Creating False Memories - Essay Example

Creating False Memories This experiment investigated the ability of participants to create false memories of words that are related to words they have heard in a list. Lists were intentionally structured so that participants would recall a particular word. For instance, one list included words like "spoon", "fork", "food", and "meal", and participants were expected to recall "eating". The experiment revealed remarkable levels of false recall and false recognition in a list learning paradigm. In experiment 1, subjects studied lists of 12 words (e.g., spoon, fork, food); each list was composed of associates of 1 normal distractor word (e.g., drink) and 1 special distractor word (e.g eating). The act of recall enhanced later remembering of both studied and nonstudied material. The results reveal a powerful illusion of memory: People remember events that never happened. Free Recall as a Means to Detect False Memories False memories-either remembering events that never happened, or remembering them quite differently from the way they happened-have recently captured the attention of both psychologists and the public at large. The primary impetus for this recent surge of interest is the increase in the number of cases in which memories of previously unrecognized abuse are reported during the course of therapy. Some researchers have argued that certain therapeutic practices can cause the creation of false memories, and therefore, the apparent "recovery" of memories during the course of therapy may actually represent the creation of memories (Lindsay & Read, 1994; Loftus, 1993). Although the concept of false memories is currently enjoying an increase in publicity, it is not new; psychologists have been studying false memories in several laboratory paradigms for years. Schacter (1995) provides an historical overview of the study of memory distortions. Schacter (1996) spoke of the fragile nature of memory and the Seven Sins of memory, discussing how our memories can fail us in certain situations. Where is the weakness in a memory system that functions according to the principle of semantic relatedness and integration There is one well-known case of false memories being produced in a list learning paradigm: Underwood (1965) introduced a technique to study false recognition of words in lists. He gave subjects a continuous recognition task in which they decided if each presented word had been given previously in the list. Later words bore various relations to previously studied words. Underwood showed that words associatively related to previously presented words were falsely recognized. Anisfeld and Knapp (1968), among others, replicated the phenomenon. Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of human memory and mental processes, including such activities as perceiving, remembering, using language, reasoning and solving problems. There are two important lessons in cognitive psychology. First, mental processes can occur with very little conscious awareness. This is especially true of processes that have received a great deal of practice, such as reading skills. Second, even though these processes can operate very quickly, they are quite complex, involving difficult motor, perceptual and mental acts. Their complexities make it even more amazing how efficient, rapid, and seemingly automatic they are. Intuitive analysis of examples such as "How many hands does Aristotle have" indicates that many important mental processes can occur automatically, that is, very rapidly and below the level of conscious awareness. Memory consists of the power, act, or process of recalling to mind facts previously learned or past experiences. It also refers to process, mental act in which stored information is recovered for some current use. Aside from this, memory also refers to a place, a location, where all the events, information, and knowledge of a lifetime are stored. Cognition, on the other hand, refers to all the processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used such as sensation, perception, imagery, retention, recall, problem solving and thinking. Cognition is the collection of mental processes and activities used in perceiving, remembering, thinking and understanding, as well as the act of using those processes. In free recall, subjects are free to recall the list of items in any order, whereas in a serial recall subjects are asked to recall the list items in their original form of presentation. Not surprisingly, serial recall is the more difficult task to perform. to be able to recall the items in order, subjects must rehearse the items as they are shown, trying to store not only the stimulus but also its position in the list. As more and more items are shown, subjects are less and less able to do this rehearsal, so they tend to show poorer performance later in the list. In contrast, free recall provides the opportunity to recall the items in any order. The final recency portion of the list is generally held only in short-term memory and is spewed out, so to speak, as soon as the signal recall is given to the subjects. This recall strategy works because the recency of the last items ensures that they are still in the short-term memory. Clearly subjects cannot capitalize on recency in serial recall task; they must start recalling with the first item on the list. Because subjects cannot rely on immediate recall for ay of the items in serial recall, they must rehearse them as they are shown to store them in a more enduring form. A simple yet powerful memory of something that did not happen is reported by Roediger and McDermott (1995), based on a demonstration by Deese. Roediger and McDermott's participants studied 12 item list made up of words such as bed, rest, awake and pillow, words highly associated with the word sleep. Importantly, sleep was never present in the list. Instead, it served as the critical lure word, a word that was highly related to all the other words in the list but that never appeared in the list The purpose of the research is to prove that people have higher tendencies to have false memory especially under certain conditions limited by time. The independent variable in this experiment was the type of word presented at test: (1) on list, (2) unrelated distractor, and (3) related distractor. The dependent variable was the percentage of each type of item recalled. People should recall the related distractors very often. The idea is that many of the words presented are related to the distractor, and most likely you thought about the distractor item as the words were being shown. At test, you have a memory of thinking about the word, but thought this was because it was presented rather than realizing you had just thought about the word. Methods There are twenty participants in the study and they are randomly selected. Participants received partial credit toward a course research requirement in exchange for their participation. The participants have adequate knowledge of the English language that is used in the study. They have developed advanced reading proficiency skills as well as spelling skills necessary to discern the word that are presented on the list provided to them. The list that is presented to the participants is composed of twenty English words which can be categorized to common nouns, simple verbs. Each word has a minimum of one syllable to a maximum of ten syllables. There is no repetition of words in the list presented. The words are presented in a list which is typewritten and with font size 12" and with a font color of black. There is another list comprised with response buttons beside the words contained in the first list and also distractor words which are not on the original list. The second list is used for the recall part of the procedure. A list of words was shown one at a time, with each word presented for one and a half seconds. Then, the response buttons were labeled with words from the list as well as with distractor words that were not on the list. The participants were asked to click on the buttons to identify which words were on the list. Results In immediate free recall, 69.17% for special distractors and 3.333% for normal distractors (Figure 1) are recalled by the participants from the list and later recognized with a high degree of confidence. This is false memory. The participants studied multiple lists, constructed in the same fashion, either recalling the list of words immediately or performing a distractor task. Everyone then was given a recognition task. During free recall, a standard deviation of 27.77 resulted in the participants recall of the special distractor and a standard deviation of 15.76 for the normal disractor The recognition results were even more dramatic. A few people recognized nonstudied words, words that were unrelated to the lists they had studied. More importantly, correct recognition for studied words increased to well above chance for the study/arithmetic lists and even higher for study/recall lists. But false recognition of the critical lure was slightly higher than correct recognition of words actually shown on the list, showing the same pattern of increases across conditions. In other words, falsely remembering the lure during recall strengthened participants' memories of the lure word leading them to an even higher false recognition rate. When questioned further, most participants claimed to "remember" the critical lure word rather than merely "know" it had been on the list. In terms of content accuracy, of course, this performance is good, exactly what the researchers would expect; you see in a list of words such as spoon, fork, pork, and rice, and because the list is about "eating", the participants then recall "eating". But in terms of technical accuracy, this performance is poor, because the participants came up with the word sleep based on their understanding of the lsit and then could not distinguish between what had really been on the list and what had been supplied from memory. Discussion The free recall process is used by the participants as stated in the procedures. This way, they are allowed to recall items in any order through the use of the response buttons from a separate list. The results show that they are able to The results of the experiment have shown an observation of high levels of false recall in a single-trial, free-recall task. We found that the critical nonpresented items were recalled at about the same level as items actually presented in the middle of the lists. This high rate of false recall was not due to subjects guessing wildly. Other intrusions occurred at a very low rate. In addition, we extended Deese's results to a recognition test and showed that the critical nonpresented items were called old at almost the same level as studied items. Finally, more than half the time subjects reported that they were sure that the critical nonstudied item had appeared on the list. Given these results, this paradigm seems a promising method to study false memories. The weakness in the memory system that functions according to the principle of semantic relatedness and integration lies in exactly those situations that call for technical accuracy. The weakness of such a memory system is that there are situations when it is important to be able to distinguish between what really happened and what our existing knowledge and comprehension processes might have contributed to our recollection. All remembering is constructive in nature. The illusion of remembering events that never really happened can occur quite readily. Therefore, as others have also pointed out, the fact that people may say they vividly remember details surrounding an event cannot, by itself, be taken as a convincing evidence that the event actually occurred. REFERENCES Anisfeld, M., & Knapp, M. (1968). Association, synonymity, and directionality in false recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 77, 171-179. Deese, J. (1959). On the prediction of occurrence of particular verbal intrusions in immediate recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 58, 17-22. Lindsay, D. S., & Read, J. D. (1994). Psychotherapy and memories of childhood sexual abuse: A cognitive perspective. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 8, 281-338. Loftus, E. F. (1993). The reality of repressed memories. American Psychologist, 48, 518 537. Schacter, D. L. (1995). Memory distortion: History and current status. In D. L. Schacter, J. T. Coyle, G. D. Fischbach, M. M. Mesulam, & L. E. Sullivan (Eds.), Memory distortion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Underwood, B. J. (1965). False recognition produced by implicit verbal responses. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 70, 122-129. AUTHOR NOTES Emily G. Soliano, Psychology Department, Worcester State College' This work was supported by a Faculty Development grant awarded to Emily G. soltano. The author wishes to thank Ben Walter, Troy Walter and opal Tropie for their assistance Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to the authorat the Psychology Department, Worcester State College, 486 Chandler Street, Worcester, MA 01602. Email: esoltano@worcester'edu' Figure 1 Read More