Storbeck, J., & Clore, G. L. (2005). With sadness
comes accuracy; with happiness, false memory: Mood and the false memory effect.
Psychological Science, 16, 785-791.
Introduction:
Prior research has shown that
emotional stress can play a role on performance on certain cognitive tasks such
as learning, spatial, and verbal tasks. Negative moods tend to enhance one’s
ability on spatial tasks, but impair performance on verbal tasks. The opposite
occurs for positive moods. The question is whether or not moods will play a
role on false memory. DRM lists have been used as an effective way of producing
false memory. One reason that these lists work is because of relational
processing rather than item-specific processing. Relational processing is more
likely to activate critical lures than item-specific processing where the
attention is focused on the distinctive features of the items rather than the
list as a whole. The current study is based on the fact that positive affective
cues tend to encourage relational processing whereas negative affect cues
promote item-specific processing. With this in mind, the authors predict that
participants with a positive affect will have more false memories than
participants with a negative affect.
Experiment 1:
One hundred undergraduates were
randomly assigned to one of three mood conditions (positive, negative, or
neutral.). Playing music, which has been shown to produce either negative or
positive affect, manipulated the participant’s mood. Moods were later confirmed
by a question on a mood questionnaire at the end of the memory task. The memory
task was the standard 15 item DRM lists taken from McDermott and Watson (2001)
along with the 250ms paradigm. Thirty-six lists were used and the original king
list was removed and replaced with either a happy
critical lure list or a sad critical
lure list. Participants listened to the music before studying the word lists. A
recall test was given for 45s immediately following the presentation of each
list.
The results show that both the
positive mood group and the control group recalled more critical lures than the
negative mood group. There were no differences in the amount of veridical
recall among the three groups. The primary conclusion is that negative affect
can reduce levels of false memory.
Experiment 2:
The purpose of this experiment was
to replicate experiment 1’s findings and to also find if the difference in
false memory recall was a matter of better source monitoring or reduced access
to the critical lure. The design was the same as experiment 1 except that
inclusion instructions were given. The participants were asked to report the
words on the lists and also asked to indicate words the lists made them think
of while they were studying them.
Two types of recall variables were
used: the recalled lures (probability of listing critical lures) and total
lures (probability of listing critical lures on the inclusion list as well as
on the recall list). All mood groups had a higher probability of listing total
lures than just recalled lures. The positive mood group had was more likely to
recall critical lures as well as total lures than the negative mood group.
Therefore, the reduction in false memory in the negative mood group seems to be
a result of reduced activation rather than enhanced source monitoring. The
authors claim that the activation-monitoring theory cannot account for the
current finding.
Discussion:
Both experiments showed that mood
affects the false memory effect. A negative mood tends to reduce false memory
compared to a positive mood and a neutral control group. The authors explain
this difference using the fuzzy trace theory saying that negative mood causes
item-specific processing and reduces the accessibility of “gist” and the gist
related critical lure. This is because the verbatim memory for both groups was
unaffected by mood. Since only false memory was affected, the gist was not as
well formed in the negative mood group. A problem the authors point out for
research in general is that the positive mood group and the control group did
not differ in the amount of critical lures recalled. Other studies have shown
similar findings that there is little difference in brain states between a
positive mood and a neutral mood.
Important Legal
Disclaimer: The preceding are articles we read together in the Lampinen Lab Spring 2006 false memory reading group. By
clicking on the button next to the article you can see the summary of that
article. The summary was prepared by the student presenting that article and it
is of course the case that the views expressed in the summary do not
necessarily represent the views of the reading group as a whole, Dr. Lampinen, the Lampinen Lab,
Hugo's, the University of Arkansas, the Razorback Football or Basketball teams
(although we're not sure about cross country), people living down the street
from us, Bob Dylan, Jack Fate, our extended families, or anyone else for that
matter except for the student who wrote the summary (and they don't necessarily
believe what they wrote either).