False Recognition 1
False Recognition and Memory
Robert Bird, Sarah Walsh, Miranda Martin, Andrew Gaskin, Sean McCarthy
Dr. McCormick
Psychology 100
April 7, 2010
False Recognition 2
The purpose of the present study was to investigate how false memories are created. There were
ninety-six participants, all students in Psychology 100 who listened to three different lists of words.
After hearing the lists, students had to write down as many words as they could remember. This is
called a recall test. The students were then shown a list of twenty words, three being “lure words”.
Students were to write down yes if the word had been in the original test and no if it was a new
word. The hypothesis was that participants would falsely recognize the lure words. The hypothesis
was confirmed. Results are discussed in relation to how easily memory can be manipulated, thus
creating false memories.
Introduction
Method
Time required:
60 minutes
Participants:
Participants were university students in the Psychology 100 course at StFX University, both male
and female between the ages of eighteen and twenty two.
Materials:
Computer with Microsoft PowerPoint application, projector with large projection screen, auditorium
style class room (holding 300+ people), 100 sheets of A4 lined paper, and 100 pencils.
Design:
The experiment was based on the Deese-Roediger-Mcdermott (DRM) paradigm, originally
developed by Deese (1959); participants are exposed to a set of ‘list’ words that are closely related
to a ‘lure’ word, when asked to recall or recognize the list words, lure words were inserted into the
False Recognition 3
list words. The independent variables were the lure words, and the dependent variable was
whether or not that lure word was falsely recognized as part of the original list.
Procedure:
Participants were shown three lists of words, each containing 15 words; each list was revealed
separately for approximately two minutes in the form of a PowerPoint presentation on 3 separate
slides. After all three lists were shown, participants were asked to recall the words from each list
by writing the words they were able to recall on the paper provided. The participant’s lists were
collected.
Participants were then shown a further list of 20 words, the recognition list, and asked to write
down the words they recognized from the three original list word sets. These results were then
collected.
Word lists that were used:
bed, rest, awake, tired, dream, wake, snooze, blanket, doze slumber, snore, nap, peace, yawn,
drowsy
steal, robber, crook, burglar, money, cop, bad, rob, jail, gun, villain, crime, bank, bandit, criminal
table, sit, legs, seat, couch, dexk, recliner, sofa, wook, cushion, swivel, stool, sitting, rocking, bench
Recognition list:
1. dream, 2. fork, 3. weather, 4. bracelet, 5. chair, 6. robber, 7. stool, 8. traffic, 9. snooze, 10.
couch, 11. radio, 12. jail, 13. sleep, 14. sand, 15. blanket, 16. thief, 17. bed, 18. boy, 19. skin, 20.
cushion.
The lure words were #15, #13, and #16.
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Hypothesis
We expect participants to falsely recognize lure words.
Results
We found that participants falsely recognized lure words; specifically, lure words were recognized
as part of the list words 79.4% of the time, while words not related to list words were correctly
rejected 97.7% of the time. We also found that recognition accuracy is significantly more precise
than recall accuracy.
The difference between recall accuracy and recognition accuracy was statistically significant, t(93)
= 24.6, p .16.
The difference between false recognition and false alarms was statistically significant, t(93) = 26.4,
p .
100
80
Percentage (%)
60
40
20
0
Recall Accuracy Correct False Alarms
Recognition Accuracy Rejections (new words) Lure Words Recalled
Lure Words Recognized