The effects of gender and emotion on schema-driven false memories.

Markham, Bethany

Abstract

The present set of experiments investigated the role of emotion in false memory using a schema-based paradigm in which participants imagined familiar scenarios and rated words for their relevance to the scenarios. This was followed by tests of recognition memory that included words presented in the rating task, along with new words that were not presented but were semantically and emotionally related to the scenarios. Experiment 1 also investigated gender differences in susceptibility to false memories. In experiment 1, males (n = 35) and females (n = 58) imagined four scenarios, two of which were negative and two which were neutral. For each scenario, they were asked to rate the relevance of 15 words, of which 10 were related to the scenario and five were unrelated. They were then given a recognition test comprising 56 items (20 related targets, eight unrelated targets, 20 related lures, and eight unrelated lures). Correct recognition was higher for negative than for neutral words, but false recognition was higher for neutral than for negative words. There were no significant gender differences in correct or false recognition. Owing to the difficulties of recruiting male participants in experiment 1, experiment 2 investigated false memory in females only. We also extended the design to include positive as well as negative stimuli in order to gain a broader understanding of the effects of emotion on false memory. Participants (n = 42) studied two 15-item negative word lists and two 15-item positive word lists. Experiment 2 found no significant effects of emotion in correct recognition or in false recognition of related lures. However, a significant difference was found between unrelated negative and positive lures whereby participants falsely recognised more positive than negative unrelated lures. This is attributed to a positivity bias whereby participants are more likely to form an emotional ‘gist’ of positive than negative stimuli.

Citation

Markham, B. The effects of gender and emotion on schema-driven false memories. (Thesis). University of Hull. https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4625398

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Apr 15, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: May 1, 2024
• Keywords: Psychology
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4625398
• Additional Information: School of Psychology and Social Work; University of Hull
• Award Date: Mar 19, 2024