Introduction
Background. To begin, I would like to present some background information on false memory and false memory research. False memory was really brought about in the 1990’s when two groups had differing opinions about memory.
The first group, the trauma studies group, argued for the children and the adults that they grew up to be, were the victims and that the reason their memory had changes was due to the trauma they went through. They argued that these people had “repressed” their traumatic memories because they were too scarring to think about, but that these painful memories could be recovered later with the help of some sort of specialist. The practitioners would use several kinds of techniques to try to recover these “repressed” …show more content…
The argument they held was that memory was malleable or pliable, meaning it doesn’t necessarily stay in a fixed state. They also argued that the practitioners from the first group could be creating these false memories for people who never actually had any repressed memories; for example, some practitioners had made people produce false memories of alien abduction. Lastly, this research group said that there is not enough evidence to show a reason for traumatic memories to be held in a different memory storage area.
The foundations of false memory research began with one of the first false memory research studies by Elizabeth Loftus, called the “lost in the mall study”, where participants were told that their parents had told the researchers about a time when they got lost in the mall as a child. The subjects had many evocative talks with the researchers about this memory and about 20-25% of the subjects recalled the false memory! And over time the numbers of these believers increased, and even had emotional and detailed recall of the …show more content…
Once they have completed the IQ test and I have received their scores, I will then give them the DRM paradigm lists provided byWofford.edu to see if they create any false memories for the critical lures (this will be presented visually and they will write down as many words as they can remember from each list). There are four lists of ten words, and after every list is shown, I will give them one minute to write down as many words as they remember from each list. After I collect their answers from the DRM test I will allow them to know what the IQ test said their score was if they want to know. I will also debrief them so they understand what the study was really about and so they leave in a mood that is similar to the mood they came in
Background. To begin, I would like to present some background information on false memory and false memory research. False memory was really brought about in the 1990’s when two groups had differing opinions about memory.
The first group, the trauma studies group, argued for the children and the adults that they grew up to be, were the victims and that the reason their memory had changes was due to the trauma they went through. They argued that these people had “repressed” their traumatic memories because they were too scarring to think about, but that these painful memories could be recovered later with the help of some sort of specialist. The practitioners would use several kinds of techniques to try to recover these “repressed” …show more content…
The argument they held was that memory was malleable or pliable, meaning it doesn’t necessarily stay in a fixed state. They also argued that the practitioners from the first group could be creating these false memories for people who never actually had any repressed memories; for example, some practitioners had made people produce false memories of alien abduction. Lastly, this research group said that there is not enough evidence to show a reason for traumatic memories to be held in a different memory storage area.
The foundations of false memory research began with one of the first false memory research studies by Elizabeth Loftus, called the “lost in the mall study”, where participants were told that their parents had told the researchers about a time when they got lost in the mall as a child. The subjects had many evocative talks with the researchers about this memory and about 20-25% of the subjects recalled the false memory! And over time the numbers of these believers increased, and even had emotional and detailed recall of the …show more content…
Once they have completed the IQ test and I have received their scores, I will then give them the DRM paradigm lists provided byWofford.edu to see if they create any false memories for the critical lures (this will be presented visually and they will write down as many words as they can remember from each list). There are four lists of ten words, and after every list is shown, I will give them one minute to write down as many words as they remember from each list. After I collect their answers from the DRM test I will allow them to know what the IQ test said their score was if they want to know. I will also debrief them so they understand what the study was really about and so they leave in a mood that is similar to the mood they came in