Abstract
This study used the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm [34] to investigate the direction and the extent to which emotional valence in semantic word lists influences the formation of false memories (FM). The experimental paradigm consisted of 1) a study phase (learning of neutral and negative lists of words semantically associated to a non-presented critical lure (CL), 2) a free recall phase, and 3) a recognition phase. Participants had to indicate whether the displayed item was "new" (new item or non-studied CL) or “old” (studied list item). CL associated with negative word lists elicited significantly more FM than CL associated with neutral word lists. This finding is in contrast to previous work showing that emotional words elicit fewer FM than neutral words. The results of our study also suggest that valence is capable of influencing emotional memory in terms of encoding and retrieval processes.
Highlights
It has been well established that memory for emotional events is different than for neutral events [2, 12,15,16,17,24]
The present study aims to investigate how semantically associated words, either neutral or of negative emotional valence, modulate the production of false memories (FM)
Negative critical lure (CL) were significantly more often falsely recognized than neutral CL [t(31) = 2.860, p < 0.01]
Summary
It has been well established that memory for emotional events is different than for neutral events [2, 12,15,16,17,24]. Idence that neutral and emotional memory can be differentiated, and that positive and negative content are subjected to distinct processing mechanisms. The valence hypothesis [7,8] posits distinct neural underpinnings for the processing of emotional valent and neutral stimuli which is supported by recent neuroimaging studies In subsequent recognition phases the CL is often mis-categorized as a presented word. Such events are referred to as false memories (FM). The DRM paradigm has been used to examine memory systems, including memory of language representations [4,5,40], memory effects of aging [11,14, 22] and memory in clinical populations [27]
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