A Systematic Measure of Similarity on False Memories
Open Access
- Author:
- Turney, Indira Carlene
- Graduate Program:
- Psychology
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- May 26, 2015
- Committee Members:
- Nancy Anne Coulter Dennis, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
- Keywords:
- Relatedness
Similarity
False Memory
Perceptual Similarity
Parametric
Increased Relatedness
Neuroimaging - Abstract:
- The ability to accurately remember previous experiences and differentiate between previously encountered and new information is critical to maintaining an accurate memory for past experiences. However, research has shown that information that shares similarity or relatedness contributes to false memories. Despite the contribution that relatedness or similarity plays in forming false memories, no one has systematically measured or paid close attention to the perceptual relatedness of items in false memory studies. Measuring relatedness of critical lures (i.e., how related is a chair shown at encoding to other non-studied chairs shown at retrieval that produce false alarms) can provide information on item relatedness contributes to the development of false memories. Using a modified perceptual false memory paradigm, the current study aimed to elucidate the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying both true and false memory retrieval, as well as the influence of perceptual relatedness of lures on false retrieval, in a sample of young adults. Our results converge with previous studies in finding that true and false memories engage many of the same regions, when relatedness is not considered. Furthermore, we replicated previous research showing that there is distinct neural activity supporting true versus false memories. Altogether, similar to previous studies, our study revealed true memories, compared to false memories, to be associated with regions involved in evaluation, accurate reconstruction, and recapitulation of item-specific details of the encoding event. In contrast, gist processing, monitoring, and decision-making regions accompanied false memories, suggestion the strong involvement of gist-based level processing. Unique to our study, we also examined the role of systematic increases in perceptual relatedness/similarity in false memories on neural recruitment supporting false memories. Together, results revealed many perceptual and constructive processes that contribute to false memories, identifying unique regions within the false retrieval network that modulated related false memories, as a function of relatedness.