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Updated: May 14, 2026
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Using a Classroom-Based Deese Roediger McDermott Paradigm to Assess the Effects of Imagery on False Memories
Published on: November 14, 2018
Working memory differences in illusory recollection of critical lures
Michael T Bixter1, Frances Daniel
1Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-2500, USA. michael.bixter@stonybrook.edu
Memory & Cognition
|January 25, 2013
Summary
Higher working memory (WM) capacity reduces false memories and subjective certainty in memory recall, but only when participants are forewarned about the task. This highlights the role of controlled attention in memory accuracy.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Individual differences in working memory (WM) capacity influence cognitive processes.
- False memories, particularly those elicited by associative lists, are a common phenomenon.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between working memory capacity and susceptibility to false memories.
- To examine how subjective experiences of memory (remember/know judgments) are affected by working memory capacity and false recognition.
Main Methods:
- Utilized Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) associative lists to induce false memories.
- Employed remember/know judgments to assess subjective recollective experiences during recognition tasks.
- Manipulated participant awareness of the DRM task through forewarning (Experiment 1) or lack thereof (Experiment 2).
Main Results:
- Higher WM capacity correlated with lower rates of false recognition for nonpresented critical lures.
- Increased WM capacity was associated with a lower proportion of "remember" responses to critical lures.
- These WM-related differences in false recognition and subjective experience were only observed when participants were forewarned about the DRM task.
Conclusions:
- Working memory capacity, particularly its controlled-attention aspect, plays a significant role in modulating false memory susceptibility.
- Subjective experiences of memory, such as the confidence in recognizing a lure, are influenced by working memory capacity.
- The impact of working memory on memory accuracy and subjective experience is contingent on task awareness and encoding conditions.
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