False memories Flashcards
Introduction, outline the memory ward debate
Interest in false memory research was mainly fostered by a flood of cases in which people, during the course of a psychotherapeutic treatment, suddenly came to ‘recover’ what seem to be previously inaccessible memories of traumatic childhood events (e.g., sexual abuse). There are conflicting opinions about the accuracy of these recovered memories. Many clinicians believe that such memories are essentially accurate. Other experimental and clinical psychologists, have pointed out that recovered memories may reflect an iatrogenic effect. The credibility of recovered memories has led to a heated controversy between both positions, with each side imposing high standards of proof upon the other side. One positive side-effect of the recovered memory debate is that it has given rise to a huge experimental literature on how certain manipulations may affect people’s judgments about their memories. A common criticism of false memory research is that generalizations from the experimental to the clinical context are difficult to make.
outline the structure of the essay
This essay shall argue in the favour of the critics because despite the diversity in methodologies and results in false memory research, most authors interpret their results in terms of false memories. Three different methodologies that have claimed to measure false memory, Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm, Imagination inflation paradigm and Crashing Memory Paradigm, will be considered and discuss whether the paradigms are measuring autobiographical belief or memory.
describe the DRM task
The DRM task consists of a list of words that are semantically associated with a critical lure word, for example, if the lure word is ‘chair’ the presented words may be; bench, seat, table, legs. Participants are asked to memories as many words on each list as possible, and the typical findings indicate that in subsequent free-recall and recognition tasks, participants falsely recall and recognise the lure words, which were not presented in the lists. The DRM task consistently produces a significant effect, even when the false memory phenomenon is explained to participants, the effect is not eliminated (McDermott & Roediger, 1998). However, there is some disagreement amongst researchers about whether the DRM paradigm measures just memory errors or full blown false memories.
who argued against DRM measuring False memory?
DePrince and colleagues (2004) argued that DRM paradigm measures memory errors and not false memories because the term false memory was originally used to describe memory for an entirely new event that was never experienced in an individual’s lifetime, and the DRM paradigm only tests for memory errors for details (words from word list).
who argued in support of the DRM paradigm?
However, (Meyersburg et al., 2009) argue that the DRM paradigm is a good diagnostics of memory errors in general and while the underlying mechanism that drive DRM errors and autobiographical memory errors may vary, both errors can be considered as a kind of monitoring failure.
Outline the study procedure, results and interpretations in favour of DRM paradigm
For an example, Mayersburg and colleagues (2009) examined individuals with past life memories, found that participants who reported past life memories, scored higher on the DRM false recall and recognition tasks, compared to control participants. The researchers concluded that while the DRM errors may not be equivalent to false autobiographical memories outside the laboratory but a high score may be a good diagnostic of individuals who are susceptible to developing false memories in the outside world.
short summary of imagination inflation paradigm
Imagination inflation paradigm is another method that, according to some psychologist, measures false memory in people. Garry et al., (1996) examined if imagining events from one’s past can affect memory for childhood events. To determine the effects of imagining a childhood event, they pretested subjects on how confident they were that a number of childhood events had happened, asked them to imagine some of those events, and then gathered new confidence measures.
detailed description of the imagination inflation paradigm and result.
To be more specific, a 40-item Life Events Inventory (LEI) was administered during the first session. It asked subjects to consider how certain they were that each event (or a very similar one) had or had not happened to them before the age of 10 (e.g., “Broke a window with your hand”; 1 = definitely did not happen and 8 = definitely did happen). Two weeks later, researchers asked participants to imagine a few of these events. The experimenter then pretend that their original LEIs had been misplaced, and asked participants to complete another copy. For each of the target items, imagination inflated confidence that the event had occurred in childhood.
interpretation of the imagination inflation result?
This finding has been interpreted as indicating that false events can be suggestively planted in memory by simply having people imagine them. One plausible explanation of the findings is that imagining an event makes it more accessible (e.g., gives it detail, more context) and more familiar, thus more plausible which in return also increases the chance of source monitoring errors. However, critics of this study have proposed an alternative explanation for the findings.
who conducted an alternative study to the original imagination inflation?
describe the study and the alternative explanation for the imagination inflation results?
Pezdek and Eddy (2001), conducted a study using similar procedure as described above, but also included the statistical analysis of the ratings of all target events, not just those initially rated as not likely to have occurred. Researchers also included older adults as well as younger adults. The results of Garry et al. (1996) were replicated; likelihood ratings for events initially rated low in likelihood did increase from Time 1 to Time 2. However, ratings for events initially rated high in likelihood decreased under the same conditions, and these results were consistent with the imagined target events, the target events not imagined, and the nontarget events. This study tested and confirmed the hypothesis that the results that have been attributed to imagination inflation are simply a statistical artifact of regression toward the mean. Additionally, it is unclear whether the imagination inflation is measuring autobiographical memories or rather autobiographical beliefs.
Clinical Psychology Review of imagination inflation studies overview.
According to a Clinical Psychology Review (Smeets et al., 2005), in contemporary research, the term false memory is used in a rather liberal way. For example, Garry’s et al., (1996) study deals with a belief in a fictitious event (i.e., a false belief). This interpretation may still be too generous because a confidence estimate of a particular event rather than a belief is the dependent variable. Strictly speaking LEI items tap how confident participants are of having experienced a certain childhood event and not about having a detailed memory of that particular event. Confidence is not the same as (false) memory. At most, inflated confidence constitutes a first step in the construction of false memories. Logically, it is perfectly possible to have inflated confidence without having false memories. It would only make sense to frame imagination inflation effects in terms of belief when confidence inflation is so large that it crosses the midpoint of the confidence scale.
Clinical Psychology Review of imagination inflation studies conclusion?
It is unsafe to assume that autobiographical beliefs are based on memories until empirical research finds that beliefs and memories are meaningfully related. Thus, the imagination inflation paradigm should not be characterized as measuring false memory because it may not actually cause individuals to recall events that never occurred but rather have caused participants to believe that such events might have occurred.
outline the Crashing memories paradigm and the who conducted the supporting study + procedure
Crashing memory paradigm is based on the argument that suggestion may help create false memories for real life events. A study by Crombag et al. (1996) used a public event (i.e., the 1992 El-Al airplane crash) to find out whether people would claim to have memories of non-existing television scenes of this event. To that end, the authors asked a simple forced choice (yes/no) question, namely ‘Did you see the television film of the moment the plane hit the apartment building?’. When answered affirmative, this was followed by one or more multiple choice questions, like ‘After the plane hit the building, there was a fire. How long did it take for the fire to start?’.
Crashing memories paradigm supporting study results and interpretations?
Crombag et al. found that over half of their participants (55% in study 1 and 66% in study 2) claimed to have seen the (non-existing) fragments. They speculated that the misleading suggestions embedded in their questions may have led their participants to come to believe that they saw a television fragment that in fact did not exist.
Who proposed an alternative explanation to crashing memory study results? what was the explanation?
In Smeets et al. (2005) view, the high percentage of participants claiming to have seen the film fragment does not necessarily mean that all of them actually had false memories or images. Another possibility is that participants, due to the highly suggestive context, drew upon general knowledge heuristics (e.g., a plane crash causes an immediate explosion) rather than false memories when they answered the follow-up questions. As well, participants may have been eager to please the researchers and, hence, might have provided socially desirable answers without really believing them. In both cases, there is no need to postulate underlying false memories.
