False memories in obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome: evidence from the divided attention paradigm at encoding or retrieval

ABSTRACT

Patients with obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS) exhibit impaired retrieval of item-specific information, increasing their propensity to generate false recognitions. The present study investigated the effect of OSAS on false recognition, using a divided-attention paradigm to examine whether reducing the availability of attentional resources during encoding or retrieval in healthy participants mimics the effect of OSAS. We tested four groups of participants, using the Deese – Roediger – McDermott paradigm: patients with OSAS and controls, either under full attention or under divided attention at encoding or retrieval. Results showed that divided attention at retrieval, but not at encoding, mimicked the effects of OSAS on memory performance, as controls in this group exhibited a higher level of false recognition than those under full attention, but a similar level of correct recognition. Our results suggest that the greater susceptibility of patients with OSAS to false recognition may be due to a limited availability of attentional resources, which may specifically disrupt retrieval processes.     

间隔时间及记忆负荷对信息缺失错误记忆的影响

现场中的信息缺失会影响人类对事件的记忆,这对证人证言研究是非常重要的,但以往对之却鲜有研究.本研究以大学生为被试,运用信息缺失范式,采用视频录像材料,通过2个实验探讨了间隔时间和记忆负荷对错误记忆的影响.结果表明:(1)间隔时间没有影响真实记忆和错误记忆,但信心水平却随着间隔时间的延长而变化;(2)记忆负荷高低没有影响真实记忆却影响了错误记忆,在关键信息呈现条件下,降低记忆负荷可以减少错误记忆的发生;(3)信息性质会影响人们的记忆,关键信息呈现条件下的错误记忆和真实记忆均高于关键信息缺失的条件.     

The Roles of Explanation and Feedback in False Belief Understanding: A Microgenetic Analysis

The authors examined effects of feedback and explanation on false belief performance. Thirty-three children (42–54 months; 15 girls, 18 boys) were randomly assigned to four treatment conditions: explanation, feedback, feedback researcher explains, and feedback child explains. Children completed false belief tasks during pretraining, 8 training sessions, and posttraining across 6 weeks. Language comprehension was assessed at pretraining. The authors hypothesized that children would improve most when training involved feedback and explanation. Generalized estimating equations modeling was used to analyze the data. Children who received feedback and generated explanations for characters’ false beliefs improved across training sessions more so than children in other conditions. Children's explanations for false beliefs also were explored. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Cognition of Being in the Peak Experiences

Two samples, one gifted, the other “normal,” of 30 children each (11 to 13 years of age) were matched on age, sex, race, and father's occupation. A parent of each child completed the Children's Behavioral Classification Project instrument, and a profile of 30 scaled scores was obtained for each protocol. A discriminant analysis on the basis of the profiles classified 50 of the 60 Ss correctly into their respective sample category, either gifted or normal. Though the results of a multivariate analysis of variance showed no significant differences between the groups when the 30 profile factors were viewed as a whole, univariate analyses on the separate factors yielded significant group differences on several related factors. These were interpreted with caution. Additional factors displayed significant sex differences and one demonstrated a group-by-sex interaction effect.

Coefficients of pattern similarity (the r_p ) were computed among all pairs of the 60 Ss. An unweighted average linkage cluster analysis grouped 34 of the 60 Ss into six clusters which accounted for 26 of 30 possible gifted children.

After an item analysis was performed on the original data, a 42 item subscale of the CBCP questionnaire was constructed which correctly classified 31 of 40 individuals in a cross-validation sample.     

False Memories in Individuals at Risk for Developing an Eating Disorder

In the present study, the authors used the Roediger and McDermott paradigm (H. L. Roediger & K. B. McDermott, 1995) to examine the creation of false memories in individuals at risk for developing an eating disorder. Thirty-three controls and 34 individuals at risk for eating disorders studied 6 word lists taken from the paradigm. Three lists were food related (bread, fruit, sweet), and 3 were not food related (king, doctor, black). Both groups produced false memories (i.e., recalled or recollected words that were not presented in the lists), and controls actually produced more false memories than the at-risk individuals produced in the recall of the food-related items. Groups did not differ in their recall of items not related to food.     

The effect of limited attention and delay on negative arousing false memories

ABSTRACT

Previous research has shown that, in comparison to neutral stimuli, false memories for high arousing negative stimuli are greater after very fast presentation and limited attention at study. However, full compared to limited attention conditions still produce comparably more false memories for all stimuli types. Research has also shown that emotional stimuli benefit from a period of consolidation. What effect would such consolidation have on false memory formation even when attention is limited at study? The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of fast presentation on false memory production for negatively-arousing and neutral items over time using the DRM paradigm. Sixty-eight participants studied Negative and neutral DRM lists with fast or slow presentation conditions. Half completed a recognition test immediately and half completed a recognition test after one-week. Results revealed that, for fast presentation, negative critical lures increased after one week and were comparable to negative critical lures in the slow presentation encoding conditions. Neutral critical lures in the fast presentation condition did not change and remained lower compared to the slow presentation condition. These findings are the first demonstration that arousing negative false memories can increase over time when attention at encoding is limited.     

Regional brain activity change predicts responsiveness to treatment for stuttering in adults

Developmental stuttering is known to be associated with aberrant brain activity, but there is no evidence that this knowledge has benefited stuttering treatment. This study investigated whether brain activity could predict progress during stuttering treatment for 21 dextral adults who stutter (AWS). They received one of two treatment programs that included periodic H₂¹⁵O PET scanning (during oral reading, monologue, and eyes-closed rest conditions). All participants successfully completed an initial treatment phase and then entered a phase designed to transfer treatment gains; 9/21 failed to complete this latter phase. The 12 pass and 9 fail participants were similar on speech and neural system variables before treatment, and similar in speech performance after the initial phase of their treatment. At the end of the initial treatment phase, however, decreased activation within a single region, L. putamen, in all 3 scanning conditions was highly predictive of successful treatment progress.     

Do Cognitive Interview Instructions Contribute to False Beliefs and Memories?

To examine whether exposing people to false events using instructions taken from the cognitive interview creates false beliefs and false memories, we conducted an experiment where participants took part in two sessions. First, they rated how confident they were that they had experienced certain childhood events and their memories of those events; they also rated how plausible they thought the events were. Second, 2 weeks later, participants were exposed to two of three false target events: one high, one moderate, and one low plausibility. For the first event, participants were instructed to either report everything or mentally reinstate the event context. For the second event, participants received both instructions. The third event was the control event about which participants received no instructions. Finally, participants rated their confidence and memories the second time. The results showed that the cognitive interview instructions had little to no effect on the development of false beliefs and false memories. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Encoding strategy affects false recall and recognition: Evidence from categorical study material

The present research investigated memory vulnerability to distortions. Different encoding strategies were used when categorized lists were studied. The authors assumed that an imagery strategy would be responsible for decreasing false memories more than a word-whispering strategy, which is consistent with the model of semantic access and previous research in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm (the DRM paradigm; Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). A normative study of category lists and 4 experiments were conducted to verify the memory vulnerability to different encoding strategies (imagery, word-whispering, control). Half of subjects recalled and half recognized previously studied words. The results revealed a marked reduction in false recognition and recall after imagery encoding, relative to after word-whispering encoding.     

Lessons for future research: two experiments failed to reproduce a relationship between achievement motivation and autobiographical memory distortion

ABSTRACT

Previous research (Sharman & Calacouris, 2010. Motivated imagination inflation: Implicit and explicit motives predict imagination inflation for achievement and affiliation events. Experimental Psychology, 57, 77–82) found that participants’ achievement-motivation was associated with the inflation of memory and confidence for unlikely achievement-related events in childhood. Similarly, other research has shown correlations between achievement motivation and grade inflation. In the current studies, we experimentally investigate the effect of false feedback and achievement-motivation on memory distortion for an unlikely childhood event (e.g. inventing an important device). In Experiment 1, we found that false feedback did have an effect, but contrary to previous research, self-reported achievement-motivation was not a statistically significant correlate of memory distortion. In Experiment 2, we again found a main effect for false feedback, no main effect of motivation, and an interaction. Both Experiments did not find, as earlier research had, a significant relationship between achievement-motivation and achievement-related memory distortion. We suggest others use different methods to ours when attempting to demonstrate a causal relationship between motivation and false memories.