The illusion of the positive: The impact of natural and induced mood on older adults' false recall

ABSTRACT

Recent research suggests that affective and motivational processes can influence age differences in memory. In the current study, we examine the impact of both natural and induced mood state on age differences in false recall. Older and younger adults performed a version of the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM; Roediger & McDermott, 1995 Roediger III, 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. doi:10.1037/0278–7393.21.4.803[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 803) false memory paradigm in either their natural mood state or after a positive or negative mood induction. Results indicated that, after accounting for age differences in basic cognitive function, age-related differences in positive mood during the testing session were related to increased false recall in older adults. Inducing older adults into a positive mood also exacerbated age differences in false memory. In contrast, veridical recall did not appear to be systematically influenced by mood. Together, these results suggest that positive mood states can impact older adults' information processing and potentially increase underlying cognitive age differences.     

The allure of the alignable: younger and older adults' false memories of choice features

When making choices, people often try to directly compare the features of different options rather than evaluating each option separately. Not every feature has an analogous (or alignable) feature in the other option, however. In this study, both younger and older adults filled in such gaps when remembering, creating features in the other option to contrast with existing features. Thus, participants had a tendency to remember choice options as more comparable than they originally were. High performance on tasks tapping strategic processing was associated with a pattern of mostly feature-based comparisons during choice for older adults but with a pattern of mostly option-based comparisons for younger adults. This pattern suggests that younger and older adults' comparison processes are influenced by different goals.     

Episodic and semantic contributions to older adults' autobiographical recall

The authors examined episodic and semantic contributions to 2 salient features of older adults' autobiographical recall: the reminiscence bump and the retention effect. Forty well-educated and healthy older men (mean age = 72.5 years; SD = 1.1) recalled personal memories in response to a series of cue words. They also categorized each memory as something they remembered from the past (R response) or they knew had happened in the past (K response) and indicated their ages when each memory occurred. The authors assumed that R and K responses reflected the operation of the episodic and semantic memory systems, respectively. Results showed a reminiscence bump and a retention effect for both R and K responses. The authors discuss the implications of this finding concerning the purported bases of the reminiscence bump and the retention effect as well as the notion that aging is more likely to effect episodic memory than semantic memory.     

Embodied mood regulation: the impact of body posture on mood recovery,negative thoughts,and mood-congruent recall

Previous work has shown that a stooped posture may activate negative mood. Extending this work, the present experiments examine how stooped body posture influences recovery from pre-existing negative mood. In Experiment 1 (n?=?229), participants were randomly assigned to receive either a negative or neutral mood induction, after which participants were instructed to take either a stooped, straight, or control posture while writing down their thoughts. Stooped posture (compared to straight or control postures) led to less mood recovery in the negative mood condition, and more negative mood in the neutral mood condition. Furthermore, stooped posture led to more negative thoughts overall compared to straight or control postures. In Experiment 2 (n?=?122), all participants underwent a negative mood induction, after which half received cognitive reappraisal instructions and half received no instructions. Mood-congruent cognitions were assessed through autobiographical memory recall. Again, stooped (compared to straight) position led to less mood recovery. Notably, this was independent of regulation instruction. These findings demonstrate for the first time that posture plays an important role in recovering from negative mood.     

The Type A behaviour pattern,induced mood,and the illusion of control

This study investigated the hypothesis that mood moderates the illusion of control among Type As and Bs. A facial positioning procedure was used to induce either positive, negative, or neutral moods in Type As and Bs during a control judgment task where no objective control was possible. Type Bs induced to experience a positive mood perceived greater control than did Type Bs experiencing a negative mood. There was no effect of induced mood on judged control for Type As.     

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 impact of positive mood and category importance on crossed categorization effects

Four studies examined the effect of positive versus neutral affect on preference among potential discussion partners who were members of two in-groups, two out-groups, or both an in-group and an out-group (crossed targets). The importance of targets' category memberships was manipulated by idiographically based selection. Positive affect elevated evaluation of crossed targets with a dominant (differentially important) in-group (Study 1). When categories were made equally important, positive affect had no impact (Studies 2 and 3). Study 4 presented crossed targets with both equally and differentially important group memberships and showed that differential category importance (dominance) is necessary for positive affect to influence judgments about them. These results are explained by the broadened categorization induced by positive affect.     

The role of accuracy motivation on children's and adults' event recall

To examine the role of accuracy motivation in event recall, 6-, 7-, and 8-year-old children and adults were shown a short video about a conflict between two groups of children. Three weeks later, participants were asked a set of unbiased specific questions about the video. Following A. Koriat and M. Goldsmith's (1994) distinction of quantity- and quality-oriented memory assessments, and based on their model of strategic regulation of memory accuracy (1996), accuracy motivation was manipulated across three conditions. Participants were (a) forced to provide an answer to each question (low accuracy motivation), (b) initially instructed to withhold uncertain answers by saying "I don't know" (medium accuracy motivation), or (c) rewarded for every single correct answer (high accuracy motivation). When motivation for accuracy was high, children as young as 6 were to withhold uncertain answers to the benefit of accuracy. The expected quality-quantity trade-off emerged only for peripheral items but not for the central items. Participants who were forced to provide an answer gave more correct answers but also high numbers of incorrect answers than participants who had the option to answer "I don't know." The results are discussed in terms of the underlying model as well as in terms of forensic interviewing.     

The fSAM model of false recall

The authors report a new theory of false memory building upon existing associative memory models and implemented in fSAM, the first fully specified quantitative model of false recall. Participants frequently intrude unstudied critical words while recalling lists comprising their strongest semantic associates but infrequently produce other extralist and prior-list intrusions. The authors developed the theory by simulating recall of such lists, using factorial combinations of semantic mechanisms operating at encoding, retrieval, or both stages. During encoding, unstudied words' associations to list context were strengthened in proportion to their strength of semantic association either to each studied word or to all co-rehearsed words. During retrieval, words received preference in proportion to their strength of semantic association to the most recently recalled single word or multiple words. The authors simulated all intrusion types and veridical recall for lists varying in semantic association strength among studied and critical words from the same and different lists. Multiplicative semantic encoding and retrieval mechanisms performed well in combination. Using such combined mechanisms, the authors also simulated several core findings from the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm literature, including developmental patterns, specific list effects, association strength effects, and true-false correlations. These results challenge existing false-memory theories.     

The effects of adult aging and induced positive and negative mood on planning

Changes in executive functions have been found in older adults and also in young adults experiencing positive or negative mood states. The current study investigated the hypothesis that older adults would show greater executive function impairment following mood induction than young adults. Ninety-six participants (half aged 19-37, half aged 53-80) completed a neutral, positive, or negative mood induction procedure, followed by the Tower of London planning task. Significant interactions were found between age and mood such that older adults showed greater planning impairment than young adults in both the positive and negative mood conditions. Emotionally salient events occurring before testing may interfere with executive function in older adults.     

Distinct effects of positive and negative music on older adults' auditory target identification performances

Older adults, compared to younger adults, are more likely to attend to pleasant situations and avoid unpleasant ones. Yet, it is unclear whether such a phenomenon may be generalized to musical emotions. In this study, we investigated whether there is an age-related difference in how musical emotions are experienced and how positive and negative music influences attention performances in a target identification task. Thirty-one young and twenty-eight older adults were presented with 40 musical excerpts conveying happiness, peacefulness, sadness, and threat. While listening to music, participants were asked to rate their feelings and monitor each excerpt for the occurrence of an auditory target. Compared to younger adults, older adults reported experiencing weaker emotional activation when listening to threatening music and showed higher level of liking for happy music. Correct reaction times (RTs) for target identification were longer for threatening than for happy music in older adults but not in younger adults. This suggests that older adults benefit from a positive musical context and can regulate emotion elicited by negative music by decreasing attention towards it (and therefore towards the auditory target).     

Younger and older adults' perception of the Wundt-Hering illusion as a function of display illumination and reflectance contrast

Reflectance contrast (i.e., black as compared to grey figures on white ground) and display illumination were manipulated to vary the brightness contrast of Wundt-Hering figures. 16 college students and 16 older adults were presented with high, medium, and low reflectance contrast figures. For half the participants, display illumination was manipulated by covering the figures with a .5 yellow neutral density filter. Magnitude of the illusion increased significantly with increased reflectance contrast for college students, and college students were significantly more susceptible to the high contrast figures than were older adults. Display illumination had no effect on the performance of either group.     

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.     

The effect of mood on confidence in false memories

The goal of this study was to examine the effect of mood on suggestibility in the misinformation paradigm. To investigate the relative effects of valence and arousal, as well as affect-specific influences, six mood conditions were included: positive mood with low/high arousal (serene/happy), negative mood with low/high arousal (sad/angry), neutral mood, and a control condition. Participants watched a movie and were exposed to misleading information by means of a narrative. Memory was tested in a surprise forced-choice recognition task, with confidence judgements. The mood induction procedure was shown to be effective. A significant misinformation effect confirmed that participants were misled by the false information provided. Mood did not affect susceptibility to the misinformation effect, but did significantly influence participants’ belief in their false memories. Feeling sad induced the highest confidence ratings. Results are discussed in terms of different problem-solving strategies associated with discrete affective states, and have implications for both legal and clinical settings.     

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.     

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.     

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.