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Psy1022 - Psychology 1b Research Proposal

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PSY1022

The effect of age on false memories: comparing children and adults

KENNE  UKO

10/16/2014


Abstract

This study will examine the impact of age on false memories. It is hypothesized that children will produce more recall errors compared to adults. The Participants will be 286 children recruited from the South Eastern suburbs of Melbourne and 472 undergraduates studying biomedical science at Monash University. Participants will be sorted into one of two list-length conditions (7-words or 14-words). Participants will have items from these lists read to them and then given a minute to recall aloud the words that were on the list according to the guidelines set by the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm. The proportion correctly recalled items will be calculated. Increased recall errors in children will suggest higher vulnerability to false memories. The study could has real-life implications as it could lead to a decreasing number of children being used as eyewitnesses court because they are prone to false memories and suggestibility.

As humans we like to believe that the memories of events that we have experienced are indeed actual representations of experiences. However, this is not always the case as our memory is not subject to not only memory failure, but also inaccuracies and distortion (Payne, et al., 2009). About 30 years ago, the work of Elizabeth Loftus (Loftus & Pickrell, 1995) opened the eyes of numerous researchers by demonstrating how false memories could be implanted through the uses of procedures that coerce people to recall memories from events that had never actually occurred (Lynn, Lock, Loftus, Krackow, & Lilienfeld, 2003). Albeit the controversy, the phenomenon of memory implantation has since been used as a technique in psychotherapy used to overcome repressed memories that are the root cause of several current life problems (McHugh, 2008).

Since the release of Loftus’ work, other scientists have started researching the phenomenon of false memories. For example, how implanted memories can cause learning errors that predict our prior general knowledge (Fazio, Barber, Rajaram, Ornstein, & Marsh, 2013), the role of neural systems in memory implantation (Kroes & Fernandez, 2012) and the role that sleep has in promoting false memories (Payne, et al., 2009).

The significance and impact of false memories research, not only has ramifications on the highly controversial  “recovered memory therapy”  but also in the court of law as an increasingly number of children are being used for eye witness testimonies (Davies & Pezdek, 2010). The problem with using children as eyewitnesses is that they are they highly susceptible to suggestibility. Suggestibility is the term used when details of an event are incorporated into one’s memory after the event had occurred (Davies & Pezdek, 2010). This could lead to a lot of innocent people being prosecuted for crimes they did not commit.  

Whilst previous research has provided important insight into the phenomenon of false memories in children, few have been truly capable of efficiently showing how the propensity of false memories and vulnerability to suggestibility vary with age. The methodologies used in other studies done previously on the relationship between age and false memories in children didn’t use large sample sizes and often didn’t take into account differences for length of word lists and participant bias; make it more difficult to draw meaningful conclusions from such experiments.

Research has consistently decorated the false memories in children, but not how susceptibility to false memories varies with age. Consequently, the following study aims to accurately demonstrate the effect of false memories in children and adults through the use the methods based on the DRM paradigm. It is hypothesized that children will produce more recall errors compared to adults, suggesting that they are more prone to false memories than adults.

Method:

Participants

Participants will include 286 children ranging from 4 years to 6 years (mean age = 4.7, males = 158, females = 128) who were recruited from kindergarten classes in the South Eastern suburbs of Melbourne using clustered sampling techniques. Children will receive a small gift for their participation at the completion of the experiment. Participants will also include 472 undergraduate students ranging in age from 18 to 45 (mean age = 21.63, males = 188, females =284) recruited from first year biomedical science students from Monash University Clayton Campus using convenience sampling methods, the student will either course credit or a small payment for their involvement.

Design

This experiment will be a 2 X 2 X 2 mixed factor design: 2(age: adults and children) X 2(list length: 7 and 14 words) X 1 (test phase: recall). Half of the adults and children participants will be randomly assigned to the 14 word condition, while the remainder will be assigned to the 7 word condition. The presentation of the eight lists will be randomised for each participant

Materials

The materials this study will use are the eight word lists that had brought about the highest levels of false recall in Stadler, Roediger and McDermott’s (1995) norming study. These lists are the associate lists for chair, doctor, rough, sleep, smell, smoke, sweet and window. Each word list will contain either 7 or 14 items and be presented in order of associate strength, strongest to weakest. Participants in each age group will be assigned one of the two list length conditions.

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