False Recognition: Words and Images

Transcription

1 The Huron University College Journal of Learning and Motivation Volume 51 Issue 1 Article False Recognition: Words and Images Tristan Bell Follow this and additional works at: Part of the Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Bell, Tristan (2013) "False Recognition: Words and Images," The Huron University College Journal of Learning and Motivation: Vol. 51: Iss. 1, Article 3. Available at: This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Psychology at Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Huron University College Journal of Learning and Motivation by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact kmarsha1@uwo.ca.

2 False Recognition: Words and Images Tristan Bell Huron College For the last century, psychologists have been very interested in the reasons why and how our memory system fails us. The purpose of the present study is to determine whether participants will recognize more false items when presented with a list of words or presented with the same words as a series of images. A total of 28 undergraduate students participated in this study including 14 females and 14 males. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions; a word condition or an image condition. Immediately after they were given a list of words or a sequence of images, they were asked to identify which ones had been in the previously viewed list or sequence. Results indicated that the false recognition rate was significantly lower for the participants in the image condition than for participants in the word condition and no significant gender differences were foimd. Limitations and possibilities for future research are discussed. Memory is essential for functioning. It is the basis that helps us form ideas, make decisions, self identify and navigate through our environment. Memory can sometimes fail us or fool us too; we might distort past memories or remember facts that did not happen (Misirlisoy, 2004). For the last century, psychologists have been very interested in the reasons why and how our memory system fails us. Much research has been involved in the study of proactive and retroactive interference (Loftus, 1995). Proactive interference is where memories have been disrupted by factors that we have experienced earlier. Retroactive interference is where memories have been disrupted by factors we have experienced later. Theorist who focus on retroactive interference study how, when a person is given new information that is misleading, in some way they will make errors in reporting what they saw. It is often difficult for people to detect new information so they are easily tricked (Lofhis, 1995).

3 ^ The study of false memory first began with the list-learning paradigm. Researchers demonstrated that people were likely to recognize false words when they previously have been presented with words that are all related in their nature (Misirlisoy, 2004). Many lists were created and revised, eventually forming what is now known today as the Deese-Roediger- McDemott (DRM) lists (Deese, 1959). Participants are presented with a list of words that are all related to one word named the 'critical word', which is not presented in the initial list. For example, a participant might be presented with the words "sky, dive, building, up, low, over, above, tall, noon, airplane, elevate, jump, tower clouds, cliff." When given a list and asked to recognize the words that were previously presented, the critical word 'high' will be added. Participants usually report erroneously that they recognized the critical word as part of the initial list (Misirlisoy, 2004). Researchers Maylor and Mo (1999) conducted a study to assess the differences in false recognition when the stimuli was presented visually or auditorially. The participants were presented with lists of words that were related to critical lure words either auditorially or visually and then were given the recognition test either auditorially or visually. Results indicated that false recognition rates for critical lures were higher following visual presentation than following auditory presentation. They also found that participants performed significantly better when the study and the test modalities were the same, meaning that they were presented the lists visually and the false recognition test was also done visually. Studies using the DRM paradigm have found that there are differences in gender. Dewhurst, Anderson and Knott (2012) conducted a study examining the differences in men and women on false recognition with the DRM lists when the words were negative. Ten lists were created for this study that used negative lures words, for example, cry, evil and ten lists were

4 made that used neutral lure words for example, chair, slow. When asked to recognize the words after each presented list, women falsely recognized significantly more negative lure words than men. However there was no significant difference in rate of false recognition when the lists contained neutral lures. These fmdings suggest that women are more likely to recall emotionally charged words (Dewhurst et al., 2012). Another study sought to examine whether there would be a gender difference using the DRM lists when the lists contained gender-related words (Bauste & Ferraro, 2004). Researchers used 5 lists; one of the lists had words related to males, for example 'beard, suit, husband,' and another list contained words related to females, for example 'sister, dolls, cute.' Researchers hypothesized that men would recognize fewer false words if the list of words they were presented were male related and that females would recognize fewer false words if their list was female related. Results did not support their prediction. Researchers Bauer, Marsh and Martin recently conducted a study to examine the possibility that there might be a difference in whether the presentation of lists of images or lists of words would induce more false memories. They hypothesized that images would elicit fewer false memories because of the complexity and visual properties of images. Researchers used a Java computer program to present a series of words or images to participants. After participants were shown a sequence of words or images, there was a 20 second period of recall. Each condition consisted of 6 trials. The image condition and the word condition were completely unrelated to each other; the words were from a category of sleep-related words whereas the images were all pictures of flowers. The researchers' hypothesis was confirmed: participants were more likely to recall false items in the word condition than in the image condition.

5 ^ The current study is an extension of the Bauer et al. study where the pattern of false memory recall of images, compared to words is of interest. More specifically, the purpose of the present study is to determine if participants will recognize more false items when the sequences belong to the same category for both images and words. It is hypothesized that participants will falsely recognize more words than false images and that there will be a difference in the pattern of rates of recognition between genders. Method Participants A total of 28 participants were used in this study including 14 females and 14 males. The participants were all students who attend Huron University College and Western University. Anecdotal evidence suggests the majority of participants were between the ages of 19 and 22; however, no explicit demographic data was collected. Materials A letter of information was given, informing the participants of the aims of the study and providing some background information. A consent form was also given, informing participants that their participation was voluntary and that their information would be held confidential. Once participants gave consent, they were asked to watch a slide show created with Microsoft PowerPoint. Two different slide shows were created for this study. Group A was shown the word slide show which consisted of 15 slides with one word on each slide, using Calibri font, size 88. Group B was shown the image slide show which consisted of 15 slides with one black and white image per slide. Group A was given a checklist with 17 words on it, and Group B was given a checklist with 17 images on it (See Appendix A for word checklist. See Appendix B for image checklist).

6 Procedure The researcher constructed all the checklists and PowerPoint slide shows that were administered. Participants were recruited in person by the researcher and were randomly divided up into two groups: Group A the word condition or Group B the image condition. The procedure was performed in one session and took approximately 7 minutes to complete. Participants were tested individually. Participants in both groups were asked to watch and memorize the contents of the 15-slide PowerPoint show. They were told not to memorize the order of the words or images, just to memorize as many as possible. Following the word trial, the participants in Group A were given a word recall sheet. The word recall sheet contained 17 words in total; 15 words that the participant had previously seen, one "lure word" and one "neutral lure". The lure word was a word related to the 15 previously seen words and the neutral lure word was unrelated to the category. The participants were asked to check off the words they recalled seeing previously. Peirticipants in Group B were instructed to look at 2 sheets of paper containing 17 little images; 15 of these images they had previously seen plus one lure image and one neutral lure image. The lure image was related to all the other images, whereas the neutral lure image was unrelated to the previously seen images. They were asked to check off the images that they remembered seeing. Participants were debriefed and dismissed. Results A chi- square goodness of fit text was conducted, the false recognition rate was significantly different between the word condition and image condition, ;^(l,iv=28) = 7.36,/7 <.05. The false recognition rate was significantly lower for the participants in the image condition than for participants in the word condition. Another chi-square good of fit text was performed and it was foimd that there was not a significant difference between genders for

7 falsely recognizing the lure word, regardless of test condition, /^{l, N= 28) =.09, p<.05. A 2 X 2 between- subjects analysis of variance was conducted with correct word recognition as the dependent variable and gender (female/male) and condition (words/ images) as the independent variables. The results indicated that there was a significant main effect for condition, F(l,24) = 27.27,/7 <.05, partial //^ =.53, with those in the image condition (M= 14.86, S'Z>=.36) recognizing significantly more correct images than those in the word condition (M=13.43, S'D=.94). There was not a significant gender effect, F(l, 24) = 1.09,p>.05, partial tf' =.04, nor was there a significant interaction effect, F(l,24) =.00,p>.05, partial if =.00. Discussion In the present study it was hypothesized that participants would recognize more false words than false images. The present study confirmed previous findings that participants would recognize more false material when the list presented was in the form of words, compared to the presentation of images. There was not a significant difference for false recognition rate between genders. Participants in Group A, the word condition, recalled significantly fewer correct words than participants in Group B, the image condition; again there were no significant gender differences. In both conditions not one participant falsely identified the neutral word or image therefore, no statistical analysis was conducted. Bauer et al., hypothesized that images would elicit fewer false memories because of the complexity and visual properties of images. The results of the present study corroborated their findings. This could be due to differences in processing requirements of text versus image. It is possible that participants were creating a personal interpretation or connection with the images, more so than with the words.

8 There are some reasons to believe that this study could have been more reliable and valid. Participants were only tested for one trial and the researcher only used one list from among the 24 DRM lists. The list that was chosen contained words that were easily transferable to images. Future studies should consider multiple trials and incorporate presenting the list in alternative ways, for example including an auditory component. Although there is was not a gender component in recognition rate in either condition, future research could validate and use different lists to see if there are any differences on the rate of false recognition among different personality types. In addition, two issues with the sample may have impacted the results. First, the sample was restricted to only one university, and thus results are not generalizable to the population. Second, participants were all within roughly the same age group. Previous research has found differences in false word recognition when ages are varied. Future studies should consider assessing differences in age when presenting sequences of images. The present study did not control for time. Participants were asked to start the recognition task immediately after they saw the PowerPoint presentation and were able to take as much time as they needed to complete the checklist. Future research should consider creating a time lag between trial and recognition. It would be interesting to see if results woxdd be replicated for the image condition when varying the interval between presenting and testing. This would give some insight as to what kind of memory contributes to false recognition. Future research should consider replicating the current study with a larger population. Understanding how false recognition occurs could assist many institutions such as schools, police, and universities. From the findings of these studies institutions could learn how to better help children study for tests, or how to help eyewitnesses more clearly identify criminals. Also

9 understanding how false memories occur leads to a better imderstanding of how normal memory works.

10 References Bauer, K, Marsh, L, Martin, J. False Memory in Images and Words. Unpublished manuscript. Bauste,G.F, Ferrado, R. (2004) Gender differences in False Memory Production. Current Psychology, 23, Deese, J. (1959). On the prediction of occurrence of particular verbal intrusions of immediate recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 58, Dewhurst, S.A, Anderson, R.J, and Knott, L.M. (2012). A gender difference in the false recall of negative words: Women DRM more than men. Cognition and Emotion, 26, 65-1A. Loftus, E. (1995). The Formation of False Memories. Psychiatric Annals, 25, Maylor, E.A, and Mo, A. (1999). Effects of Study-test Modality on False Recognition. British Journal of Psychology, 90, Misirlisoy, M. (2004). Effects of associative processes on false memory: Evidence fi-om converging associates and category associates procedures. (impublished doctoral dissertation.). The Middle East technical university. Turkey.

11 SMELL BOOTD TOED WALK KICK SOCCER Word Lists FOOT SHOED FLAG ARM ANKLE YARD MOUTH HAND SOCK SANDALS INCH

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14 Raw Data Condition Gender Correct Recognition False Recognition Figure 1. The raw data for False Recognition. For Condition, 1 = "Word condition" and 2 = "Image condition" for Gender, 1 = "Female" and 2 = "Male", for False Recognition, 0 = "Did not falsely recognize lure word" and 1 = "Falsely recognized lure word."

15 ANOVA Summary Table Source SS df MS F Gender Condition Gender* Condition Error