Open science practices in the false memory literature.

In response to the replication crisis in psychology, the scientific community has advocated open science practices to promote transparency and reproducibility. Although existing reviews indicate inconsistent and generally low adoption of open science in psychology, a current-day, detailed analysis is lacking. Recognising the significant impact of false memory research in legal contexts, we conducted a preregistered systematic review to assess the integration of open science practices within this field, analysing 388 publications from 2015 to 2023 (including 15 replications and 3 meta-analyses). Our findings indicated a significant yet varied adoption of open science practices. Most studies (86.86%) adhered to at least one measure, with publication accessibility being the most consistently adopted practice at 73.97%. While data sharing demonstrated the most substantial growth, reaching about 75% by 2023, preregistration and analysis script sharing lagged, with 20-25% adoption in 2023. This review highlights a promising trend towards enhanced research quality, transparency, and reproducibility in false memory research. However, the inconsistent implementation of open science practices may still challenge the verification, replication, and interpretation of research findings. Our study underscores the need for a comprehensive adoption of open science to improve research reliability and validity substantially, fostering trust and credibility in psychology.

Judges and lawyers' beliefs in repression and dissociative amnesia may imperil justice: further guidance required.

This article examines continuing misunderstanding about memory function especially for trauma, across three UK samples (N = 717). Delayed allegations of child sexual and physical abuse are prevalent in Western legal systems and often rely upon uncorroborated memory testimony to prove guilt. U.K. legal professionals and jurors typically assess the reliability of such memory recall via common sense, yet decades of scientific research show common sense beliefs often conflict with science. Recent international surveys show controversial notions of repression and accurate memory recovery remain strongly endorsed. In historical cases, these notions may lead to wrongful convictions. The current study surveyed the U.K. public, lawyers, and mental health professionals' beliefs about repression, dissociative amnesia and false memories. Study findings give unique data on judges' and barristers' beliefs. Overall, the study findings reinforce international scientists' concerns of a science - knowledge-gap. Repression was strongly endorsed by lay, legal and clinical participants (> 78%) as was dissociative amnesia (> 87%). Moreover, suboptimal professional legal education and juror guidance may increase misunderstanding. Correcting beliefs about memory function, and extending the contribution of memory science in the courtroom remains an important quest for cognitive scientists.

Proneness to false memory generation predicts pseudoscientific belief endorsement.

Among cognitive factors that can influence the endorsement of pseudoscientific beliefs, our study focuses on proneness to false memory generation. In this preregistered study, we presented 170 fluent English speakers residing in the USA with a misinformation task aimed at generating false memories. In this task, they first completed an event encoding stage, in which two events were narrated through sequentially presented pictures. One day later, they read a series of sentences relating the same events but which included several inaccurate descriptions aimed at producing a misinformation effect. Finally, we measured the influence of the misinformation manipulation over false memory generation. After completing the misinformation task, participants responded to a questionnaire measuring pseudoscientific beliefs. Our results showed a positive correlation between pseudoscience endorsement and false memory rates, which indicates that the latter might be a key factor influencing susceptibility to pseudoscience. To our knowledge, this is the first study showing a link between the tendency to believe in pseudoscience and variability regarding proneness to develop false memories. Practical implications for the design of new interventions to effectively reduce pseudoscientific beliefs and their negative impact on our society are discussed.

From vector spaces to DRM lists: False Memory Generator, a software for automated generation of lists of stimuli inducing false memories.

The formation of false memories is one of the most widely studied topics in cognitive psychology. The Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm is a powerful tool for investigating false memories and revealing the cognitive mechanisms subserving their formation. In this task, participants first memorize a list of words (encoding phase) and next have to indicate whether words presented in a new list were part of the initially memorized one (recognition phase). By employing DRM lists optimized to investigate semantic effects, previous studies highlighted a crucial role of semantic processes in false memory generation, showing that new words semantically related to the studied ones tend to be more erroneously recognized (compared to new words less semantically related). Despite the strengths of the DRM task, this paradigm faces a major limitation in list construction due to its reliance on human-based association norms, posing both practical and theoretical concerns. To address these issues, we developed the False Memory Generator (FMG), an automated and data-driven tool for generating DRM lists, which exploits similarity relationships between items populating a vector space. Here, we present FMG and demonstrate the validity of the lists generated in successfully replicating well-known semantic effects on false memory production. FMG potentially has broad applications by allowing for testing false memory production in domains that go well beyond the current possibilities, as it can be in principle applied to any vector space encoding properties related to word referents (e.g., lexical, orthographic, phonological, sensory, affective, etc.) or other type of stimuli (e.g., images, sounds, etc.).

La psiquiatría del primer franquismo: una historia del olvido de la salud mental / A psiquiatria do primeiro regime franquista: uma história do esquecimento da saúde mental / The psychiatry of the first Franco regime: a history of the forgetfulness of mental health

En esta investigación presentamos una aproximación al cambio de mentalidad respecto a la enfermedad mental propugnada desde las obras de psiquiatras del primer franquismo como Antonio Vallejo-Nágera o Juan José López Ibor. Sus ideas, publicaciones e investigaciones ofrecieron al régimen la posibilidad de modificar las listas de internos e internas de las instituciones psiquiátricas del momento, cuyas camas comenzaron a ser ocupadas por personas procedentes de las cárceles, los hospitales militares o las calles, con el fin de someterlas a tratamientos y medicaciones para modificar unos comportamientos y actitudes señaladas por el saber psiquiátrico franquista como apartadas de lo “correcto” y “normal”.(AU)

Nesta investigação, apresentamos uma abordagem à mudançade mentalidade relativamente à doença mental defendidanas obras dos primeiros psiquiatras franquistas, comoAntonio Vallejo-Nágera e Juan José López Ibor. As suasideias, publicações e investigações ofereceram ao regime apossibilidade de modificar ases listas de internamento dasinstituições psiquiátricas da época, cujas camas passarama ser ocupadas por pessoas provenientes das prisões, doshospitais militares ou das ruas, com o objetivo de as submetera tratamento e medicação para modificar comportamentose atitudes que o saber psiquiátrico franquista consideravalonge de serem “correctos” e “normais”.(AU)

In this research we present an approach to the change ofmentality regarding mental illness advocated in the worksof early Francoist psychiatrists such as Antonio Vallejo-Nágera or Juan José López Ibor. Their ideas, publicationsand research offered the regime the possibility of modifyingthe lists of inmates of the psychiatric institutions of the time,whose beds began to be occupied by people from prisons,military hospitals or the streets, with the aim of subjectingthem to treatments and medications to modify behaviorsand attitudes identified by Franco's psychiatric knowledgeas being far from “correct” and “normal”.(AU)

How False Memory and True Memory Affect Decision Making in Older Adults: A Dissociative Account.

OBJECTIVES: Remembering past rewarding experiences plays a crucial rule in guiding people's decision making in the future. However, as people age, they become less accurate in remembering past events and more susceptible to forming false memories. An important question is how the decline of episodic memory and the increase of false memory may affect older adults' decision-making performance. METHODS: The current study used a newly developed paradigm in which the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) false memory paradigm was combined with a reward learning task to create robust false memories of rewarding experiences. Participants learned that some DRM picture lists brought them a monetary reward and some DRM picture lists did not bring reward. Later, their memories were tested and decision-making preferences were measured. RESULTS: We found that older and younger adults had almost equivalent false and true memories under the rewarding context, but older adults showed significantly lower decision-making preferences for lure pictures and rewarded pictures than younger adults. Furthermore, true and false memories were a stronger predictor of decision-making preferences for younger than for older adults. DISCUSSION: These results together suggest an age-related dissociation between memory and decision making that older adults may be less efficient in using their memory to guide decision making than younger adults. Future research may further investigate its underlying mechanisms and develop potential interventions aiming at strengthening the connection between memory and decision making in older adults to help improve their decision-making performance.

"Masked dissociation": the many faces of technology.

After briefly explaining the concepts of dissociation and repression and discussing the new interest that the concept of dissociation has acquired within the actual psychoanalytic panorama, the author explains the concept of a dissociative continuum and presents Peter Goldberg's theory on somatic dissociation. Starting from this model, she proposes an interpretation of the use of technology, and especially of the internet, as a dissociative modality that helps separate the mind from the body, one that allows the maintenance of personal security-a concept dear to Sullivan-through physical distance. The implications of this point of view are discussed.

True and false memory priming of perceptual closure problems in healthy older adults and older adults with Alzheimer's disease.

OBJECTIVE: The present study set out to investigate whether false memories for pictures exhibit priming effects in older adult controls (OACs) and people with early onset Alzheimer's disease (AD). We conducted two studies to examine whether false memories for pictures had a priming effect on a perceptual closure task (PCT). METHOD: In Experiment 1, OACs and people with early onset AD were presented with pictorial versions of the Deese/Rodiger-McDermott lists and took part in a recognition task. This followed with a PCT, where both groups were shown degraded pictures that became clearer over time and participants had to identify the picture as quickly as possible. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the modality-verbal versus pictorial in both the study phase and PCT phase. RESULTS: Experiment 1 results indicated false memories for pictures did not serve as effective primes in the PCT. Experiment 2 results revealed pictorial false memories primed the PCT significantly slower than pictorial true memories in the visual PCT task, but the reverse finding was shown for the verbal PCT task. Finally, verbal false memories primed the verbal PCT reliably faster than true memories. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings show when solving pictorial problems, for both older adults and people with AD false memories may not activate the appropriate representation in memory for solving a pictorial problems whereas actually presented items do. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Rescreening on RBANS Delayed Memory Index? Forget About It!

OBJECTIVE: To assess the value of rescreening patients with Alzheimer's disease who do not meet the inclusion criteria for the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status Delayed Memory Index (RBANS DMI) at the initial assessment. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Participants (aged 50-85 years, without dementia, Mini-Mental State Examination score ≥22, valid Clinical Dementia Rating [CDR] global score, and amyloid status at baseline) were identified in the European Prevention of Alzheimer's Dementia database. Changes from baseline in RBANS DMI were estimated using a mixed model for repeated measurements. Logistic regressions were used to estimate the probability of participants with baseline RBANS DMI 86-95 having RBANS DMI ≤85, CDR global score ≥0.5, and amyloid positivity at 6 and 12 months. RESULTS: There was significant variability in the change in RBANS DMI scores over time (median change at 6 months: 2.0). An estimated 15% of participants with RBANS DMI 86-95 at baseline progressed to ≤85 at 6 months; 8% also achieved CDR global score ≥0.5 and 5% were also amyloid positive. CONCLUSIONS: The results from our analysis indicate that there is limited value in rescreening patients based on their initial RBANS DMI score.

Unringing the bell: Successful debriefing following a rich false memory study.

In rich false memory studies, familial informants often provide information to support researchers in planting vivid memories of events that never occurred. The goal of the current study was to assess how effectively we can retract these false memories via debriefing - i.e., to what extent can we put participants back the way we found them? We aimed to establish (1) what proportion of participants would retain a false memory or false belief following debriefing, and (2) whether richer, more detailed memories would be more difficult to retract. Participants (N = 123) completed a false memory implantation protocol as part of a replication of the "Lost in the Mall" study (Loftus & Pickrell, Psychiatric Annals, 25, 720-725, 1995). By the end of the protocol, 14% of participants self-reported a memory for the fabricated event, and a further 52% believed it had happened. Participants were then fully debriefed, and memory and belief for the false event were assessed again. In a follow-up assessment 3 days post-debriefing, the false memory rate had dropped to 6% and false belief rates also fell precipitously to 7%. Moreover, virtually all persistent false memories were found to be nonbelieved memories, where participants no longer accepted that the fabricated event had occurred. Richer, more detailed memories were more resistant to correction, but were still mostly retracted. This study provides evidence that participants can be "dehoaxed", and even very convincing false memories can be retracted.

Latent trajectories of recent and delayed memory and their predictors: evidence from SHARE.

OBJECTIVES: Cognitive decline is common in the old age, but some evidence suggests it may already occur during adulthood. Previous studies have linked age, gender, educational attainment, depression, physical activity, and social engagement to better cognitive performance over time. However, most studies have used global measures of cognition, which could mask subtle changes in specific cognitive domains. The aim of this study is to examine trajectories of recent and delayed memory recall from a variable-centered perspective, in order to elucidate the impact of age, gender, educational attainment, depression, physical activity, and social engagement on recent and delayed memory both at initial time and across a 10-year period. DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS: The sample was formed by 56,616 adults and older adults that participated in waves 4 to 8 of the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). ANALYSES: We used latent growth modeling to establish latent recent and delayed memory trajectories, and then tested the effects of the aforementioned covariates on the latent intercept and slopes. RESULTS: Results showed that both recent and delayed recall display a quadratic trajectory of decline. All covariates significantly explained initial levels of immediate and delayed recall, but only a few had statistically significant effects on the slope terms. CONCLUSIONS: We discuss differences between present results and those previously reported in studies using a person-centered approach. This study provides evidence of memory decline during adulthood and old adulthood. Further, results provide support for the neural compensation reserve theory.

Creating false rewarding memories guides novel decision making.

When memories of past rewarding experiences are distorted, are relevant decision-making preferences impacted? Although recent research has demonstrated the important role of episodic memory in value-based decision making, very few have examined the role of false memory in guiding novel decision making. The current study combined the pictorial Deese/Roediger-McDermott false memory paradigm with a reward learning task, where participants learned that items from some related lists gained reward and items from other lists led to no reward. Later, participants' memories and decision-making preferences were tested. With three experiments conducted in three countries, we successfully created false memories of rewarding experiences in which participants falsely remembered seeing a nonpresented lure picture bring them reward thereby confirming our constructive association hypothesis. Such false memories led participants to prefer the lure pictures and respond faster in a follow-up decision-making task, and the more false memories they formed, the higher preferences for the lure items they displayed (Experiment 2). Finally, results were replicated with or without a memory test before the decision-making task, showing that the impact of false memory on decision making was not cued by a memory test (Experiment 3). Our data suggest that the reconstructive nature of memory enables individuals to create new memory episodes to guide decision making in novel situations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The effect of negative valence on false memory formation in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm: A preregistered meta-analysis and preregistered replication.

Participants in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm learn lists of words (e.g., bed, tired) associated with a nonpresented lure (i.e., sleep). In subsequent memory tests, individuals tend to report the nonlearned lures, that is, exhibiting false memories. Priorly, the DRM task has been criticized for not capturing the aversive nature of (clinically and forensically relevant) real-life memories. To obtain a robust estimate of the influence of negative versus neutral word lists on the DRM effect, we conducted both a preregistered meta-analysis (krecall = 49, nrecall = 2,209, krecognition = 75, nrecognition = 3,008, kresponsebias = 31, nresponsebias = 1,128) and replication (nfinal = 278) predicting increased false memories for negative valence in recall and recognition. For recall, we found significant frequentist evidence in the meta-analysis for a reversed valence effect (d = -0.18, i.e., reduced false memories for negative content vs. neutral), whereas the replication displayed null results (d = 0.03). For recognition, both the meta-analysis (d = 0.23) and replication (d = 0.35) showed that negative valence (vs. neutral) increased false memories. However, this effect may be confounded by shifts in response tendencies as controlling for response bias nullified the valence effect in our meta-analysis (dmeta = 0.05), and we found evidence for differential response bias in our replication (dreplica = 0.39). Hence, the effect of valence on false memory reports in the DRM may not represent a systematic difference in emotional information but instead depend on how memory is tested, and be partly attributable to differential response tendencies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Investigating the memory reports of retractors regarding abuse / Investigando la memoria de testigos que se retractan en casos de abuso

Background: Legal cases and research have shown that due to suggestive therapeutic interventions, people can start to remember abuse that they never experienced. Some of these people eventually retract their claims of abuse. This study examined the memory reports of self-defined retractors of abuse and the prevalence of nonbelieved memories. Method: In this study, a retrospective survey method was used to investigate 56 individuals who had retracted their claims of abuse. We examined details, plausibility, beliefs, and recollections of the abuse before and after retraction, as well as the reasons for withdrawing their belief and the outcomes of both recovered and retracted memories. Results: Twenty-four participants took significantly longer to retract the memories than to initially recover them. The belief in the occurrence of the abusive event and personal plausibility scores were significantly lower after the retraction, whereas the recollection scores were similar before and after the retraction. The main reason for withdrawing the belief in the abuse-related memory was the emergence of external evidence putting doubt on the retractors' claims. After the withdrawal of the memories, some retractors (n = 17, 70.83%, 95% CI [52.6%, 0.89%]) believed that they gained more benefits (e.g., giving them a new chance to re-build their lives and to establish new relationships with others). Conclusion: While the reliability of retractors' reports is unclear, these findings support related work on retractor memory reports and highlight the presence of nonbelieved memories within retractors' memory reports. (AU)

Antecedentes: Los casos judiciales y la investigación han demostrado que debido a intervenciones terapéuticas sugestivas, los pacientes pueden recordar abuso que no han sufrido. Algunos de estos se retractan de las denuncias de abuso. En esta investigación se analizan las memorias de testigos que se retractaron de las denuncias de abusos y la prevalencia de memorias implantadas. Método: Se investigó mediante un método de encuesta retrospectiva a 56 pacientes que se retractaron de la denuncia de abuso. Se analizaron los detalles, la verosimilitud, creencias y recuerdos del abuso antes y después de retractarse, así como los motivos por los que desistieron de la creencia en el abuso y los resultados de las memorias recuperadas y retractadas. Resultados: 24 participantes tardaron significativamente más en asumir la memoria de retractación de la denuncia que en la recuperación inicial de la memoria de abuso. La creencia sobre la realidad del evento de abuso y la plausibilidad de este fueron significativamente menores después de retractarse, mientras que los recuerdos eran semejantes antes y después de retractarse. El motivo principal para retractarse de la creencia en el recuerdo relacionado con el abuso fue la aparición de la prueba externa que sembró dudas en la declaración de quienes se retractaron. Tras haber desistido del recuerdo implantado, algunos de los que se retractaron (n = 17, 70.83%, 95% CI [52.6%, 0.89%]) manifestaron haberse beneficiado (e.g., les había dado una nueva oportunidad para reconstruir su vida y establecer nuevas relaciones con otros). Conclusión: Aunque no está clara la fiabilidad de los informes de los testigos que se retractan, los resultados avalan la investigación de la memoria de los testigos que se retractan y destacan la presencia de memorias implantadas en las declaraciones de los que se retractan. (AU)

Context-dependent memory recall in HMD-based immersive virtual environments.

The article introduces an original VR-based experiment which explores context-dependent memory recall in humans. It specifically examines the recall of correct and falsely induced semantic memories. With the aid of VR head-mounted displays, 92 students of psychology were placed in a computer-generated indoor virtual environment and asked to memorize the presented lists of words. Afterwards, the participants were placed in the same indoor virtual environment or an alternative outdoor virtual environment and asked to recall the words. The number of correct and falsely induced words was then measured. On average, women recalled significantly more correct words from the list than men, regardless of the environmental context. Despite the assumptions, we did not observe a separate effect of exposure to different environments during learning and recall of material on memory performance. Likewise, we did not detect any effects of the learning context or biological sex in the case of the production of false memories. These results provide a novel insight into previous knowledge regarding the memory processes that occur in virtual environments. Although we failed to confirm the role of context in recalling learned material in general, we found a hint that this context might interact with specific memory processes of biological sexes. However, the design of this study only captured the effect of changing the environment during memory recall and did not address the role of specific context in remembering learning material. Further research is therefore needed to better investigate these phenomena and examine the role of biological sex in context-dependent memory processes.

A scientometric and descriptive review on the debate about repressed memories and traumatic forgetting.

Recent work suggests that the debate surrounding repressed memory and traumatic forgetting continues today. To further investigate this debate, we performed preregistered scientometric analyses on publications on the debate about repressed memory to provide information about its bibliometric evolution. Furthermore, we reviewed these publications to highlight the different positions taken by scholars on this debate. We reviewed 434 publications extracted from Scopus and Web of Science from 1969 to 2022. Our scientometric analyses permitted us to visualize the development of the publications on repressed memories and identify the terminology used to label this phenomenon. We identified three waves of publications (i.e., 1994-2000; 2003-2009; 2012-2021) showing that there is a recent peak of scholarly attention into this topic. 40% of scholars supported the phenomenon of repressed memory while 29% did not. Moreover, although in the last wave of publications, 35% of articles included critical arguments against the existence of repressed memory, a sizable number of publications (21%) supported ideas in favour of repressed memory. Finally, we observed that the term dissociative amnesia is another expression used to refer to the phenomenon. Our results provide additional evidence that the debate on repressed memories (and dissociative amnesia) is far from being over.

La fragmentación de la identidad en la disociación y en las psicosis / Identity fragmentation in dissociation and psychoses

En la psiquiatría actual tenemos mucho interés en dilucidar las semejanzas y las diferencias existentes entre las experiencias psicóticas y las experiencias disociativas, y en especial las dinámicas patogénicas que dan lugar a unas y a otras, y los abordajes terapéuticos más eficaces en cada caso. Desde el punto de vista de la identidad plural, estas dos experiencias constituyen las dos grandes crisis biográficas funcionales que dan lugar a la fragmentación de la identidad, con la pérdida de su unidad y continuidad, además de su autonomía y autoestima. Ambas se diferencian por los mecanismos de represión y disociación que están en el origen de las mismas. Ahora bien, cualquier enfoque o hipótesis con la que tratemos de entender estos dos tipos de experiencias no debe limitarse a comprenderlas en sus representaciones actuales y en las claves que hoy llamaríamos “científicas”, porque experiencias de este tipo han existido a lo largo de la historia de la humanidad reconceptualizadas de forma distinta, en otras claves culturales, espirituales, religiosas o morales. (AU)

In current psychiatry, there is a great interest in elucidating the existing similarities and differences between psychotic experiences and dissociative ones; especially, the pathogenic dynamics that give rise to both of them, as well as the most effective therapeutic approaches in each case. From the point of view of plural identity, these two experiences make up the two great functional biographic crises that give rise to identity fragmentation, with the loss of their unity and continuity, in addition to the loss of their autonomy and self-esteem. Both of them are differentiated by the repression and dissociation mechanisms that exist in their origin. That said, any approach or hypothesis that we may use to try to understand these two types of experiences should not be limited to understanding them in their current representations and with the keys that we currently call “scientific”, because experiences of this type have existed throughout the history of humanity, reconceptualized differently in other cultural, spiritual, religious or moral keys. (AU)

Doctored photographs create false memories of spectacular childhood events. a replication of Wade et al. (2002) with a Scandinavian twist.

ABSTRACTCan exposure to a doctored photograph of a plausible yet fictitious childhood event create false memories in adults? Twenty years ago, (Wade, K. A., Garry, M., Don Read, J., & Lindsay, D. S. (2002). A picture is worth a thousand lies: Using false photographs to create false childhood memories. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9(3), 597-603) found that half of the participants reported false beliefs or memories after multiple interview sessions about a doctored photograph of themselves as children on a fictitious hot air balloon ride. In this replication, which rigorously recreated the method and procedure of Wade et al. (2002), participants were interviewed over three interview sessions using free recall and imagery techniques about three true and one fictitious childhood event photos. The balloon ride was modified to a culturally appropriate target event - a Viking ship ride - to ensure that the doctored photograph was functionally equivalent. The results showed almost identical patterns in the two studies: 40% (n = 8) of the participants reported partial or clear false beliefs or memories compared with 50% (n = 10) in the original study. The participants who reported false memories reported detailed and coherent memory narratives of the Viking ship ride not depicted in the doctored photograph. Our study successfully replicating the results of Wade et al. (2002), suggest that memories can relatively easily be implanted, regardless of cultural setting.

False memory in a second language: The importance of controlling the knowledge of word meaning.

In the globalized world we live in, it is increasingly common for people to speak more than one language. Although research in psychology has been widely interested in the study of false memories with the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, to date, there is a scarcity of studies comparing false memories in the first and the second language (L1 and L2, respectively). It is noteworthy that one of the most studied variables in the DRM paradigm, the backward associative strength (BAS), has hardly been studied in the L2. Moreover, the only study that recently examined this matter found differences in the knowledge of L2-word meaning between the high-BAS and low-BAS lists, which would hinder the interpretation of the BAS effect in L2 false memories. Taking all this into account, the current work examined false memories in the L1 (Spanish) and the L2 (English) as a function of BAS overcoming the limitations of the previous study. We selected DRM lists using both Spanish and English free association norms and lists were constructed to vary in BAS values while controlling the knowledge of word meaning. Results showed that false recognition was greater in the L1 or dominant language than in the L2 or non-dominant language. Furthermore, BAS modulated the false recognition in both the L1 and the L2. That is, false recognition was higher in high-BAS than low-BAS lists in both languages. Sensitivity index from the signal-detection theory helped us gain further insight into these results. The main findings are discussed in the light of theoretical models from both the false memory and the second language processing literature. Finally, practical implications and future research are provided.

Lost in the mall again: a preregistered replication and extension of Loftus & Pickrell (1995).

The seminal Lost in the Mall study has been enormously influential in psychology and is still cited in legal cases. The current study directly replicated this paper, addressing methodological weaknesses including increasing the sample size fivefold and preregistering detailed analysis plans. Participants (N = 123) completed a survey and two interviews where they discussed real and fabricated childhood events, based on information provided by an older relative. We replicated the findings of the original study, coding 35% of participants as reporting a false memory for getting lost in a mall in childhood (compared to 25% in the original study). In an extension, we found that participants self-reported high rates of memories and beliefs for the fabricated event. Mock jurors were also highly likely to believe the fabricated event had occurred and that the participant was truly remembering the event, supporting the conclusions of the original study.