Annotated Bibliography: False Memories - Paper Example

1. Bland, C. E., Howe, M. L., & Knott, L. (216). Discrete emotion-congruent false memories in the DRM paradigm. Emotion, 16, 611-619.

Researches are available on false memories and mood congruency but are still in their infancy. They have not adequately taken into account diverse perspectives regarding false memories by limiting the variables hence narrowing the scope. In the current study, it focuses more on emotional congruency effects by expanding on previous reviews. It uses discrete emotions that are similar with regards to valence and arousal.

The author provokes certain emotional states (i.e., fear or anger) with the aim of examining the impact of psychological congruent and incongruent material on false memory (Bland, Howe & Knott, 2016). In the assessment, students with better grades get divided into three categories. One group saw a film that induced anger; the other saw a documentary inducing fear while the control group saw no movie. They later on saw a list of words related to anger, fear and no emotion. A recognition test, later on, took place to indicate whether the words were either old or new. Students who viewed the fear film were able to recall the false items related to fear that were related to neutral emotions or fear (Bland, Howe & Knott, 2016). Students that never saw the movie were able to remember all emotional issues. From that, the type of emotional state that the students were in currently affected the details they were able to recall.

According to the authors, the results get limited to specific interpretations. The majority never showed any significant differences found in the arousal group thereby making emotions only differ at encoding and not retrieval (Bland, Howe & Knott, 2016). On recognition responses, the order of list presentation never had any substantial impact on the performance of memory task.

Participants who experienced fear or anger wrongly recalled more critical lures in the list with the subject being congruent to their emotional states. The findings were in unison to previous studies on harmonious emotional effects brought about by valence (Bland, Howe & Knott, 2016). They also revealed that emotion like effects are available for discrete emotions even when valence and arousal are similar throughout the experimental conditions.

2. Brackmann, N., Otgaar, H., Sauerland, M., & Howe, M. L. (2016). The impact of testing on the formation of children's and adults' false memories. Applied cognitive psychology, 30(5), 785-794.

The authors aimed at addressing the issue of immediate testing and its effects on the development of erroneous recollections. Information available on repeated interviewing gets its basis on empirical studies investigating how testing impacts long-term memory performance. An issue arising is the impact of testing on incorrect recall. Previous analyses focused more on the formation of memory illusions brought about by misleading details without considering testing as a variable (Brackmann, Otgaar, Sauerland & Howe, 2016). The current study examines both the effect of meaning versus item specific assessment on varying levels. They take a developmental angle on the vulnerability of misinformation for all ages.

The assessment took place in a silent room at an elementary school on two subsequent days. The sessions lasted about fifteen minutes for the participants. Random group assignments got accomplished by providing scoring sheets that affiliated participants either with an item specific group or meaning (Brackmann et al., 2016). The experimenters ensured that they had utterly no influence on the process. Half of the participants of each age group got allocated varying questions. On the initial day, the members viewed a theft film. After a while, there was a test on the meaning or item specific level. A day later, the participants took note of eyewitness's account that had misinformation. In succeeding a short filler task, final questions got asked in an order similar to earlier research. They were to serve as a memory test including items requested in the initial days as well as new ones. Half of the tested and untested items got integrated with misinformation.

The study aimed at examining the effects of different types of testing on susceptibility to misinformation in varying age groups. There was a revelation that the contaminating impact of misinformation differed as a function of age. The meaning testing sample found that misinformation effect in children and adolescents, but not adults affected by misinformation (Brackmann et al., 2016). Adults had lower rates of incorrect recognition in misinformed as well as non-misinformed items.

The current study aimed at resolving the effects of different type of processing on testing effects about the susceptibility of deception. There was a conclusion that the predicted testing effect manifested itself in better memory performance for tested than untested items similar to past studies. There was also the replication of the classical misinformation effects supporting the retrieval-enhanced suggestibility consistent with previous developmental findings (Brackmann et al., 2016). The review predicted that item-specific testing could account for the inoculation effects while testing meaning could promote test-enhanced suggestibility.

3. Carmichael, A. M., & Gutchess, A. H. (2016). Using warnings to reduce categorical false memories in younger and older adults. Memory, 24(6), 853-863.

Despite the prevalence and pervasiveness of false positive memories, there is still inadequate research. It is about whether warning strategies can be used to lower the incidence of categorical false memories in cued recall assignments. The study aims at distinguishing itself from previous ones using the DRM word list that enable participants not identify critical lure (Carmichael & Gutchess, 2016). It would assist in formulating a hypothesis on whether warnings are valid for older adults at the encoding period.

The author undertook the experiment using and E-Prime software. Participants in the non-warning condition began the activity by reading instructions about the memory task plus memorizing. Participants in the warning condition were able to receive the instructions in addition to warnings about categorical false memory intrusions. Participants got presented with thirty-two-word pairs in a single study block randomly after four seconds unique to the subject (Carmichael & Gutchess, 2016). After completing the encoding task, a short distraction task came in place lasting about thirty seconds. Later on, they finished a self-paced cued recall on the computer with the help of the E-Prime software. The recall was self-paced, and participants were randomly presented with words and asked to complete them during encoding. Members were to provide answers to all cues, but there was room to leave blanks if they never recalled the response.

Young individuals were able to recall more items than the old correctly. There was no significant difference in the number of unused items left between warning conditions in the young adults. The instances of memory mistakes and blanks differed across multiple warning conditions for elders. While memory warnings were useful in lowering categorical memory errors, the reduction extended to other semantic errors.

Warnings can effectively reduce categorical false memory recall. Warnings did not reduce errors in younger adults despite there being a statistical trend for reduction of false memory in adults (Carmichael & Gutchess, 2016). However, no evidence was available on the impact of warnings on other semantic errors. Results from the study differ on the effect of warning on old adults as compared to older adults. There is evidence that warnings about false memories can get successfully adapted from those used in DRM paradigm (Carmichael & Gutchess, 2016). Additionally, those utilized in cue categorical tasks to lower categorical errors in older adults.

4. Dewhurst, S. A., Anderson, R. J., Grace, L., & van Esch, L. (2016). Adaptive false memory: Imagining future scenarios increases false memories in the DRM paradigm. Memory & cognition, 44(7), 1076-1084.

Previous researches showed that rating words for their relevance to a future scenario improves memory for the words. The current analysis investigates the effect of future thinking on false memory using the DRM procedure.

Participants in the pleasantness condition got notified the importance of investigating the emotional response to verbal stimuli. The remainder were made aware of the significance of examining the process involved in recalling past events. An incidental learning approach was selected whereby there was no mention of the forthcoming memory test. Before the presentation of the study list, there were some instructions availed. Participants were required to think of specific events based on particular time frames (Dewhurst, Anderson, Grace & van Esch, 2016). Words were given to them which they were supposed to relate their usefulness to the selected function. They were then to rate their level of pleasantness.

The levels of false recall were significantly higher in future conditions. They were also higher in past terms relative to the pleasantness condition. Future (planning) conditions produced higher levels of false recall than the past (planning) conditions. Also, analysis of false recall showed a significant effect of temporal direction.

Rating the DRM list for relevance to future events leads to reliably higher levels of false recall (Dewhurst, Anderson, Grace & van Esch, 2016). It is compared to rating them for their relevance to a past event. It was the case whether the task involved planning or not. Adding a planning component to the future and past conditions did not significantly increase levels of false recall. The findings contrasted previous researches stating that future rating tasks never lead to higher levels of accurate recall than past ratings. There was no evidence of significant recall observed in the rating tasks. The semantic theme of the DRM lists overshadowed any potential effects on the ratings.

5. Mullet, H. G., & Marsh, E. J. (2016). Correcting false memories: Errors must be noticed and replaced. Memory & cognition, 44(3), 403-412.

False memories are challenging to correct despite warnings and additional study opportunities. False memories are not exceptional from other types of errors. Therefore, learners need awareness when they make a mistake and notified on the correct answer. The research aimed at analyzing false memories and come up with a valid remedy strategy.

The analysis got programmed using the E-Prime software. Participants needed to read and recall sentences. The total number of sentences was forty-two each transitioning at a rate of four seconds with a blank screen and a fixation point (Mullet & Marsh, 2016). It was also required for them to solve unrelated brainteasers for ten minutes. Next, participants filled the self-paced initial test. It was expected of the participants to fill the missing words maintaining the exact original wording they studied. There was an option of not answering an unknown question. The feedback was immediately presented after each initial test to achieve the feedback condition. There was the solving of unrelated brainteasers fifteen minutes before commencing the initial trial (Mullet & Marsh, 2016). The delayed feedback got administered according to two schedules. The schedules involved completing the initial test, solving brainteasers and receiving feedback. There was a lag in between feedback presentation and the final analysis. Participants completed the ultimate test similar to th...