emotion and false memories Flashcards
what is false memory
individuals experience strong familiarity and recollection for events that never happened - vivid and detailed so assume its true
but can be planted and implemented by others
misinformation effect
incorporating misleading information into ones memory of an event.
Loftus et al - looking at the extent to which leading questions and misinformation may influence the memory of an event.
watch clip and asked
Group A - estimate how fast car was when they hit eachother
Group B - how fast were the cars when they smashed into eachother –> ppts thought the car went twice as fast as group A
1 week later asked if there was any glass –> group B recalled broken glass even though there wasnt any
effect of false memories on scene details
- increased false memories for peripheral details of negative scenes compared to positive/neutral scenes
- ppts remembering negative photos had fewer correct and more false memories about peripheral details of the images, but remember central details, than those remembering positive or neutral photos
e. g. when shown a woman cycling down the road - equal details remembered about the woman and periphery, when shown the woman falling and bleeding = enhance memory for woman
Easterbrook’s cue utilisation theory
high arousal restricted the focus of attention –> only focus on arousing information e.g. weapon focus effect
this worsens memory and creates more false memories
memory ‘trade-off
misinformation effect - remember central emotional content but forget other details
these trade offs can occur for spatial proximity and temporal proximity
False memories of fabricated political events (Frenda et al., 2003)
more likely when the fabricated event aligned with the participants own political leanings.
Fabricated events accompanied by a photo depicting the event and approx. half falsely remembered it happening with 27% remembering they’d seen it on the news.
easy to manipulate memories for things people are passionate about = inclined to believe things in line with our view of the world
self reported interest in a topi increases false memory (O’Connell & Greene, 2017)
more likely to recall true and false information consistent with preexisting stereotypes, schemata and desires
study looked at interest (as a distinct from expertise)
–> interest = more true and false memories of the topic
why does interest/expertise = false memories
the more someone knows, the more memories of that topic are stored. when new information is encountered = trigger similar memory traces that are already stored = triggers a sense of familiarity/recognition of the new material = believe it has been enchanted before
