False Memories: Young and Older Adults Think of Semantic Associates at the Same Rate, but Young Adults Are More Successful at Source Monitoring.

Abstract

Two experiments explored whether the higher vulnerability to false memories in the DRM (J. Deese, 1959; H. L. Roediger & K. B. McDermott, 1995) paradigm in older compared to young adults reflects a deficit in source monitoring. In both experiments, adding together the number of falsely recalled critical lures and the number of critical lures produced on a post-recall test asking participants to report items that they had thought of but did not recall, indicated that the critical lures were activated during the experiment equally often in young and older adults. However, older adults were more likely than young adults to say that they had actually heard the lures. When strongly encouraged to examine the origin of memories (Experiment 2), the warning substantially reduced false recall in young but not older adults. These results are consistent with the idea that older adults have more difficulty later identifying the source of information that was activated as a consequence of intact semantic activation processes.

Illusory Recollection: The Compelling Subjective Remembrance of Things that Never Happened. Insights from the DRM Paradigm

“…In agreement, there is a considerable number of studies reporting that individuals sometimes consciously think of critical lures (e.g., Brédart, 2000;Dehon, 2006;Dehon & Brédart, 2004;Dehon et al, 2010;Dewhurst, 2001;Goodwin, Meissner, & Ericsson, 2001;Lampinen et al, 2005;Seamon, Lee, Toner, Wheeler, Goodkind, & Birch, 2002) and use the memory of this rehearsal as a justification for their recognition of critical lures (Brédart, 2000;Dehon & Lampinen, in preparation;Dehon et al, 2010;Lampinen et al, 2005;Lampinen et al, 2008). The difficulty in observing differences in neural activity between true and illusory recollection is also consistent with this account (Darsaud et al, 2011;Düzel et al, 1997).…”

“…However, warnings before study do not seem to have great effects on illusory recollection (e.g., Dehon 2006;Dehon & Brédart, 2004). The persistence of illusory recollection after a warnings condition is interesting because it suggests that illusory recollection is not related to some kind of inference or guessing strategy as the participants were actually trying to avoid memory errors.…”

“…The susceptibility to DRM false memories has been shown to increase with age (e.g., Dehon, 2006;Dehon & Brédart, 2004;Dehon & Lampinen, in preparation;Gallo & Roediger, 2003;Norman & Schacter, 1997; but see also Butler, McDaniel, Dornburg, Price, & Roediger, 2004). However, whether older adults are more likely to report illusory recollection is still under debate.…”

“…Indeed, numerous studies have demonstrated that false memories of related lures are accompanied by relatively high confidence, sometimes as high as that of studied items (e.g., Mather et al, 1997) and always higher than the confidence level for unrelated lures (e.g., Brédart, 2000;Dehon & Brédart, 2004;Payne, Elie, Blackwell, & Neuschatz, 1996;Roediger & McDermott, 1995). However, assessing confidence is not a sufficient measure of illusory recollection, as it is not always clear what high confidence ratings refer to exactly.…”

“…Specific instances of false memories can be very similar to studied items on some occasions (e.g., when attention is divided during the learning phase, when participants focus on indistinctive/thematic information, etc.) or for some participants such as older adults (e.g., Dehon, 2006;Dehon & Brédart, 2004;Norman & Schacter, 1997). In any case, there is evidence that participants can report remembering details related to the presentation of the critical items and even if some differences between true and false memories can be found, these details are probably sufficient to drive or justify their "Remember" judgements.…”