Creating False Memories of Words With or Without Recognition of List Items: Evidence for Nonconscious Processes

1998 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
John G. Seamon ◽  
Chun R. Luo ◽  
David A. Gallo
Keyword(s):  
False Memory ◽  
Memory Effect ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
False Memories ◽  
List Presentation ◽  
Semantic Concepts ◽  
Within Subjects

Subjects exposed to lists of semantically related words falsely remember nonstudied words that are associated with the list items (e.g., Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). To determine if subjects would demonstrate this false memory effect if they were unable to recognize the list items, we presented lists of semantically related words with or without a concurrent memory load at rates of 2 s, 250 ms, or 20 ms per word (Experiment 1, between-subjects design) and 2 s or 20 ms per word (Experiment 2, within-subjects design). We found that the subjects falsely recognized semantically related nonstudied words in all conditions, even when they were unable to discriminate studied words from unrelated nonstudied words. Recognition of list items was unnecessary for the occurrence of the false memory effect. This finding suggests that this memory illusion can be based on the nonconscious activation of semantic concepts during list presentation.

False memories for morphologically simple versus complex words in English

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Pycha
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
False Memory ◽  
Memory Effect ◽  
False Memories ◽  
Complex Versus ◽  
Lexical Representations ◽  
Activation Level ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Versus Complex ◽  
Complex Words

Abstract In tasks such as lexical decision, people respond differently to morphologically complex words compared to morphologically simple ones (e.g. in English, lies vs. rise). These divergent responses could conceivably arise from differences in activation levels, or alternatively, from the additional steps required to decompose complex words. To investigate this issue, we used the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) false memory paradigm, which probes activation of lexical representations by measuring the probability of recalling or recognizing a word (such as lies) after listening to a list of its phonological neighbors (such as wise, lose, lime, etc.). Our results showed a significant false memory effect for complex words, which demonstrates that similar-sounding words can activate representations for stem-plus-affix combinations. Our results also showed no significant difference between false memory rates for complex versus simple words, which suggests that complex stem-plus-affix representations activate at levels equivalent to those of simple stem representations. These findings indicate that differences in activation level probably do not lie at the source of divergent responses to complex and simple words, and that decomposition is the more likely origin.

scholarly journals Did you see that? False memories for emotional words in bilingual children

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Martina Cangelosi ◽  
Francesco Bossi ◽  
Paola Palladino
Keyword(s):  
False Memory ◽  
Memory Effect ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
False Memories ◽  
Semantic Knowledge ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Emotional Words ◽  
Vocabulary Skills

Abstract When participants process a list of semantically strongly related words, the ones that were not presented may later be said, falsely, to have been on the list. This ‘false memory effect’ has been investigated by means of the DRM paradigm. We applied an emotional version of it to assess the false memory effect for emotional words in bilingual children with a minority language as L1 (their mother tongue) and a monolingual control group. We found that the higher emotionality of the words enhances memory distortion for both the bilingual and the monolingual children, in spite of the disadvantage related to vocabulary skills and of the socioeconomic status that acts on semantic processing independently from the condition of bilingualism. We conclude that bilingual children develop their semantic knowledge separately from their vocabulary skills and parallel to their monolingual peers, with a comparable role played by Arousal and Valence.

scholarly journals Fuzzy-Trace Theory, False Memory, and the Law

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. J. Brainerd ◽  
Valerie F. Reyna
Keyword(s):  
False Memory ◽  
False Memories ◽  
Child Witnesses ◽  
Trace Theory ◽  
Fuzzy Trace Theory ◽  
Rules Of Evidence ◽  
Scientific Principles ◽  
Simple Change ◽  
The Law ◽  
Eyewitness Identifications

Fuzzy-trace theory (FTT) provides well-researched scientific principles that explain worrisome forms of false memory in the law. False memories are of great legal concern because memory reports are frequently the evidence that determines guilt/innocence and are sometimes the only evidence that crimes have been committed. FTT’s principles reveal errors in commonsense theories that jurors use to judge the credibility of witnesses’ memory reports. This science versus commonsense disconnect is salient in cases involving child witnesses, eyewitness identifications, and confessions. The consequences of this disconnect for justice could be ameliorated by a simple change in federal rules of evidence.

Retractors of false memories: The evolution of pseudo-memories

1995 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold I. Lief ◽  
Janet Fetkewicz
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
False Memory ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Telephone Interview ◽  
Family Members ◽  
False Memories ◽  
False Memory Syndrome ◽  
Reality Testing ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Study Population

The formation of pseudomemories and the subsequent methods used by subjects to eventually distinguish between true and false memories are the primary foci of this study. A survey instrument was distributed to 100 “retractors” after an initial telephone interview with False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) staff. Forty respondents (40% of the subjects) who returned the questionnaire comprise our study population. The survey inquired about personal and family information, events surrounding the subject's accusations of sexual abuse, childhood history, and the subject's reflections on his or her experience. The process of the development of pseudomemories is highlighted. Subjects also described their feelings and experiences in open-ended questions, including their subjective experience as memories evolved, factors influencing thoughts, feelings and doubts, the process of questioning memories, the process of restoring relationships with family members, and uncertainties about views of memories currently held. We focus on the evolution of pseudomemories, especially the influence of the therapist; we explore the nature of therapy, one that makes an ill patient much worse and that eventually becomes so onerous that patients who still have some remaining reality-testing flee from therapy.

False Memory in a Short-Term Memory Task

2007 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer H. Coane ◽  
Dawn M. McBride ◽  
Bascom A. Raulerson III ◽  
J. Scott Jordan
Keyword(s):  
False Memory ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
False Memories ◽  
False Alarms ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Latency Data ◽  
Single Probe

The Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM; Roediger & McDermott, 1995 ) paradigm reliably elicits false memories for critical nonpresented words in recognition tasks. The present studies used a Sternberg (1966) task with DRM lists to determine whether false memories occur in short-term memory tasks and to assess the contribution of latency data in the measurement of false memories. Subjects studied three, five, or seven items from DRM lists and responded to a single probe (studied or nonstudied). In both experiments, critical lures were falsely recognized more often than nonpresented weak associates. Latency data indicated that correct rejections of critical lures were slower than correct rejections of weakly related items at all set sizes. False alarms to critical lures were slower than hits to list items. Latency data can distinguish veridical and false memories in a short-term memory task. Results are discussed in terms of activation-monitoring models of false memory.

Suits by adults for childhood sexual abuse: Legal origins of the “repressed memory” controversy

1996 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary R. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Childhood Sexual Abuse ◽  
False Memory ◽  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
False Memories ◽  
Repressed Memory ◽  
False Memory Syndrome ◽  
Legal Origins ◽  
Civil Lawsuits

In the last decade there has been a proliferation of civil lawsuits by adults claiming to be survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Many states have permitted such suits to go forward by applying some form of “delayed discovery of injury” exception to the statute of limitations. Advocates for those claiming to have been falsely accused have generated a new concept—“false memory syndrome”—as an alternative explanation for delayed memories of CSA. Its proponents claim that there is an epidemic of therapy-induced “false memories” of CSA. Psychotherapists and the profession as a whole have become involved in a heated controversy, whose substance as well as intensity is to a large extent litigation driven. To understand the controversy and get a handle on its future, it is important to examine its legal origins, history and context.

Fuzzy-Trace Theory and False Memory

2002 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 164-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
C.J. Brainerd ◽  
V.F. Reyna
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
False Memory ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
False Memories ◽  
Developmental Level ◽  
Trace Theory ◽  
Fuzzy Trace Theory ◽  
Small Set ◽  
Legal Consequences

A key problem confronting theories of false memory is that false-memory phenomena are so diverse: Some are characteristic of controlled laboratory tasks, others of everyday life; some occur for traumatic events with legal consequences, others for innocuous events; some are characteristic of one developmental level, others of another developmental level. Fuzzy-trace theory explains false memories via a small set of principles that implement a single representational distinction. Those principles generate new predictions, some of which are counterintuitive.

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