{"id":1242,"date":"2014-05-03T03:23:07","date_gmt":"2014-05-03T07:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/?p=1242"},"modified":"2017-09-06T11:35:28","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T15:35:28","slug":"effects-of-divided-attention-on-false-memories-good-news-for-children-not-so-for-adults","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/2014\/05\/03\/effects-of-divided-attention-on-false-memories-good-news-for-children-not-so-for-adults\/","title":{"rendered":"Effects of Divided Attention on False Memories: Good News for Children, Not So for Adults"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> Memory is an indispensable tool in our everyday lives, yet it is not perfect. Sometimes our own memory systems fail us, we remember things that we have never seen or recall events that have never happened. Such memories are called false memories, which have served as the topic of a large body of psychology research. Studies on false memories usually use the DRM paradigm (Desse, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). This paradigm requires participants to study lists of words that are related in meaning to each other and to a critical lure (CL) that do not appear in the lists. After that, participants take a memory test. Results show that people tend to remember or recall the CL as frequently as they do the studied words, and each time the CL is recalled is considered a false memory.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Previous research has focused on the effects that conscious processing and valence-arousal (i.e., emotionality) may have on false memories across the lifespan. The big picture is that in both adulthood and childhood, false recognition is higher for CLs with negative valence-arousal than for neutral CLs, whereas fewer negative CLs than neutral CLs are falsely recalled. Also,\u00a0the formation of false memories is an automatic process that occurs outside of conscious awareness. In other words, we are not aware that we are creating false memories. This automaticity is evidenced by studies that show that dividing attention, a condition that requires participants to employ conscious processing, does not reduce false memories (e.g., Wimmer & Howe, 2010; Experiment 2).<\/span><\/p>\n

So do valence-arousal and divided attention work together to influence false memories in adults and children? This question was basically what Otgaar, Peters, and Howe (2012) were trying to answer. Specifically, the researchers wanted to know whether, in the DRM paradigm, dividing attention at the time of study affects true and false memories for neutral as well as negative CLs in adults and children. Participants were 178 children (7-year-olds and 11-year-olds) and young adults. They were randomly assigned to one of the two attention conditions (full, divided) and were asked to memorize 10 DRM word lists. Five of the 10 lists consisted of words that are semantically related to neutral CLs (bread, window, sweet, smoke,<\/em> and\u00a0foot<\/em>), and the other five lists were negative (murder, pain, punishment, death,<\/em> and\u00a0cry<\/em>). Aside from seeing words, participants in the divided attention condition also saw smileys of either red or green color. After the presentation of each word list, participants in the full attention condition immediately had a free recall test, in which they were asked to write down as many words from the list just presented as they could remember. Participants in the divided attention condition also had the free recall test, but not before indicating how many red smileys they had seen.<\/p>\n

\"Blog<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are some of the most noteworthy results of this study:<\/p>\n