FALSE RECALL AND FALSE RECOGNITION

Does level of processing affect false recall and false recognition?

Does level of processing affect false recall and false recognition?

Introduction

The memory is composed of a set of registers each having a specific role and allowing the storage of information. There is episodic memory corresponding to autobiographical memory, the individual knowledge, or procedural memory for the expertise, the routine procedures. The degree of association in memory is a determinant of false memories. Indeed, trespass appearing in lists of reminders is predictable based on the existing association between frequency words and words presented intruder.

False memories are either distortions of the actual experience or memories of events that never occurred. These distortions can come from an external source (beliefs, opinions, etc) or an internal source.

The DRM paradigm is to learn lists of 15 words associated with a word not in the list presented (the critical lure). For example, the list of items associated with the critical lure sleep; introduce words such as bed, rest, awake, tired, dream, etc. Thus, many studies have emerged, using mainly before the effects of the spread of activation on false memories, through the manipulation of levels of treatment. The growth studies on false memories dates back to 1990 with the strenuous debates in the United Kingdom for the adequacy of flashbacks specific traumatic memories of sexual abuse during psychotherapy. It is in the context of these discussions that the term "false memories" has entered common usage of psychological research on the nature of memory processes. This work has enabled researchers in psychology not to glimpse the memory systems of a simplistically and largely influenced by the quantitative aspect of the subject's memory performance. Motivated by the memory distortions observed in everyday life, many studies have emphasized the importance to focus on the qualitative aspect of memory performance, to make the connection between the phenomena of false memories in healthy subjects and memory distortions or illusions of memory observed in brain pathologies.

Discussion

Memory is probably the psychological function which we are most familiar, since it occurs in all our daily activities. Experiences or events older than ten years may be remembered in great detail, so we feel we can relive them. However, our memory is not infallible. Our brain is not comparable to the hard disk of a computer, where details are recorded, stored and then recovered with absolute reliability. Memory is a creative process, like visual perception. The memories may be subject to processing, mixing, imagination, alteration and to oblivion. Some descriptions of events that we have not yet experienced may be accepted as true representations of our own experience. Our memories are sensitive to suggestions of others, and their leading questions.

Various factors affecting the phases of encoding and retrieval are involved in the distortion of autobiographical memories. Autobiographical memory is a selective memory that sees reality through a prism, that of our identity model. This model (the self) determines what is encoded, stored and retrieved according to the interests, beliefs and desires ...