False Memory

1
False Memory

• Do you remember?
• Are you sure?

Presented by Laura Chou
2
Introduction

• Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm
• Studying Phase
• List of semantic-related words
• Eg. Thead, pin, eye, sewing, sharp, etc.
• Testing Phase
• Asked to recall or recognize words studied
• Often falsely recall/recognize the critical lures
  such as needle

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Introduction

• False memory are shown not only with words, like
  in the DRM test, but also with
• Pictures
• Phonemic word list
• Emotional and non-emotional word list
• Numbers

4
Method

• With an interface like this, 15 words that are
  highly associated will each appear for 1.5
  seconds in sequence on the left side

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Method Contd

• After the list, 16 words, one in each button will
  appear on the right side of the interface.
• Of these 16 words
• 7 are words that were in the list
• 8 are words that were NOT in the list (normal
  distracters)
• 1 word that was NOT in the list but is highly
  associated with all the words that were presented
  in the list (special distracter)

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Method Contd

• All participants were given the same
  instructions a list of 15 words will
  sequentially appear on the left side and your
  task is to try to remember them and later
  recognize some of them by clicking on the words
  on the right side of the screen. When you think
  you have clicked all the words that you saw, go
  on to next trial.

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Variables

• Controlled
• Whats being measured?
• Basically, 3 measurements are recorded and later
  processed, they are percentages of
• Words that were presented in the list (ORIGINAL)
• Words that were NOT presented in the list and NOT
  associative (NORMAL DISTRACTER)
• A word that was NOT presented in the list but
  HIGHLY associated with all the words in the list
  (SPECIAL DISTRACTER)

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Hypothesis

• General Hypothesis
• False memory is generated
• Specific Hypothesis
• Special distracters seem to be highly recognized,
  so are words that are actually in the list, and
  normal distracters are least recognized.

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Results

• SoIs it really easy to see 15 words and
  recognize them immediately later?
• Big NO-NO

• P-values lt 0.00 lt 0.00
• lt 0.01 ALL WERE
  SIGNIFICANT

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Recognition Percentile
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Discussion

• WHY??
• Spreading-activation model
• Strength of association
• Many other studies confirm this similar finding
• INTERESTING FACTS
• Method of presentation
• Neuroimaging techniques

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Conclusion

• The semantic association between the words has a
  huge influence
• memory can be easily distorted and reconstructed
• My baby story false memory in pictures and
  reconstruction of memory

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Thats it! Im Done and Happy

• Any questions, comments, suggestions for my
  presentation?
• All suggestions and attention are appreciated!

Presented to you by Laura Chou