The impact of lying about a traumatic virtual reality experience on memory

Tameka Romeo,Didi Boerboom,Henry Otgaar,Tom Smeets,Sara Landstrom

doi:10.3758/s13421-018-0885-6

Tameka Romeo, Didi Boerboom + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-018-0885-6

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Abstract

The goal of the present experiment was to examine the effect of certain (deceptive) strategies (e.g., false denial) on memory. Specifically, participants were shown a traumatic virtual reality (VR) video of an airplane crash. Following this, participants (N= 94) received questions concerning details from the VR scene in a baseline memory task. Then, participants could choose from 3 options how to cope in response to having experienced the VR scene: tell the truth, falsely deny, or fabricate. The majority opted to tell the truth (n = 81). A subsample of truth tellers were instructed to falsely deny having seen certain details. One week later, all participants received a source monitoring task in which they were asked (1) whether they remembered talking about these details during an interview, and (2) whether they remembered seeing certain details during the VR experience the week before. Participants had to tell the truth during this task. Participants who were instructed to falsely deny showed impaired memory for presented details that had previously been discussed (i.e., denial-induced forgetting) and seen in the VR scene. Also, the presentation of certain details in the baseline memory task seemed to inoculate participants who were instructed to falsely deny from experiencing memory impairment. The current experiment suggests that false denials can have adverse ramifications for memory for what is discussed and seen.

Highlights

The goal of the present experiment was to examine the effect of certain strategies on memory
The difference was statistically significant, t(51.40) = −2.78, p = 0.01, d = 0.63, 95% CI [0.17, 1.09]
To examine whether a denial-induced forgetting effect was detected, we assessed the memory performance concerning the interview-related questions of the source monitoring task

Summary

Introduction

The goal of the present experiment was to examine the effect of certain (deceptive) strategies (e.g., false denial) on memory. Participants could choose from 3 options how to cope in response to having experienced the VR scene: tell the truth, falsely deny, or fabricate. Participants who were instructed to falsely deny showed impaired memory for presented details that had previously been discussed (i.e., denial-induced forgetting) and seen in the VR scene. The presentation of certain details in the baseline memory task seemed to inoculate participants who were instructed to falsely deny from experiencing memory impairment. The current experiment suggests that false denials can have adverse ramifications for memory for what is discussed and seen Sometimes people, despite their best intentions to be honest, choose to or are forced to lie. A person may fabricate information by giving false self-generated details or stories, but as is the case

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