Context Recollection and False Memory of Critical Lures in the Deese/Roediger-Mcdermott Paradigm

Abstract

We examined the role of context memory for false recognition of critical lures and for illusory recollection of context in the Deese/Roediger-McDermott paradigm. In order to manipulate context (colour) memory, we asked the participants to read vs. generate items during the study and we presented items from one list using blocked-or mixed-colour formats. Both manipulations confirmed its influence on colour identification. Using signal detection analyses, we estimated memory sensitivity and response bias parameters, assuming that the former reflects encodingmechanism influences, whereas the latter reflects retrieval-based mechanism effects. Our results showed no evidence for diagnostic monitoring, that is, the participants did not use failure of colour recollection as a retrieval strategy for lures rejection. However, we also showed that in the blockedcolour condition, the better memory for targets colours was related to a better gist memory and a stronger proneness to attribute the list-colour to corresponding critical lures. We interpret these results as indicating that participants "misbind" contextual details to activated critical lures at encoding and/or "borrow" these details at retrieval to corroborate the strong familiarity of critical lures.

Closing the door to false memory: the effects of levels-of-processing and stimulus type on the rejection of perceptually vs. semantically dissimilar distractors

“…High false acceptances of critical lures in the DRM paradigm are explained as resulting from the similarity of gist traces between the list-items and the critical lure (e.g., Brainerd & Reyna, 2002 ; Nieznański et al, 2019 ) or from spreading activation from the studied list-words to the non-studied critical lures (e.g., Roediger et al, 2001 ). A critical lure can be rejected at test if the participant effectively monitors the origin of the feeling of familiarity evoked by this lure (e.g., Bruce et al, 2004 ; Carmichael & Gutchess, 2016 ; Nieznański et al, 2018 ). Reductions in false memories of critical lures are achieved when participants are warned about the memory illusion before they study the DRM lists.…”

“…The first occurs when the remembering of one event logically excludes another event as being presented during the study, while the second mechanism is based on the failure to recollect the expected details (cf. Nieznański et al, 2018 ). For example, in a converging associates memory task, a disqualifying monitoring process can lead to rejection of a related lure because one recalls identifying it as nonstudied during study, whereas a diagnostic monitoring process can result in rejecting an unrelated lure because it does not fit the gist of studied items (Gallo, 2006 , p. 204).…”

“…The latter would rather affect the response criterion parameter, while the former is expected to influence the memory sensitivity parameter of the SDT model (cf. Nieznański et al, 2018 ). On the other hand, the 2HT model introduces a parameter representing high-confidence “no” responses for lures detected as distractors, which may be interpreted as a manifestation of the recall-to-reject process (Rotello et al, 2000 ).…”

Representation of shared surface information and false memory for abstract versus concrete pictures in the conjoint recognition paradigm

“…This process leads to a reduction in the incidence of false alarms and is called recollection rejection (for more details on FTT approach to memory see: e.g. Brainerd & Reyna, 2002 ; Brainerd et al, 2001 ; Nieznański & Obidziński, 2019 ; Nieznański et al, 2018 , 2019 ; Reyna et al, 2016 ; Stahl & Klauer, 2008 , 2009 ).…”

Feelings of Contrast at Test Reduce False Memory in the Deese/Roediger-McDermott Paradigm

“… Jou et al, 2018 , who proposed that the ability to establish an appropriate decision criterion to monitor is based on what the observer monitors against). This monitoring process can be classified into diagnostic and disqualifying monitoring (e.g., Gallo, 2004 , 2006 ; Gallo et al, 2006 ; Gallo and Lampinen, 2016 ; Nieznański et al, 2018 ; Moore et al, 2020 ). This division is based on the decisional processes around the avoidance of false memory.…”