Loftus And Pickrell - False Memories

Front 1

Explain what the participants believed the study was about.

Back 1

“Subjects were told that they were participating in a study on childhood memories, and that we were interested in how and why people remembered some things and not others.”

Front 2

Explain why it was necessary to deceive participants about the study

Back 2

If they had known the real purpose it would not have been possible to investigate false beliefs as they would have known which event was false.

Front 3

Describe the aim of the study

Back 3

To find out whether it is possible to implant (an entire) false memory for something that never happened.

Front 4

Describe evidence which supports the aim.

Back 4

29% (7/24 participants) ‘remembered’ the false shopping mall memory (or 6/24, 25% after first interview).

Front 5

Describe how the sample was obtained.

Back 5

Opportunity sampling“They were recruited by University of Washington students; each student provided a pair of individuals,which included both a subject and the subject’s relative”

Front 6

Explain disadvantages of sampling in this way.

Back 6

Sample bias: All the participants will have known a Washington University student, so may have other important characteristics in common making them less representative or gender bias because more males (and findings may not generalise to females)

Demand characteristics: All the participants will have known a psychology student, this might have made them more suspicious about the experiment

Front 7

Explain how the aim differs from most earlier research in this area.

Back 7

Earlier research looked at how post event information causes errors in recall of previously acquired information

Front 8

Independent Variables

Back 8

The three stages of booklet completion.Interview 1 and interview 2.

Front 9

Dependent Variables

Back 9

Percentage of participants recalling true and false events at all three stages

Ratings of clarity of memory: 1= not clear at all, 10 = extremely clear

Ratings of confidence in ability to recall more detail, scored from: 1= not confident, 5= extremely confident.

Front 10

Explain design of the experiment

Back 10

Repeated measures, because all participants completed all conditions of the independent variable (booklet, interviews 1 and 2)

Front 11

Describe Sample (participants)

Back 11

24 participants. ( 3 males, 21 females)

Age 18-53 years

Most pairs were either parent and child or sibling

All relatives were the older in the pair and they needed to be knowledgeable about the childhood of the subject.

The sample was an opportunity sample because participants were recruited by university of Washington students.

Front 12

Describe experimenters

Back 12

Two female students from university of Washington recruited the participants and the same two conducted and recorded the interviews.

Front 13

Apparatus

Back 13

A five-page booklet with a covering letter and instructions. the booklet had 4 short stories, 3 true (given by family relative) and one false (about getting lost in a mall). Each story was a paragraph with space below for recording details of memories about the story.

Front 14

Controls

Back 14

All 4 stories were a paragraph long and each false story appeared in third position of the booklet.

The ‘lost in mall’ false story was constructed from an interview with a relative who confirmed that the participant had not actually been lost.

All false stories included the following true features: where the family shopped, family member who usually went shopping, shops that would attract interest.

The ‘lost in mall’ false story also included lies: lost for an extended period, crying, lost in the mall or large store at about 5 years of age, found by an elderly woman, and reunited with family

Front 15

Conclusions

Back 15

People can be led to believe that entire events happened to them after suggestions to that effect.Memory can be altered just by suggestion

Front 16

Strengths of study

Back 16

High level of control.

False memory was made believable.

Front 17

Weaknesses

Back 17

The participants could have been recalling other instances in which they’d been lost in a crowded area

The questionnaire was sent to the participants at home. This allowed to call people and verify their answers

The questionnaire that is given allows for the participants to be untruthful for some reason or another, which reduces the validity of the study.

The sample is also unrepresentative because in included mostly female (21 females and 3 males), perhaps memories of females are different than memories of males.

Front 18

Ecological Validity

Back 18

It can be argued that the ecological validity of this study is low because of the high levels of control and the lab use, but it could also be said that the ecological validity is high because the people that participated in the study were real people and they were talking about their actual memories

Front 19

Ethics

Back 19

One ethical concern of this study is deception

Front 20

What is interference and what are the types?

Back 20

- Interference = How memories disrupt each other

- Proactive interference = Things experienced earlier (Difficulty in learning new information because of already existing information)

- Retroactive interference = things experienced later (it is a phenomenon that occurs when newly learned information interferes with and impedes the recall of previously learned information.)

Front 21

What type of interference does modern research focuses on?

Back 21

Relatively modern research on interference theory has focused primarily on retroactive interference effects. After receipt of new information that is misleading in some ways, people make errors when they report what they saw. the new post event information often becomes incorporated into the recollection, supplementing or alternating it, sometimes in dramatic ways.

Front 22

Describe a the case of implanting a false memory prior to the conductance of this study.

Back 22

A 14 year old boy named Chris was supplied with descriptions of three true events that supposedly happened in Chris’ childhood involving Chris’ mother and older brother Jim. Jim also helped construct one false event, Chris was instructed to write about all 4 events every day for 5 days, offering any facts or descriptions he could remember about each event. If he could not recall any additional details he was instructed to write “i don’t remember”. The false memory was introduced in a short paragraph. It reminded Chris that he was 5 at the time, that he was lost in university city shopping mall in Spokane, Washington, where the family often went shopping, and that he was crying heavily when he was rescued by an elderly man and reunited with his family. Over the first 5 days Chris remembered more and more about getting lost. He remembered that the man who rescued him was “really cool” he remembered being scared that he would never see his family again. He remembered his mother scolding him. After a few weeks Chris was interviewed. He rated his memories on a scale from 1 (not clear at all) to 11 (very, very clear). For the three true memories Chris gave ratings 1, 10 and 5. For the false memory he assigned the second highest rating: 8.

Front 23

Explain procedure

Back 23

Interview with relative to obtain 3 true stories about the participant that happened between ages 4 and 6. Also details to allow construction of false event.

Participants were sent a booklet, which contained stories ( 3 true one false) and participants filled in any memories they had about each of the 4 events listed.

Booklets posted back to researchers.

Researchers conducted interview 1at university (or by telephone) 1-2 weeks after completion of booklet.

After the interview they were asked to think about the memories, but not to discuss them Same researchers conducted interview 2 at university (or by telephone) 1-2 weeks after interview 1.

During interviews participants were asked to recall each event, adding as much detail as possible.

Participants were asked to rate clarity of memory ( scale 1-10) and confidence of recalling more in future (scale 1-5).

Participants were debriefed at the end of interview 2 and apologized to for the deception.

Front 24

What did the participants thought the study was about?

Back 24

The participants in the study thought they were participating in a study of “the kinds of things you may be able to remember from your childhood” and that they were interested in how people remembered some things and not others.

Front 25

How did interviews take place?

Back 25

If it was convenient interviews took place at the university; otherwise they were conducted over the telephone.

Front 26

Quantitative and qualitative data

Back 26

Quantitative: percentages of recall, number of word descriptions, clarity and confidence ratings.

Qualitative: study included some word-for-word descriptions of exactly what was said by participants.

Front 27

Explain the results of the study

Back 27

49 out of 72 (68%) of the true events were remembered across the booklet, interview 1 and 2.7 of the 24 participants (29%) remembered the false event but one participant after recalling the event in the booklet decided that she did not remember.

Participants used more words to describe true memories (mean of 138) than false memories (mean of 49.9).17 participants (75%) said they had no recollection of the false event at the booklet or interview stage.

Clarity ratings: mean of 6.3 during interview 1 and 6.3 during interview 2 for true events. For the false event, 2.8 during interview 1 and 3.6 during interview 2

Confidence ratings ( for 5 participants only) : true memories 2.7 (interview 1) and 2.2 (interview 2); false memories 1.8 then 1.4

At the end of the study 19 of 24 chose the ‘lost in mall’ story as the false one while five decided that a true event was false.

Front 28

What did the study conclude?

Back 28

People can be led to believe that entire events happened to them after suggestions to that effect. Memory can be altered just by suggestion.

Front 29

How was data gathered for all for stories?

Back 29

Interviews with the relative for each subject were conducted to obtain three events that happened to the subject between the ages 4 and 6. The stories were not to be family “folklore” or traumatic events that the subject will either remember easily or find painful to remember. In addition the relative provided information about a plausible shopping trip to a mall or large department store in order to construct a false event where the subject could conceivably have gotten lost. The relative was asked to provide the following kinds of information:Where the family would have shopped when the participant was about 5 years old . Which members of the family usually went along on shopping trips.What kinds of stores might have attracted the subject’s interest. Verification that the subject had not been lost around the age of 5

Front 30

What did all false events for all participants include?

Back 30

The false events always included the following elements about the subject:

Lost for an extended period

Crying

Lost in a mall or large department store at about the age of 5

Found and aided by an elderly woman

Reunited with family

Front 31

What were the participants instructed to do?

Back 31

They were asked to complete the booklets by reading what their relative had told the experiments about each event, and then writing what they remembered about each event, and then writing what they remembered about each event. If they did not remember the event they were told to write “I do not remember this”. After completing the booklet, they mailed it back to the experimenters in a stamped envelope they were provided with.

Front 32

What happened after the participants completed the booklet?

Back 32

Upon receipt of the completed booklet, participants were called and scheduled for two interviews. If it was convenient the interviews took place at the university; otherwise, they were conducted over the telephone. All participants were first interviewed approximately 1 to 2 weeks after receipt of the booklet, and received a second interview approximately 1 to 2 weeks after that. Two interviewers, both female, conducted and recorded the interview sessions.

Front 33

Explain what happened during the first interview

Back 33

At the beginning of the of the first interview, participants were reminded about each of the four events, one at a time, and asked to recall as much as they could about them. They were instructed to tell the experimenters everything they remembered about the event, whether or not they had written the information in their booklets. The experimenters told the subjects that they were interested in examining how much detail they could remember, and how their memories compared with those of their relative. Participants were asked to rate the clarity of their memory for the event on a scale of 1 to 10, 1= not clear at all, 10= extremely clear.Participants rated their confidence on a scale of 1-5 that if given more time to think about the event, they would be able to remember more details, 1= not confident, 5= extremely confident.After the first interview participants were thanked for their time, and were encouraged to think about the events and try to remember more details for the next interview. They were told not to discuss the events at all with their relative or anyone else.

Front 34

Explain what happened during the second interview

Back 34

The second interview conducted 1 to 2 weeks after the first, was essentially the same: participants tried to remember the four events, they rated their clarity and confidence, but at the end of this session, they were debriefed. The debriefing phase explained the attempt to create a memory for something that had not happened, and participants were asked to guess which event may have been the false one . The experimenters apologized for the deception and explained why it was necessary for the research.

Front 35

How many true events were recalled?

Back 35

The 24 participants were asked to remember a total of 72 true events.49 out of 72 were remembered = 68%

Front 36

How many false events were remembered?

Back 36

In the booklet 7 out of 24 = 29% either fully or partially.During the first interview one participant decided she did not remember, leaving 6 (25%) false events remembered. Which would leave 75% of the participants resisted the false event.This percentage held for the second interview.

Front 37

Describe the number of events used for true and false events.

Back 37

Participants used more words when describing their true memories whether these memories were fully or partially recalled, The mean word length of descriptions of true memories was 138.0, whereas descriptions of false memories it was 49.9.

Front 38

What were the mean clarity ratings for the participants?

Back 38

Clarity ratings were analyzed only for the participants who recalled the false events. (one participant could not be included because clarity ratings were not collected during the first interview). The mean clarity rating for the true memories of these five individuals was 6.3 during the first and second interviews. The mean clarity rating for the false memory during the first interview was 2.8 and 3.6 during the second interview.

Front 39

What were the mean confidence rating on being able to recall additional details at a later time on a scale of 1-5?

Back 39

The mean confidence rating for the true memories was 2.7 during the first interview and 2.2 during the second. The mean confidence rating for the false memory was 1.8 then 1.4.

Front 40

After the participants were debriefed how many of them guessed which was the false event?

Back 40

Of the 24 total, 19 participants chose the getting lost memory as the false one, while the remaining 5 incorrectly thought that one of the true events was the false one.