Furthering our understanding of children's memory mechanisms will expand our knowledge of ways to reduce false memory errors. Hege and Dodson (2004) found that adult participants who studied pictures later recalled items more accurately than participants who studied words. This demonstrated that encoding information in a distinctive manner can reduce false memories. The main aim of the present study was to explore whether using distinctive information within the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm can reduce false memories in children (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Two hundred and forty-three eleven year-old children (mean age 11.5) studied pictures and words on a screen, each with an accompanying aural label. In contrast to the findings of Hege and Dodson, studying pictures did not reduce false memories in these participants. There were no significant encoding differences between children who studied pictures and children who studied words, as measured by the rate of falsely recalled non-presented critical lure words. Moreover, the children's average rate of recall of the false memories was very low (19.6%). This is just over half the rate reported by Hege and Dodson with adult subjects. On the other hand, manipulation of the test instructions at retrieval had a significant effect on the rate of recall of critical lures. Each group of participants received different retrieval instructions. As expected, the highest numbers of recalled critical lures occurred when subjects were asked to report studied items as well as related items (inclusion recall instructions). This study demonstrated the complex role of encoding and retrieval mechanisms in older children's memory processes, and showed that children do not appear to reduce false memories in a manner that is consistent with adults. The results are discussed in terms of children's processing of pictures and words, eleven-year-olds' semantic development, and links to fuzzy-trace theory.

Furthering our understanding of children's memory mechanisms will expand our knowledge of ways to reduce false memory errors. Hege and Dodson (2004) found that adult participants who studied pictures later recalled items more accurately than participants who studied words. This demonstrated that encoding information in a distinctive manner can reduce false memories. The main aim of the present study was to explore whether using distinctive information within the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm can reduce false memories in children (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Two hundred and forty-three eleven year-old children (mean age 11.5) studied pictures and words on a screen, each with an accompanying aural label. In contrast to the findings of Hege and Dodson, studying pictures did not reduce false memories in these participants. There were no significant encoding differences between children who studied pictures and children who studied words, as measured by the rate of falsely recalled non-presented critical lure words. Moreover, the children's average rate of recall of the false memories was very low (19.6%). This is just over half the rate reported by Hege and Dodson with adult subjects. On the other hand, manipulation of the test instructions at retrieval had a significant effect on the rate of recall of critical lures. Each group of participants received different retrieval instructions. As expected, the highest numbers of recalled critical lures occurred when subjects were asked to report studied items as well as related items (inclusion recall instructions). This study demonstrated the complex role of encoding and retrieval mechanisms in older children's memory processes, and showed that children do not appear to reduce false memories in a manner that is consistent with adults. The results are discussed in terms of children's processing of pictures and words, eleven-year-olds' semantic development, and links to fuzzy-trace theory.

False recollection refers to the retrieval of contextual information associated with an event that has not occurred. For instance, during a recognition task, one might identify a nonstudied word presented at test as old because she remembers the font color of the word during study. Although instances such as this are rare and typically occur at a varying rate of 0-5%, current models of recognition such as the Complementary Learning Systems (CLS) model and the Dual-Process Signal-Detection (DPSD) model do not contain a mechanism to account for their occurrence. Although both the CLS and DPSD models have support from studies demonstrating functional dissociations, neurophysiological dissociations, and behavioral findings of process dissociation, their ability to explain false memories has been more elusive; neither theory specifically addresses false recollection. Instead, such models have ignored false recollection as inconsequential noise in the data. The purpose of this dissertation was to determine whether the false recognition effect obtained by the Payne-Eakin paradigm was due to false recollection or familiarity. The Payne-Eakin paradigm is based on the PIER2 model, which theorizes that targets implicitly activated during study lead to the falser recognition of a false-target pair. Using a modified version of the Payne-Eakin paradigm, we investigated the nature of the false recognition effect using a priori behavioral analyses and statistical modeling. The findings of this dissertation provide a step toward a more solid understanding of the cognitive mechanisms involved in the recognition of nonstudied items. This dissertation demonstrates that modeling false recollection is possible. The results of this dissertation suggest that, because current models of recognition do not provide a mechanism to account for false recollection, our understanding of recognition is not fully understood. The results highlight that the current understanding of how false recollection contributes to recognition performance is an area in need of further development.

The present study investigated whether encoding manipulations which were supposed to make source monitoring of critical lures difficult could alter the levels of false recall for peoples names used as lures in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott list learning paradigm. The results demonstrated that most of manipulations used in the present experiments failed to increase the levels of false recall for the critical lures that were peoples names as it is assumed that, at the same time, the manipulations attenuated semantic encoding around the critical lures, and consequently lowered their activation levels, which is assumed to be essential to obtain high false recall of critical lures. On the other hand, manipulations which resulted in keeping participants from realizing the nature of the list organization, at least, hindered the decrease of false recall level. The question of why false recall for peoples names is rarely elicited in general was discussed.

Os processos mnemônicos são responsáveis por manter a qualidade e estabilidade de vida de todos os seres humanos, porém pesquisas vêm mostrando ao longo do tempo, que tais processos podem apresentar erros e distorções que podem mudar o curso de nossa vida. As falsas memórias são as recordações de situações, eventos que na realidade não ocorreram exatamente como nos recordamos. Inicialmente acreditava-se que eventos vividos e que possuíssem carga emocional associada, não eram passíveis de distorção, porém já se sabe que tais premissas não são necessariamente verdadeiras. Além disso, o nível de desajustamento e instabilidade emocional interfere para um maior número de falsas memórias. A ansiedade é uma resposta adaptativa, normal e passa a ser patológica quando é desproporcional diante da situação desencadeante. Quando a ansiedade é muito intensa, tende a gerar prejuízos em todas as esferas da vida, esta ansiedade adquire um significado clínico. Dentro os transtornos de ansiedade há um diagnóstico bastante prevalente chamado de Transtorno de Ansiedade Social (TAS). O presente trabalho visou comparar participantes adultos portadores de TAS e participantes adultos sem estes sintomas, investigando o efeito da emoção na performance da memória, para um evento testemunhado. Para o desenvolvimento do trabalho foi utilizada uma sequência de onze slides, acompanhados por duas versões narrativas, sendo uma sem impacto e outra carregada emocionalmente, além de uma Escala Subjetiva de Emoção e um teste de Memória autoaplicativo. O estudo contou com 137 participantes, que foram divididos em quatro grupos: indivíduos sem transtorno de ansiedade e narrativa sem impacto emocional, indivíduos sem transtorno de ansiedade e narrativa com impacto emocional, indivíduos com transtorno de ansiedade e narrativa sem impacto emocional e indivíduos com transtorno de ansiedade e narrativa com impacto emocional. Foram realizadas análises paramétricas utilizando as análises de Variância (ANOVA). Todos os tratamentos estatísticos utilizaram um < 0,05 para o teste de hipóteses e testes post hoc com correção para Bonferroni para identificar as possíveis diferenças encontradas. Os resultados sugerem que os participantes portadores de TAS, os quais foram submetidos à versão sem impacto emocional, obtiveram índices maiores de memória verdadeira, porém apresentaram também índices superiores de falsas memórias, em função do viés atencional característico desta população, sugerindo que a ansiedade social tem uma ação significativa sobre a performance de memória. / Mnemonic processes are responsible for keeping all human beings life quality and stability. However, research has shown that such processes can present mistakes and distortions which can change the course of life. False memories are memories of situations and events that did not happen exactly as remembered. At first, it was believed that events which happened and had an associated emotional load could not be distorted; however it is now known that such premise is not necessarily true. Moreover, it is known that the level of disadjustment and emotional instability interfere for a greater number of false memories. Anxiety is a normal adaptive response but it becomes pathologic when it is not proportional to the triggering situation. When anxiety is too intense, it tends to harm all spheres of life, and it acquires a clinical meaning. Amongst the anxiety disorders, there is a prevalent diagnosis called Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). This study aims to compare adult participants who suffer from this problem with adult participants who do not have these symptoms, investigating the effect of emotion in memory performance for an event witnessed. To develop this study, a sequence of eleven slides was used, followed by two narrative versions, one with emotional impact and the other without, besides the Subjective Scale of Emotion, a self-test for memory. The study had 137 participants, who were divided into four groups: individuals who do not suffer from the disorder and emotionally loaded narrative, individuals who do not suffer from the disorder and narrative without emotional load, individuals who suffer from the disorder and emotionally loaded narrative, individuals who suffer from the disorder and narrative without emotional load. Parametrical analysis was carried out using the Variance analysis (ANOVA). All the statistical treatments used an < 0,05 for the hypothesis test and post hoc tests with correction for Bonferroni to identify the possible differences found. The results suggest that participants with SAD who were submitted to a version without emotional impact had higher rates of real memories, according to attentional bias characteristic of this population. Besides, the participants who suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) had higher rates of false memories who were submitted to a version without emotional impact, suggesting that emotion acted as a protection and suggesting that the social anxiety has a significant action over memory performance.

This study aimed to explore how 31 collage students' cognitive performance and their ability to create false memories were affected by the exposure of an extraneous background noise. The studies main hypotheses were based on previous research on how extraneous noise affect the cognitive ability and the creation of false memories: 1) that an extraneous background noise increases the ability to create false memories, 2) that an extraneous background noise impairs the learning of cognitive information, 3) that an extraneous background noise contributes to an increased representation of fictional words, 4) that an extraneous background noise impedes the ability to understand speech . The results showed a tendency in which false memories increased in the condition without background noise, a result which goes in the opposite direction of the hypothesis. Furthermore, the result supported the hypothesis that the extraneous background noise impairs the learning of cognitive information. The results also showed that there was no effect between the conditions regarding the representation of fictional information. However, the result confirmed the hypothesis that a background noise impedes the ability to understand speech. The authors believe that studies like this are of great importance to the debate about how noise in open plan offices affect people's performance and the appearance of error information. / Denna studie grundar sig på en undersökning om hur 31 högskolestudenters kognitiva prestation, samt förmåga att skapa falska minnen påverkades av ett ovidkommande bakgrundsbrus. Studiens huvudsakliga hypoteser utformades utifrån tidigare forskning om hur ovidkommande ljudkällor påverkar den kognitiva förmågan samt inverkar på skapandet av falska minnen; 1) att ett ovidkommande bakgrundsbrus ökar förmågan att skapa falska minnen, 2) att ett ovidkommande bakgrundsbrus försämrar inlärningen av kognitiv information, 3) att ett ovidkommande bakgrundsbrus bidrar till en ökad återgivning av påhittad information, 4) att ett ovidkommande bakgrundsbrus försvårar förmågan att uppfatta tal. Resultatet visade en tendens av att falska minnen ökade i betingelsen utan bakgrundsbrus vilket går i hypotesens motsatta riktning. Vidare gav resultatet stöd åt hypotesen att ovidkommande bakgrundsbrus försämrar inlärningen av kognitiv information. I resultatet framgick även att det inte förelåg någon effekt mellan betingelserna beträffande återgivningen av påhittad information. Däremot bekräftades författarnas hypotes att ett bakgrundsbrus försvårar förmågan att uppfatta tal. Författarna menar att studier likt denna är av stor betydelse för debatten kring hur buller i öppna kontorslandskap påverkar människors prestationsförmåga samt uppkomsten av fel information.

The primary aim of this dissertation is to address an important issue of individual susceptibility to false memories. Specifically, what is the role inhibitory control (IC) in children’s and adult’s propensity to producing false memories? Inhibitory control within the context of the current study is defined on the basis of performance on selective attention tasks. Inhibitory control is discussed within this dissertation as it is reflected in two selective attention tasks, Stroop and Negative Priming. While the false memory effect, as reflected in the Deese/Roediger and McDermott paradigm (Roediger & McDermott, 1995), is one of the most widely studied memory phenomenon, the current study is important as it provides some insights into the relation between attention and memory. An interesting finding in the DRM false memory effect is that participants often report having a clear false memory of having seen or heard the non-presented critical lure item (CL item). Such memory illusions have been informative on how memory works. The current study adds to this body of research by providing converging evidence of how individual differences in the sensitivity to the false memory effect may occur, and how this sensitivity may reflect the same IC mechanisms involved in selective attention tasks. The basic notion examined within this dissertation is that when recognition memory is tested in the DRM paradigm, individuals have to select information that was studied and simultaneously inhibit highly activated yet non-presented information in memory, in order to correctly reject the CL item. If the notion that individual differences in sensitivity to the false memory effect is indeed related to a basic IC mechanism, then a relationship should be found between measures of IC in selective attention tasks and rates of false memories in the DRM test. The current study incorporates three experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 are broken down into parts ‘a’ and ‘b’, with each part varying in respect to the IC measure. In part a, participants were assigned to an inhibitory control group (IC group) on the basis of Stroop interference. In part b, participants are assigned to IC groups on the basis of a combined measure of inhibitory control that is, Stroop and Negative Priming. The third experiment assigned participants on the basis of a combined measure of IC, and then considered the relation between the duration of IC over a number of DRM word-lists presented simultaneously prior to the recognition test. Experiment 3 also compared the robust effect of IC on the propensity to produce false memories across all three experiments. The results of this study can be summarized as follows. In each experiment there was clear evidence of a relation between IC estimates and proportion of false memories. As predicted, individuals assigned to a Less IC group produced a higher proportion of false memories than those assigned to the More IC group. Inhibitory control differences did not modulate differences in correct or incorrect recognition in general (hits and false alarms to unrelated distractors). This second finding is important because it suggests a specific effect of IC in false memories, rather than a general breakdown in memory processes. The IC effect in false memories occurred in children (8-year olds and 10-year olds) as well as adults. Furthermore, the IC effect appeared to be additive with age; i.e., all groups produced a similar pattern across all three experiments. Last, the combined estimate of IC was found to be a more sensitive measure of false memories than a single index of IC; however, this was found in relation to adults but not for children. A number of additional manipulations and measures of interest were also included. Experiment 2 found clear evidence of an effect of IC on remember responses, not only were Less IC individuals more likely to produce false alarms to critical lure items, they were also more likely to distinctly respond they “remembered” the CL item as opposed to only “knowing” the CL had been presented. Examination of reaction times (RTs) to false alarms as a function of IC group found the Less IC group were faster to make false alarm responses to CL items, whereas the More IC group were slower to make false responses CL items. As predicted the relation between IC and the false memory effect was modulated by the random versus blocked presentation manipulation in Experiment 3. Specifically, decreased rates of false memories were found in the random presentation format compared to the blocked format. Interestingly however, a small effect of IC group in false memories was found even in the random condition. From this study it can be concluded that individual susceptibility to the false memory effect is in part modulated by inhibitory control. Individuals who demonstrate less effective IC show a greater propensity to false memories than those who demonstrate more effective IC. The IC effect of false memories was found to be robust, with converging evidence found across all three experiments. In relation to the development of inhibitory control, consistent with the research of Pritchard and Neumann (2004, 2009), and Lechuga and colleagues (2006), the results of this study suggest IC is fully developed in young children. However, their ability to accurately encode, retain and retrieve information would appear to develop at a different rate than IC. Specifically, it may be that while younger children are able to utilize IC in memory processes, they have yet to fully develop a richly interconnected semantic network. On the other hand, older children and adults would appear to have a more fully developed semantic network. This series of experiments presents a novel demonstration of the relation between inhibitory control and false memories. As such, this study has the potential to provide new insight into a cognitive mechanism that may be responsible for both developmental trends and for individual differences in the regulation of false memories. Moreover, if the mechanism responsible for mediating false memories is causally linked to performance on selective attention tasks in the systematic way that is proposed, it may be possible in the future to utilize IC measures to assist in identifying individuals who have an exaggerated propensity to form false memories, as well as those more prone to resist them.

Os processos mnemônicos são responsáveis por manter a qualidade e estabilidade de vida de todos os seres humanos, porém pesquisas vêm mostrando ao longo do tempo, que tais processos podem apresentar erros e distorções que podem mudar o curso de nossa vida. As falsas memórias são as recordações de situações, eventos que na realidade não ocorreram exatamente como nos recordamos. Inicialmente acreditava-se que eventos vividos e que possuíssem carga emocional associada, não eram passíveis de distorção, porém já se sabe que tais premissas não são necessariamente verdadeiras. Além disso, o nível de desajustamento e instabilidade emocional interfere para um maior número de falsas memórias. A ansiedade é uma resposta adaptativa, normal e passa a ser patológica quando é desproporcional diante da situação desencadeante. Quando a ansiedade é muito intensa, tende a gerar prejuízos em todas as esferas da vida, esta ansiedade adquire um significado clínico. Dentro os transtornos de ansiedade há um diagnóstico bastante prevalente chamado de Transtorno de Ansiedade Social (TAS). O presente trabalho visou comparar participantes adultos portadores de TAS e participantes adultos sem estes sintomas, investigando o efeito da emoção na performance da memória, para um evento testemunhado. Para o desenvolvimento do trabalho foi utilizada uma sequência de onze slides, acompanhados por duas versões narrativas, sendo uma sem impacto e outra carregada emocionalmente, além de uma Escala Subjetiva de Emoção e um teste de Memória autoaplicativo. O estudo contou com 137 participantes, que foram divididos em quatro grupos: indivíduos sem transtorno de ansiedade e narrativa sem impacto emocional, indivíduos sem transtorno de ansiedade e narrativa com impacto emocional, indivíduos com transtorno de ansiedade e narrativa sem impacto emocional e indivíduos com transtorno de ansiedade e narrativa com impacto emocional. Foram realizadas análises paramétricas utilizando as análises de Variância (ANOVA). Todos os tratamentos estatísticos utilizaram um < 0,05 para o teste de hipóteses e testes post hoc com correção para Bonferroni para identificar as possíveis diferenças encontradas. Os resultados sugerem que os participantes portadores de TAS, os quais foram submetidos à versão sem impacto emocional, obtiveram índices maiores de memória verdadeira, porém apresentaram também índices superiores de falsas memórias, em função do viés atencional característico desta população, sugerindo que a ansiedade social tem uma ação significativa sobre a performance de memória. / Mnemonic processes are responsible for keeping all human beings life quality and stability. However, research has shown that such processes can present mistakes and distortions which can change the course of life. False memories are memories of situations and events that did not happen exactly as remembered. At first, it was believed that events which happened and had an associated emotional load could not be distorted; however it is now known that such premise is not necessarily true. Moreover, it is known that the level of disadjustment and emotional instability interfere for a greater number of false memories. Anxiety is a normal adaptive response but it becomes pathologic when it is not proportional to the triggering situation. When anxiety is too intense, it tends to harm all spheres of life, and it acquires a clinical meaning. Amongst the anxiety disorders, there is a prevalent diagnosis called Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). This study aims to compare adult participants who suffer from this problem with adult participants who do not have these symptoms, investigating the effect of emotion in memory performance for an event witnessed. To develop this study, a sequence of eleven slides was used, followed by two narrative versions, one with emotional impact and the other without, besides the Subjective Scale of Emotion, a self-test for memory. The study had 137 participants, who were divided into four groups: individuals who do not suffer from the disorder and emotionally loaded narrative, individuals who do not suffer from the disorder and narrative without emotional load, individuals who suffer from the disorder and emotionally loaded narrative, individuals who suffer from the disorder and narrative without emotional load. Parametrical analysis was carried out using the Variance analysis (ANOVA). All the statistical treatments used an < 0,05 for the hypothesis test and post hoc tests with correction for Bonferroni to identify the possible differences found. The results suggest that participants with SAD who were submitted to a version without emotional impact had higher rates of real memories, according to attentional bias characteristic of this population. Besides, the participants who suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) had higher rates of false memories who were submitted to a version without emotional impact, suggesting that emotion acted as a protection and suggesting that the social anxiety has a significant action over memory performance.

No description available.

Many methodologies have been used to generate false memories, with the misinformation (MI) paradigm and the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm being the most commonly studied. The MI paradigm generates false memories based on retroactive interference across episodes, while the DRM paradigm generates false memories based on semantic similarities across stimuli. Since current research is ambiguous about whether the processes for different types of false memories are similar, the purpose of this project was to compare the neural mechanisms between MI and DRM false memories. We used a novel paradigm to limit methodological differences, while maintaining the defining characteristics of each paradigm. We made ERP predictions for false memories in both paradigms based on four current cognitive theories of false memories: fuzzy-trace theory, spreading activation/monitoring theory, global matching models, and source of activation confusion (SAC) model. We found no LPC, FN400, or N2 neural differences between the two types of false memories. This result is discussed in the context of the theories and the implications about our understanding of false memories. Our results support that there may not be mechanistic differences in false memory recollection when paradigms to produce the false memories are similar. / Ph. D. / Many methodologies have been used to generate false memories (or retrieval of an incorrect detail of an experienced event), with the misinformation (MI) paradigm and the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm being the most commonly studied. The MI paradigm generates false memories based on incorrectly described details provided by the experimenter across episodes, while the DRM paradigm generates false memories based on semantic similarities across lists of words. Since current research is ambiguous about whether the processes for different types of false memories are similar, the purpose of this project was to compare the MI and DRM false memories. We used a novel paradigm to limit differences driven by different methods, while maintaining the defining characteristics of each paradigm. The four current memory theories informed our event-related potential (time-locked electroencephalogram) predictions. The four theories are fuzzy-trace theory, spreading activation/monitoring theory, global matching models, and source of activation confusion (SAC) model. We found no late positive component (an ERP component indicating recollective processes), FN400 (an ERP component indicating familiarity processes), or N2 (an ERP component indicating conflict) differences between the two types of false memories. This result is discussed in the context of these theories and the implications about our understanding of false memories. Our results support that there may not be differences in false memory recollection when paradigms to produce the false memories are similar.