The Concept of False Memory Effect - Coursework Example

Dissertation introduction Dissertation introduction Background Many studies have been conducted to look at the concept of falsememory. The concept of false memory effect occurs when individuals recall or recognize items that had not been presented before. To test the false memory effect, researchers Roediger, H.L & McDermott, K. B. (1995) came up with the DRM paradigm which has been used in various studies to examine the false memory effect (Roedieger & McDermott, 1995). This paradigm constitutes a list of words related to each other. Participants are required to memorize all these words and the words are related to a critical lure word that is not presented in the list. The authors identified that during the recognition test, participants were able to recall the lure word not presented as much as the words presented in the list. Thus, the paradigm is one good measure for the false memory effect. Other authors Payne, D.G, Ellie, C.J., Blackwell, J.M &Neuschatz; J.F. (1996) replicated the paradigm tests study and also came up with the same results (Payne, 1996). This shows how strong the false memory effect is. The authors also had a demonstration in the study that once the participants studied the given items, a delay of 24 hours before the recognition test increased the false memory of the critical lure words compared to if there was an immediate test conducted. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine the effect that a 24 hour delay has on the false memory effect. To look at this false memory effect, there will be two conditions which will act as the independent variables. It is then hypothesized that participants will take in the delayed recall condition will show an increase in false memory effect. A valuable mental power encompasses the ability to recreate certain experiences from the past. This makes it easy for perceivers to engage in periods of guided time travel, reliving episodes and the events from their lives (Brandt, Macrae, Schloerscheidt, & Milne, 2003). This makes it easy for perceivers to possess a privileged and an intimate connection with their personal histories. According to the dual-process memory accounts function, the ability of the conscious to successfully recognize incorporates recollection and familiarity. Thus, using Tulving’s (1985) remember/know procedure; a research to investigate the experimental concomitants of person recognition was conducted. Noting the basic differences in the manner that the mind processes expectancy related material, the anticipation was that facial typicality would be a critical determinant of the recollective experiences. In particular, the main expectations wsa that whereas remember responses would be prevalent for distinctive than typical faces, know responses would reflect the opposite pattern. The results of the experiments conducted provided the general support for these predictions. In addition, the recollective advantage for the distinctive faces was traced to the availability of attention recourse at encoding. These results are considered in the context of contemporary issues in both the person recognition and social cognition. Other two experiments were conducted to investigate whether expertise effects in the recognition memory could be found for different academic subjects. The role of the subjective experience and repetition on these effects were explored. In the first experiment, it was evident that the overall recognition memory was greater for the familiar than the unfamiliar academic words. This effect was attributed to the subjective experience of remembering than knowing. The other experiment showed that repletion of stimulus items at study eliminated these expertise effects. Other previous research has generally failed to find the expertise effects in the overall recognition memory. The present findings however, show that expertise effects do not occur in the overall recognition memory and are associated with the richer memorial experience of remembering rather than knowing (Brandt, Cooper, & Dewhurst, Applied Cognitive Psychology). False memories by either remembering events that never happened at all or remembering them differently from how they happened have captured the attention of researchers globally. The main cause for this attention is due to the number of cases that are reported on memories of previous abuses that have been previously unidentified during the course of this therapy. Some of these researchers indicate that certain therapeutic practices can cause false memories thus the recovery of these memories during therapy could represent the actual memories creation. Despite that the issue of false memories is having multiple publicity nowadays; it is not a new concept in psychology. Bartlett (1932) is usually credited with conducting the first experimental investigation on false memories. He had his subjects read a certain Indian folktale and required them to recall it in a repeated manner. He reported no aggregate data thus his results showed distortions in the memories of the subjects over their repeated attempts to recall this folktale. His reproduction results have never been replicated by other researchers. However, he made an ensuring contribution since he distinguished between the reproductive and the reconstructive memory. Reproductive memory is the accurate and rote production of material from memory while reconstructive memory emphasizes more on the active process of filling the missing elements in the course of remembering. Other researchers have followed this lead and they have done very little to discourage the belief that more natural and coherent material are required to demonstrate the powerful false memory effects. However one research conducted by Deese in 1959 has been overly ignored despite that his findings could be important for the entire study. Thus, Roediger, H.L. & McDermott, K. B. (1995) modeled their study based on the study conducted by Deese 1959. They conducted two experiments to reveal the remarkable levels of false recall and false recognition in a certain list of learning paradigm. The subjects were able to study a list of 12 items in one study after which they were tested for recall. The second study was expanded to include more items on the list. In both studies, the subjects were able to recall the non represented materials at a much higher rate than the presented items. Their act of recall enabled the remembering of both the studied and the non-studied material. Thus, this indicates a powerful memory illusion of memory. It shows that people are more likely to remember materials not learned thus increasing the process of false memory effect. The present research conducted focus more on a more circumscribed problem where people recognize and recall events that never took place. The present memory is concerned with a phenomenon of false memory with four important characteristics. The first characteristic is a trackable to direct control of experiment with obvious advantages over investigations of the possible real world false memory phenomena. This is often characterized by lack of control over the nature of the original questions asked, events that occur during the retention interval and the manner that the memories are elicited. Second characteristic reported on the false memory effects is that they are approximately the same magnitude as subject’s memory performance for the real events. The subjects recall and recognize the events that never occurred with almost the same probability as events that actually transpired. Third, the experiments allows in the examination of the accuracy of the accuracy of the memories as well as how much these subjects remembered. Finally, the other characteristic also examined how the phenomological characteristics of false memories compare to the memories of the false memories. The belief here is that the important theoretical and pragmatic issues are possible to address with subjective measures including confidence ratings. Thus, a study involving three experiments was conducted by Payne et al (1996). The three experiments document a very powerful false memory effect represented in the process of recall and recognition reported. The subjects were able to study a list of given items that were related to other critical themes not represented in the list(Roediger &Rajaram, 1993). They then completed recognition and recall tests and other metamemory tasks. From these three experiments, it was evident that the critical items non-represented were highly recognized and also recalled nearly as the studied items. The false recognition of these no-represented items did not decline even after a 24 hour span though the recognition of the items studied highly decreased. The false memory effect is also seen to increase at a significant rate across all the successive recall items that are conducted. The response of the subjects on the metamemory tasks showed that they experienced that the critical items not represented were similar to the items that had been presented and thus made it easy to recall and recognize them (Bransford, 2009).The subjects were very willing to indicate which of the speaking two individuals had spoken on the critical non-represented items that were recognized and recalled. Thus, this showed that these false memory effects represent the memory illusion and it may yield important insights into the normal processes of the human memory. The distinctiveness effect is the common finding that when compared with the typical or expected outcomes are much more memorable. This has been found across a wide range of stimulus. The past research exploring the distinctiveness effect has interpreted and reported this effect as a qualitative effect. Thus, this leads to the question as to whether the distinctiveness effect may also reflect a qualitative advantage in terms of the kinds of the subjective experiences that are associated with a successful recognition memory. Tulving (1985) first suggested that the use of remember and know responses to measure the overall quality of an individual’s subjective experienced following successful recognition. He indicated that remembering reflects an autonoetic consciousness and is concerned with the episodic memory system. On the other hand, knowing is a property of the semantic memory and reflects noetic consciousness. From this, other theoretical explanations have been used to explain this ordeal and dissociations in addition to the memory systems account. The alternative accounts often include the dual process models of recognition that distinguish between two independent processes, recollection and familiarity. A more recent study conducted by Karen, R. B., John M. G., & Neil, M.C (2006) showed this concept of distinctiveness. The authors give a full description of two experiments that test the prediction that various distinctive forenames would be easily recognized than any other typical; forenames. The study investigated whether the distinctiveness effect occurred in either the subjective experience of the recollective or the familiarity components of the memory of recognition (Brandt, Gardiner, & Macrae, 2005). A paradigm known as “the remember know” was used in measuring the experiences of the participant’s recollection or their familiarity. The results of the test conducted revealed that the distinctive forenames were more memorable as compared to typical forename or names. This subjective experience only occurred in the subjective experience of the act of remembering for the participants. Moreover, this distinctiveness effect was present after the retention intervals of both one and seven days. Thus, these results replicate and extend the past research on the distinctiveness effect and provide the required support for the Rajaram’s (1996) distinctiveness-fluency account of the two states of the subjective awareness. Thus from all the studies conducted, it is evident that the rate of false memory effect is high. Individuals are more likely to recall the false memory words of the allure words not represented more than the words presented(Ackerman, 2005). The false memory effect increases more in a twenty four hour period with the recalling and recognition of the presented words failing as time goes by. Thus, individuals are more likely to have the false memory effect more as time goes by than if a recognition test is conducted immediately after the DRM paradigm test is conducted. Thus, it is important for more studies to be conducted on the same and this will be the basis for this project. It will incorporate the previous studies conducted and come iup with a more conclusive study on the recall of no represented items in a span of 24 hours after the study is conducted. With the numerous previous studies conducted and highlighted to form the basis of the research to be conducted. This will ensure that a more conclusive and efficient results are found. This will ensure that other researchers follow suit to continue expounding on this topic for effective and accurate results. Thus, this study will form the basis for more studies to follow to ensure that the earlier research conducted is highly expounded on. References Ackerman, B.P. (2005). Fuzzy-trace theory. Learning and individual differences, 77-81 Brandt, K. R., Macrae, C. N., Schloerscheidt, A. M., & Milne, A. B. (2003). Remembering or knowing others? Memory , 89-100. Brandt, K. R., Gardiner, J. M., & Macrae, N. (2005). The distinctiveness effect in forenames. British Journal of Psychology , 1-13. Brandt, K. R., Cooper, L. M., & Dewhurst, S. A. (Applied Cognitive Psychology). Experise and recollective experience: Recognition memory for familiar and unfamiliar academic subjects. 2005 , 1113-1125. Brainerd, C.J & Reyna, V.F. (2010). Gist is the Gist. Developmental Review, 3-47 Bransford, JD. (2009). The abstraction of linguistic ideas. Cognitive Psychology, 331-350. Payne, D. G. (1996). Memory Illusions. Journal of Memory and Language , 261-285. Roediger, H.L &Rajaram, S. (1993). 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