True and False DRM Memories: Differences Detected with an Implicit Task

Gender Stereotypes Selectively Affect the Remembering of Highly Valued Professions

This study includes two experiments designed to assess the effects of occupational gender-related stereotypes on information processing and memory performance. These two experiments were conducted in two separate cohorts of undergraduate students (N = 107 and N = 96, respectively). In each of them, we assessed (and confirmed) the presence of an implicit association preferentially linking high status attributes to men using the Implicit Association Test (IAT). We also assessed the effective incorporation of this association into gender-schemata and its consequences for information processing with a memory task that involved remembering the feminine and masculine forms of high or low status professional occupations. Results indicated that, independently of their gender, participants were more likely to forget and less likely to falsely recall the feminine forms of high status professions, whereas the opposite was true for the masculine forms of high status professions. The magnitude of these memory biases was correlated with the IAT scores. Moreover, in agreement with the predictions of gender-schemata theory, these memory biases (and their correlations with IAT scores) were predominantly observed when participants were not adverted that their recall would be evaluated later on (incidental-encoding memory task; Experiment 1), but less so when participants were explicitly instructed to memorize the same feminine and masculine forms of high or low status professional occupations (intentional encoding memory task; Experiment 2). Taken together, these results call into question the notion that gender stereotypes about professional occupations are declining, and they highlight a “men-high-status” association as a major component of these occupational stereotypes.

Implicit Associations between Adverbs of Place and Actions in the Physical and Digital Space

Neuropsychological, behavioral, and neurophysiological evidence indicates that the coding of space as near and far depends on the involvement of different neuronal circuits. These circuits are recruited on the basis of functional parameters, not of metrical ones, reflecting a general distinction of human behavior, which alternatively attributes to the individual the role of agent or observer. Although much research in cognitive psychology was devoted to demonstrating that language and concepts are rooted in the sensorimotor system, no study has investigated the presence of implicit associations between different adverbs of place (far vs. near) and actions with different functional characteristics. Using a series of Implicit Association Test (IAT) experiments, we tested this possibility for both actions performed in physical space (grasp vs. look at) and those performed when using digital technology (content generation vs. content consumption). For both the physical and digital environments, the results showed an association between the adverb near and actions related to the role of agent, and between the adverb far and actions related to the role of observer. Present findings are the first experimental evidence of an implicit association between different adverbs of place and different actions and of the fact that adverbs of place also apply to the digital environment.

The mnemonic effects of insight on false memory in the DRM paradigm

Insight accompanied by an 'aha!' experience has a mnemonic effect. Previous studies of insight have often focused on the mnemonic effect of insight on veridical memories, while the effect of insight on false memories is not known. More understanding of the mnemonic effect of insight on false memories could have implications for the mechanism of insightful mnemonic effects. The present research examined whether insight has a mnemonic effect on false memories. Participants were asked to perform Chinese verbal compound remote associate (CRA) tasks and then complete the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) task, the critical lure of which was also the solution to the Chinese CRA problem. Compared to non-insight, insight was associated with a lower critical lures rate in Experiment 1 and with lower critical lures and unrelated words rates in Experiment 2 when the presentation of DRM list words was random. Giving a warning before DRM tasks could reduce the critical lures rate of non-insight but had little effect on insightful solutions in Experiment 3. These findings indicate that insight can reduce false memories.

Can Implicit Associations Distinguish True and False Eyewitness Memory? Development and Preliminary Testing of the IATe

Eyewitness identification has been shown to be fallible and prone to false memory. In this study we develop and test a new method to probe the mechanisms involved in the formation of false memories in this area, and determine whether a particular memory is likely to be true or false. We created a seven-step procedure based on the Implicit Association Test to gauge implicit biases in eyewitness identification (the IATe). We show that identification errors may result from unconscious bias caused by implicit associations evoked by a given face. We also show that implicit associations between negative attributions such as guilt and eyewitnesses' final pick from a line-up can help to distinguish between true and false memory (especially where the witness has been subject to the suggestive nature of a prior blank line-up). Specifically, the more a witness implicitly associates an individual face with a particular crime, the more likely it is that a memory they have for that person committing the crime is false. These findings are consistent with existing findings in the memory and neuroscience literature showing that false memories can be caused by implicit associations that are outside conscious awareness. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Disowned recollections: denying true experiences undermines belief in occurrence but not judgments of remembering

Recent research findings have illustrated that false memories induced in the laboratory can be dissociated from the beliefs that the events had in fact occurred. In this study we assessed whether this dissociability is a quality peculiar to false memory, or whether it represents a general characteristic of autobiographical memory. To this end we examined whether people can be induced to stop believing in memories for true experiences. Participants observed and performed simple actions, and were later falsely informed that they had not performed some of them--that false memories for these actions had been implanted through the use of fabricated evidence. Before and after receiving this misinformation, participants rated their belief in and memory of performing those actions, other actions that they had also performed, and actions that they had not performed. Whereas the misinformation substantially undermined participants' beliefs in the specific performed actions about which they had been misinformed, it had little effect on their endorsement of remembering those actions. The misinformation thus boosted the proportion of occasions in which participants rated their memories as stronger than their beliefs, and it weakened the correlation between belief and memory ratings. Thus, this study provides the first experimental demonstration of non-believed memories of true experiences. We discuss our findings with reference to the small literature concerning the use of socially-communicated misinformation to undermine event memories, and with reference to the structure of autobiographical memory.

The autobiographical IAT: a review

The autobiographical Implicit Association Test (aIAT; Sartori et al., 2008) is a variant of the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald et al., 1998) that is used to establish whether an autobiographical memory is encoded in the respondent's mind/brain. More specifically, with the aIAT, it is possible to evaluate which one of two autobiographical events is true. The method consists of a computerized categorization task. The aIAT includes stimuli belonging to four categories, two of them are logical categories and are represented by sentences that are always true (e.g., I am in front of a computer) or always false (e.g., I am climbing a mountain) for the respondent; two other categories are represented by alternative versions of an autobiographical event (e.g., I went to Paris for Christmas, or I went to New York for Christmas), only one of which is true. The true autobiographical event is identified because, in a combined block, it gives rise to faster reaction times when it shares the same motor response with true sentences. Here, we reviewed all the validation experiments and found more than 90% accuracy in detecting the true memory. We show that agreement in identifying the true autobiographical memory of the same aIAT repeated twice is, on average, more than 90%, and we report a technique for estimating accuracy associated with a single classification based on the D-IAT value, which may be used in single subject's investigations. We show that the aIAT might be used to identify also true intentions and reasons and conclude with a series of guidelines for building an effective aIAT.

Memory and self-neuroscientific landscapes

Relations between memory and the self are framed from a number of perspectives-developmental aspects, forms of memory, interrelations between memory and the brain, and interactions between the environment and memory. The self is seen as dividable into more rudimentary and more advanced aspects. Special emphasis is laid on memory systems and within them on episodic autobiographical memory which is seen as a pure human form of memory that is dependent on a proper ontogenetic development and shaped by the social environment, including culture. Self and episodic autobiographical memory are seen as interlocked in their development and later manifestation. Aside from content-based aspects of memory, time-based aspects are seen along two lines-the division between short-term and long-term memory and anterograde-future-oriented-and retrograde-past-oriented memory. The state dependency of episodic autobiographical is stressed and implications of it-for example, with respect to the occurrence of false memories and forensic aspects-are outlined. For the brain level, structural networks for encoding, consolidation, storage, and retrieval are discussed both by referring to patient data and to data obtained in normal participants with functional brain imaging methods. It is elaborated why descriptions from patients with functional or dissociative amnesia are particularly apt to demonstrate the facets in which memory, self, and personal temporality are interwoven.