly found on recognition tests) to reality monitoring decisions. Results suggest that under some conditions differences between the strength of memories for perceived and imagined events, rather than differences in qualitative characteristics, are used to infer memory source.     

Comparing the effects of aging and background noise of short-term memory performance.

Paired associate recall was tested as a function of serial position for younger and older adults for five word pairs presented aurally in quiet and in noise. In Experiment 1, the addition of noise adversely affected recall in young adults, but only in the early serial positions. Experiments 2 and 3 suggested that the recall of older adults listening to the words in quiet was nearly equivalent to that of younger adults listening in noise. In Experiment 4, we determined the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) such that, on average, younger and older adults were able to correctly hear the same percentage of words when words were presented one at a time in noise. In Experiment 5, younger adults were tested under this S/N. Compared with older adults from Experiment 3, younger adults in this experiment recalled more words at all serial positions. The results are interpreted as showing that encoding in secondary memory is impaired by aging and noise either as a function of degraded sensory representations, or as a function of reduced processing resources. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)