|
|
The Affect of Action Mechanism to False Memories at Encoding
Psychology: Techniques and Application. 2016, 4 (2):
65-70.
DOI: 10.16842/j.cnki.issn2095-5588.2016.02.001
Memory is susceptible to affect,no matter whether the form is true or false. Previous researches has found that the affect would sometimes raise the accuracy of memory,but also might diminish it at other times. Valence of affect contributed to the discrepancy. Less false memory of critical lures were generated in a negative context in the DRM paradigm,which was supported by many empirical evidence. But the explanation accounting for the fact was still in controversy. The Fuzzy-Trace Theory suggested that processing styles influent the quantity of false memory. Specifically,there were two distinctive memory traces,verbatim and gist,which were parallel stored and separately retrieved. Both traces support true memory,but only the gist traces also supports false memory. According to Affect-as-Information Theory,negative affect drew subjects attention to details,which was more related to verbatim trace. And subjects with positive affect had bias to abstract information corresponding to gist trace. Another prominent theory of the false memory effect is the Activation/Monitoring Framework. It argued that two processes,semantic activation and source monitoring,were jointly responsible for false memory. The critical lures came to mind due to the semantic association during learning,which was called activation. And then a strategy process entitled monitoring was engaged in discriminating whether the item had be experienced or it was just was imagination. The theory suggested that negative affect promoted monitoring which suppressed false memory while positive affect heightened activation of it. The current study explored which of the two explanations fitted the outcome of experiments better. Participants watched different video clips to induce positive or negative moods,or just keep neutral. All items presented and the list which they belonged to were memorized during learning and were tested later. Recognition test consisted of 42 pairs of words,which paired study items from same lists, or from different lists,or a study item and a critical lure. The d calculated by taking the z score of the hit rate for pairs from same lists minus the z score of the pairs consisted of a study item and a critical lure, which were recorded as dependent variable D1. And the z score of pairs from same lists minus the z score from different lists were recorded as dependent variable D2. The suppositions of study included two： if negative mood reduce false memory,then participants with negative mood would make higher D1 scores; and if the explanation of Fuzzy-Trace Theory fitted,then participants with negative mood would make lower D2 scores,otherwise,the Activation/Monitoring Framework fits better. The outcome of the study supported the first supposition but failed in the second. Negative mood raised not only D1 scores but also D2 scores,which was opposed to the Fuzzy-Trace Theory but congruent to Activation/Monitoring Framework. The present study seems to conclude that the reason why negative affect diminishes false memory is promoted monitoring process,and positive affect raises false memory due to heightening activation. It is notable that negative affect also benefits participants to discriminate pairs between same lists and different lists,which suggests that monitoring process is involved in processing of relation,contradicting traditional notion of promoting item-specific processing at a cost of impairing relation processing.
Related Articles |
Metrics
|
