False Memory

Question 1

What is False Memory?

Answer 1

Remembering something wrong or remembering something that never happened

Question 2

Car Accident (Loftus, 1979)

Answer 2

View car accident slides with either a stop sign or a yield sign and asked which they saw
Consistent condition: 75% accurate
Inconsistent condition: 41% accurate
Vocab effects too (no broken glass in the slides):
Hit: 14% said they saw broken glass
Smashed: 32% said they saw broken glass

Question 3

Physiological Response to False Memory (Baioui et al, 2012)

Answer 3

Used picture version of the DRM task
Found stronger physiological effects for true memories
IMPLIES: some unconscious awareness that the lure is false

Question 4

Neural Mechanisms of False Memory (Cabeza et al, 2001)

Answer 4

Used fMRI
Hippocampus activity was greater for old words than new words BUT the same for old words and false items in the parahippocampul gyrus
IMPLIES: hippocampus involved in semantic memory, MTL involved in sensory memory

Question 5

Rejection of Lures (Atkins & Reuter-Lorenz, 2011)

Answer 5

fMRI study of the DRM task

Found DLPFC activation was associated with the correct rejection of lures

Question 6

Catholic and Jews (Pezdek, Finger & Hodge, 1997)

Answer 6

Asked Catholics and Jews about religious events
Catholic p's:
-7 false recall for Catholic event
-1 false recall of Jewish event
Jewish p's:
-3 false recall of Jewish event
-0 false recall of Catholic event
IMPLIES: false memory needs some familiarity with the context of the memory

Question 7

Eyewitness Testimony (Loftus, 1979)

Answer 7

Jurors were more likely to believe eyewitness testimony if it was delivered with high confidence
IMPLIES: eyewitness testimony should be obtained using mock witnesses

Question 8

‘Gist’ (Brainerd & Reyna, 2005)

Answer 8

Gist and item-specific recollection exist parallel

Associative networks: seeing a particular words activates related words

Question 9

Eyewitness Testimony (Sporer et al, 1995)

Answer 9

Weak correlation between confidence and eyewitness accuracy

Repeatedly telling a false memory creates misleading confidence through repeated recall

Question 10

DRM paradigm (Roediger & McDermott, 1995)

Answer 10

Experiment 1:
examine a list of words all linked by a ‘critical lure’ e.g. chair
40% recalled seeing lure words (chair)
58% used the highest confidence rating of having seen chair - false memory not due to guessing
Experiment 2: R/K paradigm
If p’s recalled the lure word in the first experiment then they were more likely to say they ‘remembered’ the experience of seeing it: not just familiarity