10 Mar Using CogLab, complete the false memory experiment and create a report on the experiment. In your report, write a brief introduct
Using CogLab, complete the false memory experiment and create a report on the experiment.
In your report, write a brief introduction describing the history of false memory research. Next, in the Methods section, describe the process that you followed to complete the experiment, including a description of the materials used and the stimuli. Make sure to include enough information so that others can also perform the same experiment successfully.
Finally, describe the experimental results. In addition, determine how confident you were about your memory for words. Provide a rationale to support your answer. Summarize your report, including answers to the following questions:
- Were the results in accordance with your expectations? Provide a rationale to support your answer.
- Did anything about the experiment surprise you? If yes, what? Do you think you saw words that were not on the original list?
- What factors would influence the results of the false memory experiment?
The False Memory Experiment.html
The False Memory Experiment
Have you ever tried to recall a past event? Do you think you were able to recall it accurately?
Most people are under the impression that they are good (almost perfect) at recalling past events and remembering particular situations. However, the fact is that our memory is malleable—it changes with time and can be manipulated by adding new information (inputs). Although individuals may be confident that their memory of past events is perfect, the false memory experiment will demonstrate that individuals do not always recall exactly what had happened.
Similar to the other memory experiments you have completed, in this experiment, a series of words will be displayed one after another on your computer screen. At the end of the presentation, a grid containing words will appear. You need to click the words that you remember seeing in the word list—in any order.
Not all words appearing in the grid will be present in the word list. The additional words displayed in the grid are known as distracters.
False Memory Experiment: Evaluation Categories
Your experimental results (percent recall) are divided into the following three main categories:
- Original List: The words appearing in the list
- Normal Distracter: The words not appearing in the list and also not related to the other words in the list
- Special Distracter: The words not appearing in the list but related to the other words in the original list
Even though you are confident about your responses, in your experimental results, there are chances that you might have reported at least a few false memories. This is sometimes the case when eyewitnesses are asked to recall an incident.
Additional Material
View a PDF Transcript of False Memory Experiment: Evaluation Categories
SU_PSY3020__Distractors.pdf
Page 1 of 1 PSY3002_Cognitive Lab © 2009 South University
False Memory Experiment: Evaluation Categories Your experimental results (percent recall) are divided into the following three main categories:
• Original List: The words appearing in the list
• Normal Distracter: The words not appearing in the list and also not related to the other words in the list
• Special Distracter: The words not appearing in the list but related to the other words in the original list
,
Eyewitness Memory.html
Eyewitness Memory
Remembering words in a list differs dramatically from remembering more realistic events. However, false memories occur both in a laboratory and in real life.
Additional Materials
View a PDF Transcript of False Memories
media/transcripts/SU_PSY3020__False_Memory.pdf
Page 1 of 2 PSY3002_Cognitive Lab © 2009 South University
False Memories Elizabeth Loftus of the University of California, Irvine, is well known for her extensive research into eyewitness memory and false memories. In her words, “You fill in the holes every time you reconstruct an event in your own mind.” Let’s examine two of her experiments on false memory. Experiment 1 In this experiment, the participants were presented with a series of color slides that depicted successive stages in an accident involving a car and a pedestrian. The car was a red Datsun traveling along a side street toward an intersection. The participants were divided into two groups. During the presentation, Group 1 was shown a slide on which the car had stopped at a “stop” sign before hitting the pedestrian walking on the crosswalk. Group 2 was shown a slide on which the car passed a “yield” sign before hitting the pedestrian. Immediately after viewing the slides, the participants were asked several questions, one of which was critical to test their recall of the accident. The people in Group 1 were asked whether they saw another car passing the red Datsun when it stopped at the stop sign. The people in Group 2 were asked whether they saw another car passing the red Datsun when it stopped at the yield sign. After completing the questionnaire, the participants were given a break of one to two hours. During this break, they were asked to read an unrelated short story and answer questions based on the story. Pairs of slides of the accident were again shown to the participants, and they had to indicate which slide of each pair they had seen before. The critical pair was the slide depicting the Datsun near a stop sign and a nearly identical slide depicting the Datsun near a yield sign. Results indicated that when the question contained consistent information, 75 percent of the participants responded accurately. However, when the question contained misleading information, only 41 percent of the participants responded accurately. It was observed that in a condition where participants were making a guess, there was a 50 percent probability of them answering the question accurately; however, misleading questions drastically reduced their chances of accuracy. Source: Loftus, E. F. (1996). Eyewitness testimony: With a new preface. London: Harvard
University Press. Retrieved August 20, 2009, from http://www.softdevlabs.com/personal/Eyewitness_Testimony/Eyewitness_Testimony. html
Experiment 2 In this experiment, participants were asked to recall events that happened in their childhood or events about which they had heard from their parents, siblings, or relatives. The experiments took place in two phases. In Phase l, participants read a booklet containing four short stories about events from their childhood, provided by their parents, siblings, or other older relatives. Three events actually happened and the fourth event was false. The false event talked about how the participant had got lost in a mall when he or she was a child. The events were described in a single paragraph.
Page 2 of 2 PSY3002_Cognitive Lab © 2009 South University
The false event was constructed around outlets where the family shopped when the participant was about five years old, members of the family who usually went along on shopping trips, and kinds of stores that the participant was attracted to—special interest (after verifying that the participant had not got lost in a mall around the age of five years). Participants completed their booklets by reading what their relatives had recited about each of the four events and then writing what they remembered about each event. When the participants returned the booklets, they were called for two interviews to be held after an interval of one to two weeks. The participants were informed that they were being examined based on how much detail they could remember and how their memories were as compared to those of their relatives and parents. Twenty-five percent of the twenty-four participants recalled having been lost in a mall, and some participants even described the event in detail even though the event had never occurred in their childhood. Source: Loftus, E. F., & Pickrell, J. E. (1995). The formation of false memories. Psychiatric
Annals, 25(12), 720–724.
