False memory at short and long term.

Abstract

False memories are well-established long-term memory (LTM) phenomena. Recent reports of false recognition at short term suggest that working memory (WM) could also give rise to false memories, supporting the unitary view of memory. Alternatively, we hypothesized that the emergence of false memories at short term results from the impairment of WM maintenance, memory performance relying then on LTM. More specifically, we assumed that false memories rely on the retrieval of gist traces of the memory items while their verbatim traces that could block false memories are no longer accessible. To test this proposal, we reported a series of 4 experiments in which the availability of 2 WM maintenance mechanisms, articulatory rehearsal and attentional refreshing, was manipulated, and the reliance of recognition performance on gist and verbatim traces was also assessed. In line with our hypothesis, the occurrence of false memories in immediate recognition test was accompanied by the reduction of verbatim memory retrieval resulting from the impairment of rehearsal. By contrast, false memories in the delayed test depended on gist memory, which was strengthened by the use of refreshing. These findings support an integrated account of false memories at short and long term, shed light on the nature of mental representations generated by WM maintenance mechanisms and on the relationships between WM and LTM.

False Recognition in Short-Term Memory – Age-Differences in Confidence

“…The recent findings of Abadie and Camos (2019) suggest that FAs in STM arise when verbatim memory (i.e., memory for detailed surface forms of items) no longer blocks gist long term memory (i.e., memory for general meaning or pattern, see Brainerd and Reyna, 2002). Accordingly, FAs in STM occur in tasks based on semantic-relatedness of words, in which verbatim memory can be easily impaired by either interference from multiple items or by a secondary task, and as a consequence, gist long-term memory can impact performance (Coane et al, 2007;Atkins and Reuter-Lorenz, 2008;Abadie and Camos, 2019). However, erroneous recognitions were observed also in tasks with abstract objects and visual masks (Lewandowska et al, 2018(Lewandowska et al, , 2019.…”

“…False memories have been documented not only in episodic memory but also in STM for semantically related words (e.g., Deese, 1959;Roediger and McDermott, 1995;Reuter-Lorenz, 2008, 2011;Abadie and Camos, 2019) as well as perceptually related objects (Lewandowska et al, 2018). The underlying mechanisms remain unclear with studies suggesting either common Reuter-Lorenz, 2008, 2011;Flegal et al, 2010) or complementary mechanisms of FAs in short-and long-term memory (Abadie and Camos, 2019). The recent findings of Abadie and Camos (2019) suggest that FAs in STM arise when verbatim memory (i.e., memory for detailed surface forms of items) no longer blocks gist long term memory (i.e., memory for general meaning or pattern, see Brainerd and Reyna, 2002).…”

“…The underlying mechanisms remain unclear with studies suggesting either common Reuter-Lorenz, 2008, 2011;Flegal et al, 2010) or complementary mechanisms of FAs in short-and long-term memory (Abadie and Camos, 2019). The recent findings of Abadie and Camos (2019) suggest that FAs in STM arise when verbatim memory (i.e., memory for detailed surface forms of items) no longer blocks gist long term memory (i.e., memory for general meaning or pattern, see Brainerd and Reyna, 2002). Accordingly, FAs in STM occur in tasks based on semantic-relatedness of words, in which verbatim memory can be easily impaired by either interference from multiple items or by a secondary task, and as a consequence, gist long-term memory can impact performance (Coane et al, 2007;Atkins and Reuter-Lorenz, 2008;Abadie and Camos, 2019).…”

“…In order to ensure that STM is tested, we introduced single but rather complex, abstract (meaningless) items as targets, and used a visual mask instead of a distractor. The type of experimental material (single stimuli and masks) was chosen in order to preclude the possible influence of long-term memory, caused by (1) pre-existing semantic representations of the stimuli used, (2) the amount of material extending the capacity of individual' STM, or (3) difficulties with active maintenance of the material (see Abadie and Camos, 2019). In addition, as participants were to memorize only one item and the distractor task was not introduced, it allowed for limiting the need for object manipulation typical rather for working memory than for simple short-term memory (STM) tasks (see Baddeley, 2012).…”

“…This increased age-related susceptibility to high-confidence false alarms (FAs) has been primarily linked with impairments in binding and monitoring (Fandakova et al, 2013a,b). It is known that FAs are observed in STM (Atkins and Reuter-Lorenz, 2008;Abadie and Camos, 2019), but it is unclear whether age-differences in susceptibility to such errors also occur in STM and if yes, whether they are associated with age-differences in confidence. Thus, in the present study we aimed to investigate this phenomenon in a simple visual STM task.…”