The distinctiveness heuristic in false recognition and false recall

The effects of generative processing on false recognition and recall were examined in four experiments using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott false memory paradigm (Deese, 1959 Deese, J. 1959. On the prediction of occurrence of particular verbal intrusions in immediate recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 58: 17–22. [Crossref], [PubMed] , [Google Scholar]; Roediger & McDermott, 1995 Roediger, H. L. and McDermott, K. B. 1995. Creating false memories: Remembering words not presented in lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21: 803–814. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). In each experiment, a Generate condition in which subjects generated studied words from audio anagrams was compared to a Control condition in which subjects simply listened to studied words presented normally. Rates of false recognition and false recall were lower for critical lures associated with generated lists, than for critical lures associated with control lists, but only in between-subjects designs. False recall and recognition did not differ when generate and control conditions were manipulated within-subjects. This pattern of results is consistent with the distinctiveness heuristic (Schacter, Israel, & Racine, 1999 Schacter, D. L., Israel, L. and Racine, C. 1999. Suppressing false recognition in younger and older adults: The distinctiveness heuristic. Journal of Memory and Language, 40: 1–24. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), a metamemorial decision-based strategy whereby global changes in decision criteria lead to reductions of false memories. This retrieval-based monitoring mechanism appears to operate in a similar fashion in reducing false recognition and false recall.     

The distinctiveness heuristic in false recognition and false recall

The effects of generative processing on false recognition and recall were examined in four experiments using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott false memory paradigm (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). In each experiment, a Generate condition in which subjects generated studied words from audio anagrams was compared to a Control condition in which subjects simply listened to studied words presented normally. Rates of false recognition and false recall were lower for critical lures associated with generated lists, than for critical lures associated with control lists, but only in between-subjects designs. False recall and recognition did not differ when generate and control conditions were manipulated within-subjects. This pattern of results is consistent with the distinctiveness heuristic (Schacter, Israel, & Racine, 1999), a metamemorial decision-based strategy whereby global changes in decision criteria lead to reductions of false memories. This retrieval-based monitoring mechanism appears to operate in a similar fashion in reducing false recognition and false recall.     

The role of phantom recollection in false recall

Although high levels of phantom recollection (illusory vivid experience of the prior "presentation" of unpresented items) have been found for false recognition, little is known about phantom recollection in recall. We examined this issue with Deese/Roediger-McDermott lists using two paradigms: repeated recall and conjoint recall. High levels of phantom recollection were observed with both standard behavioral measures and the parameters of fuzzy-trace theory's dual-recall model. In addition, phantom recollection and the true recollection that accompanies presented items appear to involve different retrieval processes, because they were dissociated by manipulations such as number of recall tests and list strength.     

Modality effects in false recall and false recognition

R. E. Smith and R. R. Hunt (1998) reported a dramatic reduction in false remembering in a list-learning paradigm by switching from auditory to visual presentation at study. The current authors replicated these modality effects using written recall and visual recognition tests but obtained smaller effects than those in R. E. Smith and R. R. Hunt's study. In contrast, no modality effect occurred on auditory recognition tests. Manipulating study and test modality within-subjects (Experiment 2) and between-subjects (Experiment 3) yielded similar results. It was also found that subjects frequently judged critical nonstudied words as having been presented in the modality of their corresponding study lists. The authors concluded that subjects could retrieve distinctive information about a study list's presentation modality to reduce false remembering but only did so under certain conditions. The modality effect on false remembering is a function of both encoding and retrieval factors.     

The effects of a levels-of-processing manipulation on false recall

The present study attempted to determine the effect of a levels-of-processing manipulation on the incidence of false recall. In Experiment 1, participants engaged in either a vowel counting task or a concrete/abstract rating task; in Experiment 2, participants engaged in either a vowel counting task or a category sorting task. Results of both experiments demonstrated that participants who engaged in a deeper level of processing (i.e., concrete/abstract ratings or category sorting) recalled significantly more list items and critical lures. The present findings thus lend support to theories that attribute false memories to activation-based factors.     

Need for Cognition and false recall

Two experiments investigated whether Need for Cognition (NFC) affected false recall in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. In the first experiment, participants were presented with DRM lists and given one attempt to recall the items. In the second experiment, participants were presented with DRM lists under full or divided attention and were given three consecutive recall tests. In Experiment 2, high-NFC individuals exhibited increased false recall across successive recall attempts in both the full and divided attention conditions whereas low-NFC individuals did not. Furthermore, high-NFC individuals in the full attention condition exhibited increased levels of true recall across successive tests. These results show that the individual differences in the ways in which individuals process information can affect true and false recall in the DRM task.     

The effects of mediated word lists on false recall and recognition

False memory effects were explored using unrelated list items (e.g., slope, reindeer, corn) that were related to mediators (e.g., ski, sleigh, flake) that all converged upon a single nonpresented critical item (CI; e.g., snow). In Experiment 1, participants completed either an initial recall test or arithmetic problems after study, followed by a final recognition test. Participants did not falsely recall CIs on the initial test; however, false alarms to CIs did occur in recognition, but only following an initial recall test. In Experiment 2, participants were instructed to guess the CI, followed by a recognition test. The results replicated Experiment 1, with an increase in CI false alarms. Experiment 3 controlled for item effects by replacing unrelated recognition items from Experiment 1 with both CIs and list items from nonpresented lists. Once again, CI false alarms were found when controlling for lexical characteristics, demonstrating that mediated false memory is not due simply to item differences.     

Part-list cuing and the dynamics of false recall

False recall of an unpresented critical word after studying its semantic associates can be reduced substantially if the strongest and earliest-studied associates are presented as part-list cues during testing (Kimball & Bjork, 2002). To disentangle episodic and semantic contributions to this decline in false recall, we factorially manipulated the cues’ serial position and their strength of association to the critical word. Presenting cues comprising words that had been studied early in a list produced a greater reduction in false recall than did presenting words studied late in the list, independent of the cues’ associative strength, but only when recall of the cues themselves was prohibited. When recall of the cues was permitted, neither early-studied nor late-studied cues decreased false recall reliably, relative to uncued lists. The findings suggest that critical words and early-studied words share a similar fate during recall, owing to selective episodic strengthening of their associations during study.     

The effects of initial testing on false recall and false recognition in the social contagion of memory paradigm

In three experiments, participants studied photographs of common household scenes. Following study, participants completed a category-cued recall test without feedback (Exps. 1 and 3), a category-cued recall test with feedback (Exp. 2), or a filler task (no-test condition). Participants then viewed recall tests from fictitious previous participants that contained erroneous items presented either one or four times, and then completed final recall and source recognition tests. The participants in all conditions reported incorrect items during final testing (a social contagion effect), and across experiments, initial testing had no impact on false recall of erroneous items. However, on the final source-monitoring recognition test, initial testing had a protective effect against false source recognition: Participants who were initially tested with and without feedback on category-cued initial tests attributed fewer incorrect items to the original event on the final source-monitoring recognition test than did participants who were not initially tested. These data demonstrate that initial testing may protect individuals’ memories from erroneous suggestions.     

The effects of frontal lobe functioning and age on veridical and false recall

Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri Older adults’ heightened susceptibility to false memories has been linked to compromised frontal lobe functioning as estimated by Glisky and colleagues’ (Glisky, Polster, & Routhieaux, 1995) neuropsychological battery (e.g., Butler, McDaniel, Dornburg, Price, & Roediger, 2004). This conclusion, however, rests on the untested assumption that young adults have uniformly high frontal functioning. We tested this assumption, and we correlated younger and older adults’ frontal scores with veridical and false recall probabilities with prose materials. Substantial variability in scores on the Glisky battery occurred for younger (and older) adults. However, frontal scores and age were independent contributors to recall probabilities. Frontal functioning is not the sole cause of older adults’ heightened susceptibility to false memories.     

Testing improves true recall and protects against the build-up of proactive interference without increasing false recall

Retrieval practice has been shown to protect against the negative effects of previously learned information on the learning of subsequent information, while increasing retention of new information. We report three experiments investigating the impact of retrieval practice on false recall in a multiple list paradigm. In three different experimental designs participants studied blocks of interrelated words that converged on non-presented associates. Participants were tested either after every study block or only after the fifth study block, and both groups received a cumulative test on all five study blocks. Overall the results from all three different experimental designs point to a benefit of testing in increasing long-term veridical recall on the cumulative test. More importantly, this improvement in veridical recall did not come at a cost: False recall on the cumulative test did not increase from retrieval practice.     

Investigating the mechanisms fuelling reduced false recall of emotional material

Addictive behaviour has qualities that make it ideal for study using implicit techniques. Addictive behaviours are mediated in part by automatic responses to drug cues, and there is sometimes social pressure to distort self-reports. However, relationships between implicit attitudes and addictive behaviours have been inconsistent. Using a new implicit measure, the affect misattribution procedure (AMP), we found consistent evidence that drinking-related behaviours are systematically related to implicit attitudes. The procedure predicted a behavioural choice to drink beer and self-reported typical drinking tendencies, including hazardous drinking and alcohol-related problems. The AMP showed larger relationships with drinking behaviour than other implicit measures, and explained unique variance in drinking beyond those measures and beyond explicit measures. Though self-presentation distorted self-reports, it did not affect AMP scores. These studies highlight the importance of automatic affective responses in addictive behaviour and suggest a useful means for measuring those responses.     

Presentation modality and mode of recall in verbal false memory

False memories were investigated for aurally and visually presented lists of semantically associated words. In Experiment 1, false written recall of critical intrusions was reliably lower following visual presentation compared with aural presentation. This presentation modality effect was attributed to the use of orthographic features during written recall to edit critical intrusions from visually presented lists. As predicted by this hypothesis, the modality effect was eliminated when the mode of recall was spoken rather than written. In Experiment 2, the modality effect in written recall was again replicated and then eliminated with an orienting task that ensured orthographic encoding even of aurally presented words. Thus, the modality effect appears to depend on using orthographic information to distinguish true from false verbal memories.     

Testing improves true recall and protects against the build-up of proactive interference without increasing false recall

Retrieval practice has been shown to protect against the negative effects of previously learned information on the learning of subsequent information, while increasing retention of new information. We report three experiments investigating the impact of retrieval practice on false recall in a multiple list paradigm. In three different experimental designs participants studied blocks of interrelated words that converged on non-presented associates. Participants were tested either after every study block or only after the fifth study block, and both groups received a cumulative test on all five study blocks. Overall the results from all three different experimental designs point to a benefit of testing in increasing long-term veridical recall on the cumulative test. More importantly, this improvement in veridical recall did not come at a cost: False recall on the cumulative test did not increase from retrieval practice.     

The development of automatic and controlled inhibitory retrieval processes in true and false recall

In three experiments, we investigated the role of automatic and controlled inhibitory retrieval processes in true and false memory development in children and adults. Experiment 1 incorporated a directed forgetting task to examine controlled retrieval inhibition. Experiments 2 and 3 used a part-set cue and retrieval practice task to examine automatic retrieval inhibition. In the first experiment, the forget cue had no effect on false recall for adults but reduced false recall for children. In Experiments 2 and 3, both tasks caused retrieval impairments for true and false recall, and this occurred for all age groups. Implicit inhibition, which occurs outside of our conscious control, appears early in childhood. However, because young children do not process false memories as automatically as adults, explicit inhibition can reduce false memory output.     

Toward a model of false recall: Experimental manipulation of encoding context and the collection of verbal reports

The likelihood of false recall in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm was shown to depend on encoding context in two experiments. When fillers had been preselected to decrease the likelihood of encoding the critical lure's semantic features, false recall was virtually eliminated. However, when the same words were presented rearranged in different presentation orders, levels of false recall that were found in earlier DRM studies (Robinson & Roediger, 1997) were replicated. The role of encoding processes in the DRM paradigm was further explored with additional participants completing the experiment while thinking aloud. During encoding of word lists, participants verbalized semantic elaboration of the critical lure while studying the word lists. A path analysis demonstrated that participants' verbalization of critical lures during encoding reliably predicted their level of false recall.     

Retrieval dynamics in false recall: revelations from identifiability manipulations

The present study analyzed the retrieval dynamics of false recall, using an externalized free-recall task after participants studied Deese/Roediger–McDermott lists with high- and low-identifiable critical words. In Experiment 1, the memory test required participants to write down the words they remembered as having been presented in each list (recall output) plus any related words that came to mind (inclusion output). The results of the inclusion output showed that highly identifiable critical items were more frequently generated than less identifiable critical items, suggesting that highly identifiable critical words were more accessible in a first phase of retrieval. At the same time, the results of the recall output showed that highly identifiable critical items were less often falsely recalled than low-identifiable critical items, a replication of previous findings. In Experiment 2, self-reports corroborated that participants were using an editing strategy based on the identification and exclusion of critical words—that is, the identify-to-reject strategy. These results help us to more fully understand the identifiability effect and, beyond that, emphasize the importance of considering the intervening of dual processes of accessibility and error correction as a crucial feature in theoretical explanations of false memories.     

Presentation duration and false recall for semantic and phonological associates

Two experiments examined false recall for lists of semantically and phonologically associated words as a function of presentation duration. Veridical recall increased with long exposure durations for all lists. For semantically associated lists, false recall increased from 20-250 ms, then decreased. There was a high level of false recall with 20 ms durations for phonologically associated lists (47 and 44% for Experiments 1 and 2, respectively), which declined as duration increased. In Experiment 2, for lists presented at 20 and 50 ms rates, false recall given zero correct recall was observed frequently, suggesting that conscious recollection of studied words was not necessary for phonological false memory. Differences between phonologically and semantically associated lists were consistent with a feature integration model based on automatic initial processing of phonetic features of words.     

Putting false memories into context: the effects of odour contexts on correct and false recall*

ABSTRACT

False memories created by the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm are often accompanied by contextual information. Yet, research investigating the effects of context on false memories is surprisingly scarce. We used the context-dependent memory (CDM) model to construct same versus different context conditions using odours as contexts and DRM lists as to-be-remembered stimuli. Experiment 1 showed that levels of correct recall were higher in the same-context condition than in the changed-context condition, but no effects of context were observed in false recall. Experiment 2 used different odours and a longer retention interval and showed that context-dependent memory effects were found for both true and false memory. For true memory, context reinstatement improved memory, whilst simultaneously reducing false memory. Theoretical and forensic implications of these findings are discussed.