A gender difference in the false recall of negative words: Women DRM more than men

Abstract

. A gender difference in false recall of negative words: Women DRM more than men. Cognition and Emotion, 26(1), pp. 65-74. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2011.553037 This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent AbstractGender differences in susceptibility to associative memory illusions in the Deese/RoedigerMcDermott paradigm were investigated using negative and neutral word lists. Women (n = 50) and men (n = 50) studied 20 lists of 12 words that were associates of a nonpresented critical lure. Ten lists were associates of negatively-valenced lures (e.g., cry, evil) and ten were associates of neutral lures (e.g., chair, slow). When asked to recall the words after each list, women falsely recalled more negative lures than men, but there was no gender difference in the false recall of neutral lures. These findings suggest that women reflect on associations within negative lists to a greater degree than men and are thereby more likely to generate the negative critical lures.

Decreased susceptibility to false memories from misinformation in hormonal contraception users

“…Our findings in the relatively unemotional DRM task are congruent with those of Nielsen et al's (2011) neutral condition, in which no memory differences were seen in HC women compared to NC women. The relatively neutral nature of the DRM stimuli may also explain why we failed to find a difference in DRM performance between these two hormonally distinct groups, while Dewhurst et al (2012) did find a significant difference in DRM performance between men and women when comparing emotional stimuli only.…”

“…Thus, the sex differences observed in the study by Dewhurst et al (2012) may not simply be the result of women encoding the "gist" to a greater degree than men. It is also quite plausible that sex steroid hormone levels may have modulated the false memory effects in women, For example, higher levels of estradiol in women are associated with improved performance on a working memory task in NC women (Hampson & Morley, 2013).…”

“…Results indicated that compared to men, women falsely recalled more negative lures; these sex differences were not observed for recall of neutral words. One potential explanation for this difference was that women were encoding the "emotional gist" of the words more so than men, and as a result, women falsely recalled more critical lures (Dewhurst et al, 2012). However, other work with emotional memory for "gist" suggests that men may encode and recall emotional gist better than women (Cahill & van Stegeren, 2003;Nielsen, Ahmed, et al, 2013).…”

“…Although there is a robust literature on false memories (for reviews, see Gallo, 2010;Loftus, 2005), there is limited work exploring any potential relationship between sex hormones and false memory. However, a recent study examined whether biological sex influenced false recall in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM;Deese, 1959;Roediger & McDermott, 1995) paradigm (Dewhurst, Anderson, & Knott, 2012). Results indicated that compared to men, women falsely recalled more negative lures; these sex differences were not observed for recall of neutral words.…”

“…Given that the DRM is a working memory task, levels of estradiol may also modulate performance in female participants. Since Dewhurst et al (2012) did not account for menstrual cycle phase or HC use, it is unclear at this point what the specific contributions of sex hormone levels might be to a false memory paradigm.…”