This study investigated whether true autobiographical memories are qualitatively distinct from false autobiographical memories suing a variation of the interview method originally reported by E.F. Loftus and J. Pickrell (1995).

False memories can be defined as false beliefs about the past that are experienced as memories. Many have asked the question as to whether there are ways to distinguish between memories of authentic experiences and representations of fictitious events that have become memories. Autobiographical memories (automems)* represent a particularly useful set of experiences for exploring the possibility that there are characteristically distinct attributes of false memories. Researchers have demonstrated that unremembered portions of automems are often reported as remembered after repeated retelling. Participants are often encouraged to believe and report what is imagined, and the distinction between constructed and remembered representations may become blurred. Explicit instructions to participants to "imagine" or use mental imagery in considering an unremembered event may only serve to increase the incidence with which participants use such imagery-based processes and thus heighten the chance the participant will report "remembering" an event. Source attribution errors occur—and hence false memories result—when recollective experience from an internally generated representation is uncharacteristically like that typically found accompanying representations from external sources. Thus, imagined events falsely remembered as true automems are compelling representations.

The purpose of the present investigation is to evaluate the quality of recollective experience in false automems in as complete a way as possible.

Method

Participants

Sixty-three undergrads from the University of Tennessee participated voluntarily for extra course credit.

Materials

• Life Events Inventories (LEI) were used when interviewing parents to prompt general recall.
• Memory Tests consisted of six pairs of autobiographical events.
• Participant ratings of recollective experience were established by having the participants rate several aspects of recollective experience for all events both before and after providing narrative recall. Responses to questions were either given as ratings on a 5-point scale or were categorical. This was done orally and tape-recorded.

Step 1: Recruitment

Step 2: Parent Interviews

Step 3: Memory Test

Step 4: Participant Interviews

Step 5: Participant Ratings of Recollective Experience

Step 6: Debriefing

Step 7: Parental Verification

Analysis

• criteria for establishing that a remembered event was true or false
• independent ratings of amount remembered
• narrative recall

• Raters then tallied frequencies of idea units for each type of event-related info.

• 23 of 63 participants reported false memories, similar to that of Hyman and Pentland (1996).
• Of the 23, 16 reported 1 false memory and 7 reported 2 false memories.
• Of the 23, 2 recalled one true memory, 7 recalled 2 true memories, 9 recalled 3 true memories, and 5 recalled 4 true memories.
• Independent raters indicated that significantly more was remembered in true memories than was remembered in false memories.
• Correlational analysis revealed those only amounts remembered and confidence in accuracy ratings were highly correlated for both true and false memories.
• Tests of amount remembered ratings, event typicality ratings, and emotional intensity revealed significant differences between true and false memories. Amount remembered and emotional intensity ratings were higher in true memories than in false memories.
• True and false memories did not differ according to several major aspects of recollective experience once the effect of rehearsal frequency were accounted for.
• There were no differences in the likelihood that true or false memory would be accompanied by images involving movement.
• There was a significant difference between the number of idea units reported in true and false memories. Thus, significantly more idea units were reported in recalling true memories than in recalling false memories.
• Results suggest repeated remembering can make false memories more rich in recollective experience and more like true memories.

Discussion

The outcomes of the present investigation suggest that the construction of false automems is driven not entirely by characteristics of the memorial representation per se but by additional factors. These factors might include the ease with which representations can be constructed, the individual’s initial acceptance of the event as potentially true, his or her desire to bring the contents of memory in line with belief, and the individual’s desire to please the experimenter.

Cognitive processes involved in the construction of recollective experience may leave some potentially detectable traces of their operation.

*Automems is an abbreviation made up exclusively for this summary and this summary only. All rights reserved.