“If I didn’t write it, why would I remember it?” Effects of encoding, attention, and practice on accurate and false memory

Abstract

In two experiments involving recall and recognition, we manipulated encoding strategies,attention, and practice in the Deese, Roediger, and McDermott false memory procedure. During the study of auditory word lists, participants listened to the words, wrote the words, wrote the second letter of the words, or counted backward by threes and wrote numbers in time with the words. The results from both experiments showed that, relative to the full-attention hear word condition, the divided-attention write number condition impaired accurate memory, but not false memory. In contrast, the focused-attention write word and write second letter conditions were comparable to the hear word condition in producing accurate memory, yet they were better at reducing false memory. But even after multiple study-test trials, people still falsely recalled or recognized words that they had never written during study. These results are consistent with predictions generated from fuzzy trace theory and the activation/monitoring framework.

Are children’s memory illusions created differently from those of adults? Evidence from levels-of-processing and divided attention paradigms

“…However, these studies also found a similar decrease in false recognition under divided attention whereas the current results did not reveal any effect of divided attention for false recognition. This latter finding is more consistent with Seamon et al's (2003) study that did not find any effect of divided attention on false recognition in adults. It is possible that the secondary task used may account for the differences in findings across studies.…”

“…Similarly, when introducing an additional memory load at encoding rather than using a divided attention paradigm, false recognition is reduced (but only in a between-participants condition not in a within-participant design) (Seamon, et al, 1998). It has also been shown that divided attention at encoding impairs true recognition but not false recognition (Seamon et al, 2003).…”

Variations in processing resources and resistance to false memories in younger and older adults

“…For example, Jennings and Jacoby (1993) found dividing attention at study to increase false fame errors. However, to our knowledge, only a few studies have examined the impact of dividing attention on the occurrence of false memories in the DRM paradigm (Payne, Lampinen, & Cordero, 1996, cited in Roediger et al, 1998Perez-Mata et al, 2002;Seamon et al, 1998Seamon et al, , 2003. These studies only manipulated divided attention at study and their results were mixed.…”

The effect of divided attention on false memory depends on how memory is tested

“…In a later study, Seamon et al (2003) used a range of orienting tasks to manipulate the level of attention allocated to DRM lists. Two tasks (writing the words or writing the second letter of each word as it was presented) were designed to focus attention on the DRM lists, whereas a third task (counting backward in threes and writing the numbers in pace with the presentation of the DRM stimuli) was designed to divide attention.…”