Using A Similar Deign And Mcdermott 's False Memory Experiment Essay

The study of creation of false memories has been a topic of interest since the 1930s when Bartlett (1932) conducted the first experiment on the topic. Though the results of this experiment were never replicated, they contributed greatly to research by distinguishing between reproductive and reconstructive memory (Bartlett 1932 as cited in Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Reproductive memory refers to accurate production of material from memory and is assumed to be associated with remembering simplified materials (e.g., lists). Reconstructive memory emphasizes the active process of filling in missing elements while remembering and is associated with materials rich in meaning (e.g., stories).

Eyewitness testimonies are based on a person’s ability to recall what took place accurately. Memory research has proven that a person’s memory is not a recording but it is reconstructive. Loftus and Palmer’s study set out to prove that the memory could be reconstructed through the use of language.

This method is appropriate to observe one’s false memory since it is designed bias the participants to recall particular words that was not in the sequence that they were presented with. These particular distractor words were sleep, needle, sweet, chair, mountain, and rough and they were presented one at a time. The sequence of words When the participants report that one of these particular distractor words was in the sequence, then that is the evidence that the participants have created false memories.

False memories are an apparent recollection of an event that did not actually occur. The reason why false memories happen are due to the fact that one's brains can only handle so much.There has been several experiment pertaining to the phenomenon, to find how it works.In the next part of the experiment the psychologist showed the participants a word list.False memories are very common and can happen to anyone. On very rare occasions false memories can be harmful to someone and the people around them.False memories are so common that they affect all of a person's memories. False memories can be made more clear by others memories or they could become more distorted. False memories have caused many wrongful convictions. A psychologist

The phenomenon of explaining false memory occurrences is rising. Researchers have developed a paradigm known as “Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm” in efforts to examine false memories in depth (Dehon, Laroi & Van der Linden, 2011). In the DRM paradigm, participants are introduced to and asked to memorize a list of correlated words congregating towards a vital subject word that is never introduced (Dehon, Laroi & Van der Linden, 2011). The rate that participants recall this false decoy is alarming. Researchers have provided several explanations to explain for the false memories in the DRM paradigm (Dehon, Laroi & Van der Linden, 2011). The two most notable in explaining false memories in the DRM paradigm are the fuzzy-trace theory and the activation/monitoring theory (Dehon, Laroi & Van der Linden, 2011). While the two theories are particularly dissimilar, they both sustain that information developing throughout list encoding attributes an essential part in false memory construction (Dehon, Laroi & Van der Linden, 2011).

I recently watched a YouTube documentary that focused on both false testimonies by children and memory. Stephen Ceci, a psychologist, studies the accuracy of children's courtroom testimony, particularly in cases claiming physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect (Park Productions, 2012). In this documentary, he was called in court as an expert who studies children to state whether the child was telling the truth or dishonest. The cases he worked with were from the late 1980s to the 2000s. Psychologist Stephen Ceci, researched that children who are questioned using suggestible language are prone to implant the topic of question into their minds and will eventually become a false memory. There is one particular study in which he experimented

My data showed that my performance on the false memory task was better than the reference data. Not only did I have far fewer false memories of items related to the list items (16.7% compared to 75%), but I also remembered more of the original list items (91.7% compared to 88%), and I did not falsely remember any unrelated words (0% compared to 10%).

A false memory is simply a memory that did not occur. An actual experience can become distorted as best illustrated by the Cog Lab experiment on false memories accessed through Argosy University. The experiment is outlined as follows: a participant is given a list of words that are highly relative in nature at a rate of about one word every 2 seconds. At the finish of the given list, the participant is then shown a list of words in which he or she is to recall the words from the original list. A special distractor is inserted to the list, and this word, although highly relative in nature, was not in the original list. For example, the

Roediger and McDermott (1995) conducted a laboratory demonstration of false memory to what came to be known as DRM (Deese-Roediger-McDermott) task. What is interesting from this experiment is that false memories are linked with the memory of something that did not happen. Therefore, regarding content accuracy, the performance would be exactly what we would expect. For instance, in the DRM task, the participants were given words like bed, rest, awake, pillow, and sleep, and immediately, sleep was the word which came in their mind because those words are associated with sleep. However, the technical accuracy is poor since they said sleep due to their understanding of the provided list but they could not differentiate

Nearly one-fifth of century ago, numerous researches respecting to false memories have been conducted right after Roedigerand McDermott (1995) reestablished Deese’s (1959) false memory paradigm. The Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm is designed by exhibiting a word lists with particular concept to participators, the participators were requested to conduct a free remembrance or an identification memory test. The rates of false memories are greater for informal words that are connected than unconnected words with the selected concept. These connected

Multiple studies have been conducted that investigate false memory in humans focusing on word recall, processing and retention interval, and auditory imaging. Roediger and McDermott (1995) suggest that individuals who participated in their study are more likely to recall the critical words and lures if the list of words presented were closely associated to them. Critical lures are the tendency to recall words that are associated with presented information (Kreiner, Price, Gross, Appleby, 2004). Roediger and McDermott (1995) also suggest that the same individuals will be more familiar with the critical lures compared to the words actually presented (Roediger, McDermott 1995), while other studies suggest similar conclusions. This paper will discuss the effect of false memory with word association, the ability to retain the words, and auditory learning and testing with research done by Roediger, McDermott, Gallo, Pilotti, Jacoby, and Thapar.

The materials used for the experiment was a website called Coglab: The online cognition lab. The scores were conducted simply by using the website and doing the “False Memory” lab and a computer. Participants were asked to read the instructions in the Coglab website.

Roediger and McDermott’ (1995), experiment based on Deese’s (1959) experiment renewed the interest in false memories and invented the Deese-McDermott-Roediger Paradigm which many studies surround. Their study focused on eliciting false memories through receiving lists of words and being asked to recall those that were present from a separate list that included a critical word that if recalled, showed presence of false memory effects. Notably many participants were sure that the

Experiment 1 results found that many of the students failed to remember the initial data provided to them at the onset of the study, which provided the effect of misinformation on the memory of the participant: “These analyses revealed a significant main effect for misinformation items, F(1, 163) = 9.89, p = .002, ηp2 = .06, 90 % CI for effect size = [.01, .12] (Cochran et al, 2016, p.721). This data confirms that the students had not retained the original memory of the crimes committed, which resulted in a large-scale choice blindness. In this manner, the multiple –choice segment of this study exposed memory lapses as part of the re-evaluation process of the participant 's memories. Therefore, misinformation was not properly identified in the remembrance of these criminal scenarios.

How accurate and reliable is memory? "Studies on memory have shown that we often construct our memories after the fact, that we are susceptible to suggestions from others that will help us fill in the gaps in our memories" (Carroll 6). Prior to reading and discussing the issue of False Memory Syndrome, I hadn’t thought much about the topic. Maybe a person who had experienced this would be more educated. I did however find it very interesting to research and my beliefs or feelings about it now exist and will be shared at a later time. The purpose of this paper is to describe what False Memory Syndrome is and summarize some of the facts that have been gathered through previous research and my own research.