Graduation Term

2024

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Department of Psychology

Committee Chair

Dawn M. McBride

Abstract

The Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm was developed to investigate false memory using lists of words related to an associated, non-present lure. The purpose of the present study was to examine the differences in memory errors for semantic and phonological lists across delays using the DRM paradigm. Previous studies have shown that the higher rates of false memories for semantic than phonological lists typically seen at longer delays is reversed for very short delays (McBride et al., 2019). Delays of 750 ms, 60 s, 90 s, and 2 min, were included to examine the false memory error rates in semantic and phonological lists and the transition between primarily phonological errors in the short-term to semantic errors in long-term memory. I hypothesized that the change in errors starts from one type of processing to the other at about a 90 s delay between study of the lists and the test item with an increase for semantic errors at delays longer than 90 s. The results showed significantly higher phonologically-based false memories across all delays with one exceptions: there was not a significant difference between the two list types at the 90 s delay. These results suggest that meaning-based relations begin to influence the production of false memories at 90 s delay. However, at the 2 min delay, there were also significantly higher phonologically-based false memories, which suggests that a 2 min delay might not be delayed long enough for the meaning-based relations to primarily take over.KEYWORDS: false memory; short-term memory; long-term memory; phonological lists; semantic lists; DRM paradigm

Access Type

Thesis-Open Access

DOI

https://doi.org/10.30707/ETD2024.20240827063558255252.999961

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