TR
When Is Our Memory More Reliable?
Situations in Which Memory Errors Decrease and Increase
|
Decrease |
Increase |
|
When the memory test is conducted immediately after learning (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002; Roediger et al., 2001a) |
When we have accumulated knowledge about what can usually and typically happen in a given situation (Bower et al., 1979; Brewer & Treyens, 1981) |
|
When people are warned that they may remember non-presented information as if it had been presented (Neuschatz et al., 2003) |
When a person is knowledgeable about (Castel et al., 2007) or an expert on (Baird, 2003) a subject, and when the person is interested in that subject (O'Connell & Greene, 2017) |
| When vitally important information is involved (Nairne et al., 2009) |
When retrieval is accompanied only by a feeling of familiarity that the event was experienced, without conscious recollection (e.g., Charlton & Leov, 2021; Lampinen et al., 2001; Scoboria et al., 2017; Yamada & Itsukushima, 2013) |
| When practice is gained by repeating the test phases that follow the learning phase (Watson et al., 2005) |
When presented semantically related information brings to mind other semantically linked information that was not presented (e.g., Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995) |
| When a warning is given that, due to the nature of the presented information, non-presented information may be falsely remembered, and when the person's working memory capacity is high (Watson et al., 2005) | In individuals with a high frequency of dissociative experiences (Dehon et al., 2008; Hyman & Billings, 1998; Laws & Bhatt, 2005) |
| When imagery related to the target information is performed (Foley et al., 2006) |
In individuals with a high need for cognition (Graham, 2007) |
|
When it is emphasized that the event must be remembered exactly (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002; Roediger et al., 2001a) |
In individuals whose beliefs about the adequacy of their memory have decreased (Iacullo et al., 2016) |
| When individuals experience a negative mood and the false memory results from relational processing (Storbeck & Clore, 2005) |
When negative moods such as fear and anger are experienced and the emotional valence of the false information is also negative (Bland et al., 2016) |
| When the event is emotionally intense, rich in content and narrated from a first-person perspective (Heaps & Nash, 2001) | When the person's level of arousal is high during encoding or retrieval (Corson & Verrier, 2007; Kensinger, 2009; Mirandola & Toffalini, 2016; Morgan et al., 2013) |
| When a false event is presented to the person as an event they experienced, but the person considers it an event that could not have happened to them (Pezdek et al., 1997; Pezdek & Hodge, 1999; Scoboria et al., 2012) |
When an event that did not happen is frequently questioned (e.g., Hyman et al., 1995; Loftus & Pickrell, 1995) |
| When the person is given photographs related to a false event they allegedly experienced rather than a narrative of the event (Garry & Wade, 2005) |
When real events and imagined events resemble each other in their details (Johnson et al., 1993) |
| When people feel empathy for the individuals in the event they witnessed (Lo, 2021) | When a false event is described to the person as if it had happened to them and the person considers it an event that could have happened to them (e.g., Hyman et al., 1995; Hyman & Pentland, 1996; Loftus & Pickrell, 1995) |
| When emotions after reaching a goal broaden attention (Kaplan et al., 2012; 2016) | When the false event is imagined by the person rather than content about it being read (Mazzoni & Memon, 2003) |
| When information remembered together with another person is later recalled by the person alone without social influence (McNabb & Meade, 2014) |
When photographs of a false event create false imagery (Lindsay et al., 2004; Wade et al., 2002) |
| When false information comes from groups perceived as less reliable, such as children, the elderly or out-group members (Andrews & Rapp, 2014; Davis & Meade, 2013; Skagerberg & Wright, 2009) |
When a false event allegedly experienced contains personally important information (Scoboria et al., 2017) |
| When false information comes from a stranger rather than someone close, such as a romantic partner (Hope et al., 2008) |
When introverted people are exposed to information about a false memory by people more extroverted than themselves (Porter et al., 2000) |
| When the person's personality traits include openness to experience, extraversion and emotional stability (Doughty et al., 2017) |
When false information about an event is given after the event is first encoded into memory (Loftus, 1978) |
| When, at the first memory interview, the person's confidence in their memory report is high (Wixted et al., 2016; Wixted & Wells, 2017) |
When confirmatory feedback about a constructed false memory is received from others (Wells & Quinlivan, 2009) |
| When, during eyewitness identification, suspects are shown in a fair lineup, that is, without the suspect and the other people in the lineup being arranged in a way that makes anyone stand out (Wixted et al., 2016; Wixted & Wells, 2017) | When other details of the event are not attended to because of the presence of a threatening object (e.g., a weapon) (Loftus et al., 1987; Stanny & Johnson, 2000) |
| When questioning is conducted with open-ended questions, without forced-choice options, without asking for guesses and without giving cues (Wixted et al., 2018) |
When, during eyewitness testimony, another person is present who is unrelated to the event but feels familiar to the witness and resembles the actual perpetrator (Loftus, 1986; Read et al., 1990; Ross et al., 1994; Schacter, 2002) |
| At the first interview of eyewitness testimony, compared to subsequent repeated interviews (Wixted et al., 2021a) |
When the information or event scene is emotionally negative (Brainerd et al., 2008; Zhang et al., 2021) |
| In individuals with high executive functioning (Battista et al., 2021a; Battista et al., 2020; Battista et al., 2021b) | When emotions before reaching a goal narrow attention to goal-related information only (Van Damme et al., 2017) |
| In individuals who are more likely to focus on external stimuli rather than their own emotions and who also have low executive functioning (Battista et al., 2021b) | |
| When people are exposed to others' memory reports through instructions or social interaction (Edelson et al., 2011; Roediger et al., 2001b) | |
|
When the person thinks that the information given by someone else is correct (Harris et al., 2008) |
|
|
When false information is given by someone perceived as more powerful than oneself (Skagerberg & Wright, 2009) |
|
| In people with low self-esteem, high suggestibility and a belief that the events they experience depend on external influences (Bain et al., 2004; Douglass et al., 2019; Gudjonsson et al., 2002; Gudjonsson & Sigurdsson, 2003) |
This table is taken from the table of the article below and is included with the permission of the publisher.
Ikier, S., Dönerkayalı, C., Halıcı, Ö. S., Kaymak Gülseren, Z. A., Göksal, H., & Akbaş, B. (2022). When is memory more reliable? Scientific findings, theories, and myths. Applied Neuropsychology: Adult, p. 11. Advance Online Publication. Table 1. The conditions under which memory is more versus less reliable.
