NOT ALL KNOWLEDGE IS CREATED EQUALLY: ON THE DYNAMICS OF GOAL-ORIENTED FALSE MEMORIES OF AD HOC CATEGORIES

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Ad hoc categories and false memories: Memory illusions for categories created on-the-spot

Publication . Soro, Jerônimo C.; Ferreira, Mário B.; Semin, G. R.; Mata, André; Carneiro, Paula

Three experiments were designed to test whether experimentally created ad hoc associative networks evoke false memories. We used the DRM (Deese, Roediger, McDermott) paradigm with lists of ad hoc categories composed of exemplars aggregated toward specific goals (e.g., going for a picnic) that do not share any consistent set of features. Experiment 1 revealed considerable levels of false recognitions of critical words from ad hoc categories. False recognitions occurred even when the lists were presented without an organizing theme (i.e., the category’s label). Experiments 1 and 2 tested whether (a) the ease of identifying the categories’ themes, and (b) the lists’ backward associative strength could be driving the effect. List identifiability did not correlate with false recognition, and the effect remained even when backward associative strength was controlled for. Experiment 3 manipulated the distractor items in the recognition task to address the hypothesis that the salience of unrelated items could be facilitating the occurrence of the phenomenon. The effect remained when controlling for this source of facilitation. These results have implications for assumptions made by theories of false memories, namely the preexistence of associations in the activation-monitoring framework and the central role of gist extraction in fuzzy-trace theory, while providing evidence of the occurrence of false memories for more dynamic and context-dependent knowledge structures.

2017-11Journal article

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Memory illusions and the malleability of categorical knowledge : exploring false memories in ad hoc categories

Publication . Sôro, Jerônimo Cassol; Ferreira, Mário Augusto Boto, 1967-; Semin, Gün Refik

One of the assumptions behind false memories produced by presentation of lists of related words is that they share preexistent associations and stable representations in long-term memory. The goal of this thesis is to explore the production of false memories for lists of words that do not share preexistent associations and whose semantic relatedness is set by a specific context. For this end it was used lists of exemplars from ad hoc categories, which are goal-oriented categories with an ephemeral nature and generated by specific contexts. Three empirical chapters present experiments aimed at developing the material to be used and towards testing the occurrence of memory illusions in two types of ad hoc categories: inter and intra taxonomic. Inter-taxonomic ad hoc categories are characterized by being composed of exemplars from different common taxonomic categories and, thus, having few (if any) preexistent associations among them; Intra taxonomic ad hoc categories are composed of exemplars from the same common taxonomic category (making it an unusual subcategory). Inter-taxonomic ad hoc categories show production of false recognitions even when its theme (the category’s name) is not presented. These false recognitions showed a positive correlation with the participants’ capacity of identifying the themes of the ad hoc categories. In intra-taxonomic ad hoc categories the false recognition from ad hoc representations were only more frequent than false recognitions from common taxonomic representations when both the list structure and the category name presented referred to the ad hoc category (and, in this case, results suggest that the effect stem from the consistent representation of the ad hoc category and not because of the distinctiveness of the critical item of the common taxonomic representation in the ad hoc context). These limiting conditions for the false memory effect suggest that the preexistent taxonomic representation that underlies the intra-taxonomic ad hoc categories exerts considerable influence in the production of false recognitions. The production of false memories in lists of ad hoc categories expands the scope of this phenomenon to a new type of category representation with multiple uses in daily situations and may contribute to the revision and improvement of current theories of false memories.

2019Doctoral thesis

Open access

Memory illusions and category malleability: False recognition for goal-derived reorganizations of common categories

Publication . Ferreira, Mário B.; C. Soro, Jerônimo; Carneiro, Paula; Moreira, Sérgio

Four studies explore semantic memory intrusions for goal-derived subcategories (e.g., “sports good for backache”) embedded in taxonomic categories (e.g., “sports”). Study 1 presented hybrid lists (composed of typical items from both representations: taxonomic categories and subcategories) together with names of subcategories, names of taxonomic categories, or with no names. Subcategory names produced levels of false recognitions for critical lures from subcategories comparable with critical lures from taxonomic categories. Study 2 presented lists of exemplars either from taxonomic categories or subcategories (between participants). Lists of subcategories paired with their names produced higher levels of false recognition for subcategories lures compared with taxonomic lures. Study 3 replicated this result and showed that even though distinctiveness of taxonomic lures in a subcategory context (i.e., subcategory list with a subcategory name) may facilitate rejection of these lures, subcategory lures were still more falsely recognized than were taxonomic lures when retrieval monitoring was hindered through speeded recognition. Study 4 replicated the results with lists in which production frequency was better controlled and with a larger sample allowing for increased power of the test. Although confirming the critical role of preexistent categorical structures in the generation of false memories, results show that false memories for goal-derived subcategories can occur with the same frequency as false memories stemming from better established taxonomic categories. Such results broaden the scope of occurrence of false memories to goal-derived semantic organizations, which are often closer to categorizations used in real-world environments.

2020Journal article

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