Claiming hidden memories as one's own: A review of inadvertent plagiarism

Inadvertent plagiarism, or cryptomnesia, occurs when an individual claims another's idea as his or her own with no recollection of having been exposed to the idea before. Although some variation exists in the explanations of this occurrence, the source monitoring framework has emerged as the most plausible account. The purpose of this paper is to review the core body of research that has been conducted on cryptomnesia over the past two decades, with particular focus on the factors that affect the propensity of this phenomenon and how these influences inform a theoretical explanation of cryptomnesia. This paper also includes some suggestions for how future research might continue to explore the phenomenon of inadvertent plagiarism.     

Caffeine increases false memory in nonhabitual consumers

Insight into caffeine's equivocal effects on memory can be derived from work suggesting both emotional arousal and psychosocial stress increase false memory rates without increasing veridical memory. This study investigated how a range of caffeine doses affect veridical and false memory formation in nonhabitual consumers. A double-blind, repeated-measures design with caffeine (0 mg, 100 mg, 200 mg, 400 mg caffeine) was used to examine memory using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Results showed that caffeine modulated arousal levels, peaking at 200 mg and returning to near baseline levels at 400 mg. Main effects of caffeine demonstrated higher critical lure recall and recognition ratings (i.e., false memory) as a function of dose, again peaking at 200 mg. Those who showed the highest arousal increases as a function of caffeine also tended to produce the highest false recall and recognition rates. Veridical memory was not affected. Results demonstrate that consumption of as little as 100 mg of caffeine elicits reliable inverted-U shape changes in arousal and, in turn, false memories in individuals who do not habitually consume caffeine.     

The CARE System in Its Importance in Dealing with Today's Crises1

The CARE system is a gift from Mother Nature, we have it in our biological heritage; it enables us humans—as a basic gift—to help each other in a large, life-serving context, and thus also to counterbalance destruction. It is about a basic human ability, linked to typical behaviour, but also about a basic human need for connectedness. In this paper, I would like to show how the CARE system can be activated as a collective attitude. The CARE system is strengthened by positive emotions. We are currently being affected by many crises and this triggers fear. How can we deal with this better? Fear is countered with hope and the associated positive emotions such as joy, awe, kama muta and others. These emotions and feelings can be consciously encouraged and placed alongside the feelings of fear. But also, when we share the feelings of grief with each other, it triggers an attitude of CARE. We can grieve together for the various experiences of loss that we go through—but we can also imagine together how we envisage a future that is worth living for everyone. An attitude in the sense of CARING has been practised in friendship for thousands of years. It would therefore be possible to move away from an attitude of competing and outdoing, to an attitude not only of recognition, care, and solidarity in human interaction, but also in our connection with nature.     

Misinformation effect and centrality

Introduction and objectivesThe two objectives of this study are to examine the effects of the introduction of post-event information (correct and incorrect) on the memory of the central and peripheral aspects of a given situation and to determine the effects of this additional information on the level of confidence claimed by the participants regarding their reported memories.MethodOne hour and a half after watching a film, the participants were presented with three types of information, by means of open questions: leading, misleading and neutral. One week later, they carried out a recognition task, during which they had to assess to what extent they were sure of their answers.ResultsWhile the memory of the event was more accurate concerning the central aspects of the event than the peripheral elements, the misinformation effect appeared only in the central condition. In addition, following the presentation of incorrect information, the participants were more certain of their answers related to the central aspects.ConclusionThese results highlight the importance of taking into account the centrality factor in studies about the misinformation phenomenon.     

Correcting socially introduced false memories: The effect of re-study

This study examined whether participants could utilize re-study and perceptual elaboration to correct erroneous suggestions from their partner in the social contagion of memory paradigm. Participants studied household scenes and then collaboratively recalled the scenes with a confederate who interjected erroneous items. Before completing subsequent individual recall and recognition tests, participants were allowed to re-study the original items and/or to generate perceptual details of the items. Across two experiments, participants who re-studied the original material were less likely to incorporate the confederate's misleading suggestions. Re-study reduced false recall and recognition and increased veridical recall and recognition (Experiment 1) and the effect was especially pronounced with longer re-study episodes (Experiment 2). Items generated on the perceptual elaboration test offered no corrective benefit above and beyond the effects of re-study. These data demonstrate that participants can rely on self-initiated correction processes engaged during re-study to reduce socially suggested false memories.     

Do people automatically track others’ beliefs? Evidence from a continuous measure

Recent findings suggest that tracking others’ beliefs is not always effortful and slow, but may rely on a fast and implicit system. An untested prediction of the automatic belief tracking account is that own and others’ beliefs should be activated in parallel. We tested this prediction measuring continuous movement trajectories in a task that required deciding between two possible object locations. We independently manipulated whether participants’ belief about the object location was true or false and whether an onlooker’s belief about the object location was true or false. Manipulating whether or not the agent’s belief was ever task relevant allowed us to compare performance in an explicit and implicit version of the same task. Movement parameters revealed an influence of the onlooker’s irrelevant belief in the implicit version of the task. This provides evidence for parallel activation of own and others’ beliefs.     

Counterfactual thinking and false belief: the role of executive function

The purpose of the current study was to examine further the relationship between counterfactual thinking and false belief (FB) as examined by Guajardo and Turley-Ames (Cognitive Development, 19 (2004) 53-80). More specifically, the current research examined the importance of working memory and inhibitory control in understanding the relationship between counterfactual thinking and FB. Participants were 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds (N = 76). Counterfactual thinking statements generated accounted for significant variance in FB performance beyond age and language. Working memory and inhibitory control each partially mediated the relationship between counterfactual thinking and FB performance. The maturation of executive functioning skills is important in children’s developing understanding of counterfactual reasoning and FB.     

Hemispheric asymmetries in the activation and monitoring of memory errors

Previous research on the lateralization of memory errors suggests that the right hemisphere's tendency to produce more memory errors than the left hemisphere reflects hemispheric differences in semantic activation. However, all prior research that has examined the lateralization of memory errors has used self-paced recognition judgments. Because activation occurs early in memory retrieval, with more time to make a decision, other memory processes, like strategic monitoring processes, may affect memory errors. By manipulating the time subjects were given to make memory decisions, this study separated the influence of automatic memory processes (activation) from strategic memory processes (monitoring) on the production of false memories. The results indicated that when retrieval was fast, the right hemisphere produced more memory errors than the left hemisphere. However, when retrieval was slow, the left hemisphere's error-proneness increased compared to the fast retrieval condition, while the right hemisphere's error-proneness remained the same. These results suggest that the right hemisphere's errors are largely due to activation, while the left hemisphere's errors are influenced by both activation and monitoring.     

Effects of saccadic bilateral eye movements on memory in children and adults: an exploratory study

The effects of saccadic bilateral (horizontal) eye movements on true and false memory in adults and children were investigated. Both adults and children encoded lists of associated words in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm followed by a test of recognition memory. Just prior to retrieval, participants were asked to engage in 30s of bilateral vs. vertical vs. no eye movements. For studied information, the results for adults replicated previous work; bilateral eye movements were demonstrated to increase the accuracy of memory by increasing the hit rate and reducing the false alarm rate for related and unrelated recognition test lures. The results for children also indicated an improvement in memory accuracy, and like adults, was due to both an increase in the hit rate and a reduction in the false alarm rate. In spite of these similarities, the effects of bilateral eye movements differed between adults and children for critical unstudied words; i.e., those associated with the theme of the list. Only in adults did, bilateral eye movements reduce associative false memories; children did not show a reduction in false memory for critical associates. This produced a dissociation between the effects of eye movements on associative false memory as a function of age. The results are discussed from a developmental perspective in terms of potential mechanisms underlying true and false memory.     

Verbatim and gist memory and individual differences in inhibition,sustained attention,and working memory capacity

In the present study, we explored whether individual differences in inhibition, sustained attention, and working memory capacity (WMC) are related to false memory task performance. We defined the processes in such a task according to the fuzzy trace theory and used multinomial modelling methodology to measure the contribution of these latent processes. We found higher verbatim memory in participants with a high WMC, as measured by the Rotation Span task, and in individuals who committed more errors in the Sustained Attention Response Task (SART). Participants with a high WMC and low-error level in SART showed higher gist memory for targets, and individuals high in WMC also rejected orthographically related distractors more effectively due to the recollection of distractors’ corresponding targets. We also observed that participants with better inhibition control were more conservative in guessing that an item was old.