Self-referential false associations: A self-enhanced constructive effect for verbal but not pictorial stimuli

Abstract

Memory is considered to be a flexible and reconstructive system. However, there is little experimental evidence demonstrating how associations are falsely constructed in memory and even less is known about the role of the self in memory construction. We investigated whether false associations involving non-presented stimuli can be constructed in episodic memory and if the self plays a role in such memory construction. In two experiments, we paired participants’ own names (i.e., self-reference) or the name “Adele” (i.e., other-reference) with words and pictures from Deese/Roediger–McDermott (DRM) lists. We found that (1) participants not only falsely remembered the non-presented lure words and pictures as having been presented, but also misremembered that they were paired with their own name or “Adele”, depending on the referenced person of related DRM lists; and (2) there were more critical lure-self associations constructed in the self-reference condition than critical lure-other associations in the other-reference condition for word but not for picture stimuli. These results suggest a self-enhanced constructive effect that might be driven by both relational and item-specific processing. Our results support the spreading activation account for constructive episodic memory.

Simulating denial increases false memory rates for abuse unrelated information

“…and answered by participants from the first person perspective (e.g., "No, my parents were not at dinner that evening."). Such self-referenced information is better remembered than other-referenced information, an effect known as the self-reference effect (Symons & Johnson, 1997;Wang et al, 2019Wang et al, , 2021. This might explain why we failed to replicate DIF from a victim perspective.…”

“…This might be especially true for the interview in which questions were asked from the second person perspective (e.g., “Did your parents go with you to dinner that evening?”) and answered by participants from the first person perspective (e.g., “No, my parents were not at dinner that evening.”). Such self‐referenced information is better remembered than other‐referenced information, an effect known as the self‐reference effect (Symons & Johnson, 1997; Wang et al., 2019, 2021). This might explain why we failed to replicate DIF from a victim perspective.…”

Self-Enhanced False Memory Across the Life Span

“…For example, after children saw objects paired with their own images or others' images, they remembered more stimuli-self associations than stimuli-other associations (Cunningham, Brebner, Quinn, & Turk, 2014). Our recent study also found that young adults showed higher stimuli-self associative memories than stimuli-other associative memories (Wang, Otgaar, Howe, & Cheng, 2021).…”

“…Research found that self-reference increased the false recollection of critical lures but not familiarity in younger adults (Ozdes et al, 2021;Wang et al, 2021). That is, selfreferencing boosts the phantom recollection of "seeing" critical lures.…”

“…Despite the well-established beneficial effect of self-reference on true memory, recent research has shown a self-enhanced false memory effect that selfreference can surprisingly increase susceptibility to false memory formation (Ozdes, et al, 2021;Rosa & Gutchess, 2013;Wang, Otgaar, Howe, & Zhou, 2019;Wang et al, 2021). In Rosa and Gutchess's (2013) study, young and older participants rated adjectives for self-descriptiveness on a 9-point scale and later their memories for the studied adjectives (e.g., angry) as well as non-presented adjective lures (e.g., furious)…”