|
...presenting set associated words (e.g. 'bed', 'rest', 'awake', 'tired', and 'dream') and then asking participants to recall these words. Often, participants falsely recall a word that is highly associated with the words presented. Here, the highly associated word, called the critical lure, is 'sleep'.
This procedure was originally used by Deese (1959), but his paper did not have a large impact at the time (Bruce & Winograd, 1998). When Roediger and McDermott (1995) and Read (1996) first reported their research, there was much debate about the accuracy of recovered memories of traumatic events (Loftus, 1997). This simple laboratory task showed that false memories could be created for single words. They did not argue that this showed that false memories of complex events, particularly those of a traumatic nature, could be created. However, if memories for traumatic events could be created, then the DRM procedure is an ethical and robust method for studying the possible mechanisms involved in false memory creation. The evidence for the creation of false memories of entire events also came in the mid-1990s from the studies by Hyman, Husband, and Billings (1995), Loftus and Pickrell (1995), and others. Further, in several claims against therapists, courts and insurance companies in the United States found sufficient evidence to conclude that it was possible to create memories for traumatic, though non-existent, events like satanic ritual abuse and alien space abduction (Loftus, 1997; see also Ross, 2001).
The argument about the accuracy of recovered memories has largely centred around whether the traumatic nature of an event produces memories that are qualitatively different from memories for non-traumatic events. Some hypotheses that were discussed during the height of the recovered memory debate were very bold, claiming that the norm was for memories of traumatic events to be repressed from conscious awareness or for the person to dissociate from the situation and develop what was then called multiple personality disorder (now called dissociative identity disorder). Often, it was argued that once encoded, these memories were not susceptible to distortion and could not be falsely created. While these beliefs were accepted by many people (Garry, Loftus, Brown, & DuBreuil, 1997), they lacked scientific support. They were falsified by several cases studies (Loftus, 1997) and Nourkova, Bernstein, and Loftus (2004) have shown that it is even possible to alter a memory for a traumatic memory within a laboratory context. Other hypotheses are less bold, but are supported by scientific evidence. For example, as the level of emotion increases, different regions of the brain become relatively more active, there is narrowing of attention, and other physiological reactions. These may create differences in memory performance with the DRM procedure.
The current paper explores two questions about false memory. The first question concerns the relationship between mood and memory performance. We use different musical pieces to affect mood, and hypothesize that this will affect memory performance dependent on the task instructions. The second question is whether there is a relationship between dissociation and the creation of false memories using the DRM procedure. Dissociation is characterized by difficulty integrating mental images, emotions, thoughts, and memories into consciousness, and is associated with cognitive failures (Wright & Osborne, 2005). Several papers have examined whether dissociation is associated with false memories, but only one other has used the DRM procedure.
The relationship between mood and all cognitive tasks is important. Generally, positive mood tends to improve performance (Ashby, Isen, & Turken, 1999), but there are exceptions (Oaksford, Morris, Grainger, & Williams, 1996). The effects of mood can be complex and interact with task demands. Martin, Ward, Achee, and Wyer (1993; see also Schwarz, 1990; Startup & Davey, 2001, 2003) have conducted several studies where participants are allocated to a positive or negative mood condition and are asked to work on different tasks. Importantly, participants are either told to provide as many responses as they can or to provide as many as they feel like. We will refer to these conditions as 'as can' and 'as feel like'. People in the positive mood condition perform less well in the 'as can' condition, but better in the 'as feel like' condition.
Martin and colleagues (1993) explain these data with the mood-as-input hypothesis. People in a positive mood condition misinterpret the reason for their positive mood state to mean that they have performed to the best of their ability. If they are in the 'as can' condition, they will stop earlier than people in a negative mood condition who misattributed their negative mood to not performing as well as they can. The opposite effect would occur for people in the 'as feel like' condition. They attribute their positive or negative mood to the task, and therefore people in the positive condition continue for longer because they feel like continuing.
Working longer on a task does not imply better performance. For example, Hallam, Price, and Katsarou (2002) randomly allocated 10- to...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos
have been removed from this article.
More articles from British Journal of Psychology
Sequence learning by action, observation and action observation., August 01, 2005
Intentions to use hormonal male contraception: the role of message fra..., August 01, 2005
Predictors of young dating adults' inclination to engage in extradyadi..., August 01, 2005
Nazi cruelties: are they literally hard to imagine?, August 01, 2005
Retrieval-induced forgetting is inversely related to everyday cognitiv..., August 01, 2005
Looking for additional articles?
Search our database of over 3 million articles.
Looking for more in-depth information on this industry?
Search our complete database of Industry & Market reports by text, subject, publication
name or publication date.
About Goliath
Whether you're looking for sales prospects, competitive information, company
analysis or best practices in managing your organization,
Goliath can help you meet your business needs.
Our extensive business information databases empower business
professionals with both the breadth and depth of credible,
authoritative information they need to support their business
goals. Whether it be strategic planning, sales prospecting,
company research or defining management best practices -
Goliath is your leading source for accurate information.
|
