Cognitive Psychology: The Formation of False Memories

Core studies: Work Sheet: Understanding the Study

The Method24 individuals were asked to recall events that were supplied by a close relative. Three of the events were true, and one was a research crafted false event about getting lost in a shopping mall or other public place.

The participants in this study thought they were participating in a study of the ‘kinds of things you may be able to remember from your childhood’. The subjects were given a brief description of four events that supposedly occurred while the subject and a close family member were together. Three were true events and one was the false ‘lost’ event. Subjects tried to write about these events in detail and were later interviewed about the events on two separate occasions.

Exercise 1

1. The participants were told the supposed purpose of the experiment. What was the real purpose of the experiment?The cover story raises the ethical issue of deception. Briefly comment on whether you feel there is sufficient scientific or medical justification for misleading participants in this way.

Participants: Three males and 21 females ranging in age from 18 to 53 completed all phases of the study. They were recruited by University of Washington students; each student provided a pair of individuals which included both a subject and the subject’s relative. The pairs consisted primarily of parent child pairs or sibling pairs and the youngest member of the pair was at least 18 yrs. The ‘relative’ member of the pair had to be knowledgeable about the childhood experiences of the subject, the younger member of the pair.

Exercise 2

1. Identify the sampling strategy used in this study.2. Give one strength, and one weakness, of the sampling strategy used in this study.3. In what ways was this sample a restricted sample?

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Cognitive Psychology: The Formation of False Memories

Materials: Subjects were mailed a five page booklet containing a cover letter with instructions for completing the booklet and the scheduled interviews. The booklet contained four short stories about events from the subject’s childhood provided by the older relative. In actuality three of them were true and one was the false event about getting lost. The order of events in the booklet and in the subsequent interviews was always the same, with the false event about getting lost always presented in the third position. Each event was described in a single paragraph at the top of the page, with the rest of the page left blank for the subject to record the details of his or her memory.

Exercise 3

1. Why do you think it was necessary to have the order of events in the booklet and subsequent interviews the same?

Procedure:

Interviews with relative: The interviews with the relatives for each subject were conducted to obtain three events that happened to the subject between the ages of four and six. The stories were not to be family ‘folklore’ or traumatic events that the subject would remember easily or find painful to remember. The relative also provided information about a plausible shopping trip to a mall or store in order to construct a false event where the subject could conceivably have gotten lost.

Exercise 4

1. Give two examples of the types of information the relative was asked to provide.2. What elements did the false events always include about the subject? 3. What was an ethical consideration/control when acquiring data from the relatives of participants?

Cover story and participant instructions: Subjects were told they were participating in a study on childhood memories, and that the researchers were interested in how and why people remembered some things and not others. The participants were asked to complete the booklets by reading what their relatives had told the researchers about each event. If they did not remember they were told to write ‘I do not remember this’. After completing the booklet the participants returned it by post, in a stamped envelope that had been provided for them.

On receipt of the completed booklet subjects were called and scheduled for two interviews. If it was convenient then the interviews took place at the University; otherwise interviews were conducted over the telephone.

Exercise 5

1. How might the different mediums used to conduct the interview i.e., face to face or over the phone have biased the data?

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Cognitive Psychology: The Formation of False Memories

Loftus and Pickrell initially planned to manipulate as an independent variable the time intervals between the receipt of the booklet and the two subsequent interviews. However scheduling difficulties created by subject unavailability prevented this.

Exercise 6

1. Write a possible research hypothesis for Loftus and Pickrell if they had, had the option of manipulating the time interviews between receipt of the booklet and the two subsequent interviews as the independent variable for this study.

2. How do you think manipulating the time interviews between the receipt of the booklet and the two subsequent interviews may have influenced the data? What would you expect to find?

In the end all subjects were first interviewed approximately one to two weeks after receipt of the booklet and received a second interview approximately one to two weeks after that. Two interviewers both female conducted and recorded the interview sessions.

First Interview: At the beginning of the first interview subjects were reminded about each of the four events, one at a time, and asked to recall as much as they could about them. They were instructed to tell Loftus and Pickrell everything they remembered about the event, whether or not they had already written the information in their booklets.

Deception: Participants were told that the researchers were interested in examining how much detail they could remember, and how their memories compared with those of their relatives. The event paragraphs were not read to them verbatim but rather bits provided as retrieval cues.

Rating Scales: Subjects were asked to rate the clarity of their memory for events on a scale of 1 -10 (1 not clear and 10 being extremely clear). Next they rated their confidence on a scale of one to five that if given more time to think about the event they be able to remember more details (1 not confident and 5 extremely confident that they would be able to remember more).The interviewers maintained a pleasant and friendly manner while pressing for details.After the first interview the subjects were thanked for their time and were encouraged to think more about the events to see if they could remember more details for the next interview. They were told not to discuss the events at all with their relatives or anyone else.

Exercise 7

1. Do you think it was significant that some subjects were interviewed approximately one week after receipt of the booklet and some participants after two weeks? Explain your answer.

2. Why was it necessary to instruct participants to recall as much as possible about the events regardless of whether they had written the information in their booklets.

3. Why was it important to tell participants not to discuss the events with their relatives or anyone else?

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Cognitive Psychology: The Formation of False Memories

Second interview: Conducted one to two weeks after the first. Essentially the same, subjects tried to remember the four events, rating both clarity and confidence but at the end of this session they were debriefed.

Debrief: This involved explaining the true aim of the study which was to create a memory for something that had not happened. Participants were asked which event may have been false. The researchers apologized for the deception and explained why it was necessary for the research.

Exercise 8

1. Outline the aim of the research by Loftus and Pickerell.2. Is this research a laboratory experiment or a field experiment?3. Was the design an independent subjects design or repeated measures?4. What were the independent and dependent variables?5. Identify the different data collecting techniques used in this study.6. Was the data collected qualitative, quantitative or both? Give examples of the types of data.7. Using the PEE format give one strength, and one weakness, of each data collection technique used

in this study.8. When conducting experimental research psychologists have to control for potential confounding

variables. What were the controls in this study?9. When we consider ethics, it is suggested that we should ask whether the ends justify the means.

Briefly outline the means and ends in this experiment.10. If you had volunteered to take part in this study, how would you feel at the debrief stage about what you

had volunteered to do (remember you had been ‘blind’ to the deception)? 11. What useful applications might there be based on the findings of this research?

List ten key words to learn for this study:

Homework

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Cognitive Psychology: The Formation of False Memories

1. Complete the following Paper 1 “Specimen Paper’” practice examination question (clearly your are expected to apply your response to Loftus and Pickrell (False Memories)

Evaluate one of the studies listed below in terms of ecological validity.

Mann, Vrij and Bull (Lying)

Loftus and Pickrell (false memories)

Tajfel (intergroup categorisation)

2. Write five practise short answer examination questions based on this study.

Deadline: ........................................

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