Laney et al memory Flashcards
Background
Human memory has been previously distorted with negative and neutral false memories. This research focuses on implanting positive false memories
Overall aim 1 (can be)
To investigate whether positive false memories can be implanted into people then change their childhood memories of liking asparagus
Overall aim 2 (effect)
To investigate the consequences of implanting positive false memories in terms of the effect it has on liking asparagus and choosing asparagus
What the ppts thought the aim was
Food preferences and how it affects personality
Expectation
People would have an increased confidence in liking asparagus
IV
manipulation of liking asparagus
Operationalise the IV
by the computer generated profile that was given to participants a week after.
DV
scores on various questionnaires
Method
Lab experiment, questionnaires
Psych investigated
People’s memories can be incorrect so if researchers can reconstruct memories by filling in gaps with false info, will ppts believe it?
How was the false memory implanted?
by giving false feedback suggesting that they had loved to eat asparagus as children
What are false memories
5
- People’s memories of events in their own life can be incorrect
- These false details can be added to a person’s memory storage system
- From all the stored information, people can reconstruct memories
- They fill in the gaps
- Then new memories are formed that contains incorrect information
Explain the FHI (3)
- 24 items
- 8-point scale
- included ‘loved asparagus the first time you tried it’
Explain the RQ (4)
- looks like a menu
- 32 items
- 8-point scale
- scale is from definitely no to definitely yes
Explain the FPQ (3)
- 62 items
- 8-point scale
- scale is from 1- definitely don’t like to eat to 8- definitely like to eat
Explain the FCQ (3)
- 21 food items
- how much they’d be willing to pay for a food items at a grocery store
- asparagus included
Explain the MBQ
- has three answer options:
‘have specific memory’
‘belief that it happened’
‘positive that it didnt happen’
What were the three filler questionnaires
personality, social desirability and eating habit questionnaire
Difference between control and love group
Control did not receive the asparagus feedback
Memories def
specific structured units that may be quite detailed
Beliefs def
less specific and less tied to time and place
How does this experiment differ from rich false memory studies?
2
- Uses positive false memories and not neutral or negative false memories
- Explores consequences of implantation whereas other studies stop after false memory implantation
Exp 1 sample size
128
Exp 1 sample locale
undergrads from University of California
Exp 1 sample mean age
20.8 years
Exp 1 sample gender distribution
mostly female (77%)
Exp 1 Allocation to groups (number and how )
random allocation to the groups. 63 in love and 65 in control
Exp 1 Order of questionnaires given
FHI
RQ
filler questionnaires
Elaboration
FHI
RQ
FPQ
FCQ
MQ
After how long did ppts return
one week