Cognitive Psychology

Activity based
Assignment
Topic : Redesigning Roediger’s and McDermott’s experiment on false
recognition.

Submitted by :

Naziya Zaina Naufal

MSc. Psychology (1st Sem)

Msy417

Rajagiri College of Social Sciences

Submitted to:

Ms. Christina Mariam Chacko

Assistant Professor

Rajagiri College of Social Sciences

 Index

Name Page Number

Introduction
1.1 Experimental Psychology 2
1.2 Memory 3
1.3 False Memories 5
1.4 Colour and Memory 7
10
COLOUR-CODED RECOGNITION

MEMORY

(REDESIGNED EXPERIMENT)

13
Hypothesis
13
Objective
13
Method
16
Results
17
Discussion
17
Conclusion
18
Reference
Introduction

1.1 Experimental Psychology

Experimental Psychology is defined in various ways. The early authors defined

experimental psychology in terms of its content. But the present trend is to define
experimental psychology in terms of scientific methodology. The psychological problems
should be studied systematically giving more importance to the methods by which
information is collected. Therefore experimental psychology may be defined as the
specialised branch of psychology in which the scientific methods are used to collect

1
information about the problem studied. The experimenter can also determine the variable that
is having control over the psychological reactions.

Sheridan (1979) states that experimental psychology is that branch of psychology in

which experimental methods are used. According to him, it is a comprehensive discipline and
the experimental psychologists can raise and answer questions about hatred, memory,
meditation, vision, mutual attraction, decision making and any other psychological subject
matter. His definition is simple. Whenever experimental method is applied to psychological
events, it is an instance of experimental psychology serves as a source of information for all
fields of psychology. This definition seems to encompass all the fields of psychology into its
fold.

Objectives of Experimental Psychology

The primary objective of experimental psychology is the study of behaviour of the

organism systematically this is also one of the objectives of psychology in general. But
experimental psychology has certain specific objectives. The first objective is to formulate
hypothesis and to measure the psychological events and verify the hypothesis. The other
objective is to predict the conditions under which the specific psychological events would
occur. The objective is that if one is desired to produce the same psychological events with
the same technique he will be able to produce. The objectives of science are the
measurement, analysis and synthesis of the subject matter. Experimental psychology also
fulfil in its function.

1.2 Memory

Memory is today defined in psychology as the faculty of encoding, storing, and retrieving

information (Squire, 2009). Psychologists have found that memory includes three important

categories: sensory, short-term, and long-term. Each of these kinds of memory have different

attributes, for example, sensory memory is not consciously controlled, short-term memory

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can only hold limited information, and long-term memory can store an indefinite amount of

information.

Key to the emerging science of memory is the question of how memory is consolidated

and processed. Long-term storage of memories happens on a synaptic level in most

organisms (Bramham and Messaoudi, 2005), but, in complex organisms like ourselves, there

is also a second form of memory consolidation: systems consolidation moves, processes, and

more permanently stores memories (Frankland and Bontempi, 2005).

The fact that experiences influence subsequent behaviour is evidence of an obvious but

nevertheless remarkable activity called remembering. Memory is both a result of and an

influence on perception, attention, and learning. The basic pattern of remembering consists of

attention to an event followed by the representation of that event in the brain. Repeated

attention, or practice, results in a cumulative effect on memory and enables certain activities.

Research by the American psychologist and philosopher William James (1842–1910) led him

to distinguish two types of memory: primary, for handling immediate concerns, and

secondary, for managing a storehouse of information accumulated over time. Memory

researchers have since used the term short-term memory to refer to the primary or short-lived

memory functions identified by James. Long-term memory refers to the relatively permanent

information that is stored in and retrieved from the brain.

Some aspects of memory can be likened to a system for storing and efficiently

retrieving information. One system in particular—identified as “working memory” by the

British psychologist Alan Baddeley—is essential for problem solving or the execution of

complex cognitive tasks. It is characterized by two components: short-term memory and

“executive attention.” Short-term memory comprises the extremely limited number of items

that humans are capable of keeping in mind at one time, whereas executive attention is a

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function that regulates the quantity and type of information that is either accepted into or

blocked from short-term memory.

Short-term memory is restricted in both capacity and duration: a limited amount of

information will remain active for a few seconds at best unless renewed attention to the

information successfully reactivates it in working memory. Before such “renewal” occurs,

most information arrives in working memory through sensory inputs, the two most prevalent

being aural and visual. Baddeley posited that working memory is supported by two systems:

the phonological loop, which processes aural information, and the visuospatial sketch pad,

which processes visual and spatial information. When information is acquired aurally, the

brain encodes the information according to the way it sounds. A person who hears a spoken

telephone number and retains the information long enough to complete dialing is employing

the phonological loop, a function of working memory involving, in effect, an inner voice

and inner ear each person utilizes to rehearse and recall information.

Many phenomena can degrade the accuracy of memories. For example, the memory

of an eyewitness to a crime may be distorted if he reads news accounts of the crime that

contain photographs of a person suspected of committing it. Later, the eyewitness may

erroneously believe that the suspect in the news account is the person whom he saw commit

the crime. In this case, memory of the crime and memory of the photograph blend to create a

vivid—albeit incorrect—memory of an event that never occurred. Such inaccuracies are not

uncommon. The American psychologist Elizabeth Loftus showed that even the manner in

which people are questioned about an event can alter their memory of it. Other studies have

shown that psychotherapists may inadvertently implant false memories in the minds of their

clients. Such outcomes illustrate the degree to which imagination can have powerful effects

on memory.

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1.3 False Memories

False memories also can be created in laboratory experiments. Subjects who are asked to

study a list of words that are related to a particular nonpresented word will claim to remember

seeing the non presented word. For example, after studying the

words bed, rest, wake, tired, awake, dream, doze, blanket, snooze, drowsy, snore, and nap, a

large number of subjects will claim to recall seeing the word sleep, even though it was not on

the list. Although false memories created in laboratory settings differ from false memories of

real-world events, they cast light on the processes involved in the creation and maintenance

of memory errors, as demonstrated in research by the American psychologists Henry

Roediger and Kathleen McDermott.

In our everyday life, we often use a combination of recognition and recall to help us

retrieve information from memory. Recall, in psychology, the act of retrieving information or

events from the past while lacking a specific cue to help in retrieving the information.

Recognition, in psychology, a form of remembering characterized by a feeling of familiarity

when something previously experienced is again encountered; in such situations a correct

response can be identified when presented but may not be reproduced in the absence of such

a stimulus. Recognition seems to indicate selective retention and forgetting of certain

elements of experience. Controlled tests of recognition have been used by experimental

psychologists since the late 19th century to give insight into the processes of human memory.

The false recognition phenomenon is the finding that new items that are related to

actually presented items are falsely recognized as old in a recognition test much more often

than are unrelated new items. A popular procedure used to investigate this phenomenon has

come to be known as the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm because it was

5
introduced by Deese (1959) and Roediger and McDermott (1995). The basic task involves the

presentation of a set of items (typically words) that are related to one another in some

fashion, with the participant instructed to study them in order to be able to remember them

later. In the recognition version of the procedure the test phase contains an intermixed list of

old items, unrelated new items, and new items that are related to the old items (which are

called critical lures).

False memories, often defined as erroneous recognition of stimuli related to target

memories, have been extensively studied in the context of episodic/long-term memory using

paradigms based on conceptual and perceptual similarity (e.g., Ly et al., 2013; Pidgeon and

Morcom, 2014), and with different types of target memories (e.g., Roediger and McDermott,

1995; Koutstaal et al., 1999). Three alternative but not mutually exclusive mechanisms have

been offered to explain why we produce false memories: overreliance on gist or familiarity

(e.g., Brainerd and Reyna, 2002), binding/associative deficits (e.g., Lyle et al., 2006), and

impairments of source monitoring (see Mitchell and Johnson, 2010). Older adults were found

to usually commit more FAs in episodic memory tasks than younger adults (for review

see Devitt and Schacter, 2016).

False memories have been documented not only in episodic memory but also in STM for

semantically related words (e.g., Deese, 1959; Roediger and McDermott, 1995; Atkins and

Reuter-Lorenz, 2008, 2011; Abadie and Camos, 2019) as well as perceptually related objects

(Lewandowska et al., 2018). The underlying mechanisms remain unclear with studies

suggesting either common (Atkins and Reuter-Lorenz, 2008, 2011; Flegal et al., 2010) or

complementary mechanisms of FAs in short- and long-term memory (Abadie and Camos,

2019). The recent findings of Abadie and Camos (2019) suggest that FAs in STM arise when

verbatim memory (i.e., memory for detailed surface forms of items) no longer blocks gist

long term memory (i.e., memory for general meaning or pattern, see Brainerd and Reyna,

6
2002). Accordingly, FAs in STM occur in tasks based on semantic-relatedness of words, in

which verbatim memory can be easily impaired by either interference from multiple items or

by a secondary task, and as a consequence, gist long-term memory can impact performance

(Coane et al., 2007; Atkins and Reuter-Lorenz, 2008; Abadie and Camos, 2019). However,

erroneous recognitions were observed also in tasks with abstract objects and visual masks

(Lewandowska et al., 2018, 2019). In such tasks the influence of pre-existing semantic

representations from long-term memory is reduced, and the verbatim memory is not affected

by a secondary task (e.g., arithmetic distractor). Thus, in such procedures based on

perceptual-relatedness FAs in STM cannot be easily explained by the influence of long-term

memory. In consequence, rather common/partially common than complementary mechanisms

of short- and long-term false memories can be assumed.

1.4 Colour and memory

Colour is believed to be the most important visual experience to human beings. It

functions as a powerful information channel to the human cognitive system and has been

found to play a significant role in enhancing memory performance. Colour can be very

effective in learning and educational setting, marketing, communication, or even sport. For

instance, a marketing study has found that colour can increase brand recognition by up to

80%. Most advertisements use colour as one of the important element in influencing people’s

attention, attitude towards the product, and pressuring decision making. According to White,

coloured advertisements can attract people to read the advertisement up to 42% more often

than the non-coloured advertisement. This shows the importance of colour in making the

information or message more attractive to the public.

Colour helps us in memorizing certain information by increasing our attentional level.

The role played by colour in enhancing our attention level is undisputable. The more

7
attention focused on certain stimuli, the more chances of the stimuli to be transferred to a

more permanent memory storage. As stated earlier, colours have the potential to attract

attention. Farley and Grant, were among the earliest who came out with a theory suggesting

that colours have a greater effect on attention. This conclusion was based on their study on

attention and cognition. They compared colour and noncolour multimedia presentations on

memory performance. It was reported that the coloured multimedia presentation resulted in

better attention than the non-coloured presentation. Greene, Bell, and Boyer, further

explained that warm types of colours such as yellow, red and orange have been found to have

a greater effect on attention compared to the cool type of colours like brown and gray.

Pan found similar findings in his study on working memory and visual attention. In his

study, participants were asked to identify whether the colour or the shape of the two objects

that were presented were the same. In the first experiment, the colours of the two objects

were the same but the shapes were different, while in the second experiment the conditions

were reversed. The result showed that the participants’ response times were faster in

identifying the differences in colours compared to differences in the shapes of the objects in

both experimental conditions. This finding can be interpreted to show that colours have a

better and greater ability to capture attention than other variables.

Arousal, especially emotional arousal, can play an essential role in keeping the

information in the memory system. Colours can enhance the relationship between arousal and

memory. Kaya and Epps, asked their 98 college student volunteers in public institutions to

associate colours with emotion. It was found that the majority of participants associated green

colour with the feeling of calmness, happiness, comfort, peace, hope, and excitement. Black

colour was associated with the feeling of sadness, depression, fear, and anger. This means

that colours have an emotional arousing effect. However, the degree of arousal level may

differ depending on the type of emotion or feeling being attached to it. According to Jackson,

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Wu, Linden, and Raymond, some types of emotion may have a greater effect on arousal than

the others. For instance, anger was found to have a greater arousal effect than happy or

neutral type of emotion. Red colour is being attached with stronger emotion or feeling

compared to the other type of colours. Based on the studies mentioned, it shows that colour

can produce an emotional arousing effect but the degree or range of arousal varies depending

on the emotional element that is attached with specific type of colour.

An important aspect in successful and efficient cognitive functioning is the abilities to

utilize the system to the fullest. Research on memory has provided a vast strategy that can be

used to ensure successful retrieval. There appears to be a basis for associating colour and its

significant effect on memory abilities. In other words, colour has the potential to increase

chances of environmental stimuli to be encoded, stored, and retrieved successfully. The

choice of colours and the manipulative aspects can, however, influence the extent to which

colours can influence human memory performance.

COLOUR-CODED RECOGNITION MEMORY

(REDESIGNED EXPERIMENT)

Recognition memory involves the ability to identify stimuli based on previous

experience with them, and judgments can be made using various types of information such as

an object's characteristics (familiarity) or where (spatial location) or when (temporal order) it

was encountered. It is a widely accepted fact that colours play an important role in encoding

certain stimuli. Infact colour plays a role in forming schemas in the brain. This experiment

9
combines colour coding and recognition memory. The original experiment did not contain

any colour coded elements. It mainly focussed on recognition memory.

The original experiment consists of three categories of simple words. The participant

is allowed to read the words for 30 seconds. Next, a set of 8 words were shown and they were

asked to report the words that they recognized from the first list. The words are shown in

below.

List 1.

1 2 3

Hill Table Bed

Valley Sit Rest

Climb Legs Awake

Summit Seat Tired

Top Couch Dream

Molehill Desk Wake

Peak Recliner Snooze

Plain Sofa Blanket

Glacier Wood Doze

Goat Cushion Slumber

Bike Swivel Snore

Climber Stool Nap

Range Sitting Peace

Steep Rocking Yawn

10
 Ski Bench Drowsy

List 2

Chair

Top

Sleep

Slow

Seat

Yawn

Mountain

Sweet

It was found that some participants falsely reported having seen words like slow,

sweet, strong in the first list, despite the fact that they didn’t appear in List 1. Clearly, false

recognition had taken place here.

Redesigned Experiment

This experiment contains two trials. In the first trial the lists will be shown with the

words in black colour. In the second trial, list 3 will be colour coded while list 4 remains in

black. A comparison of the trial will reveal if colour coding creates any significant difference

in recognition memory or false recognition.

List 3

1 2 3

Hill Table Bed

Valley Sit Rest

11
 Climb Legs Awake

Summit Seat Tired

Top Couch Dream

Molehill Desk Wake

Peak Recliner Snooze

Plain Sofa Blanket

Glacier Wood Doze

Goat Cushion Slumber

Bike Swivel Snore

Climber Stool Nap

Range Sitting Peace

Steep Rocking Yawn

Ski Bench Drowsy

List 4

Couch

Molehill

Sleep

Slow

Seat

Yawn

Mountain

12
 Standing

Hypothesis

1. Recognition Memory increases when the words are colour coded.

Objective

To determine the effect of colour coding in recognition memory.

Method

The participant is shown List 1 in Black Colour first. This is Trial 1.

List 1.

1 2 3

Hill Table Bed

Valley Sit Rest

Climb Legs Awake

Summit Seat Tired

Top Couch Dream

Molehill Desk Wake

Peak Recliner Snooze

Plain Sofa Blanket

Glacier Wood Doze

Goat Cushion Slumber

Bike Swivel Snore

Climber Stool Nap

13
 Range Sitting Peace

Steep Rocking Yawn

Ski Bench Drowsy

Next, the participant is shown List 2 in Black colour and asked if there are any words that

they do not recognize from List 1. This is Trial 2.

List 2

Chair

Top

Sleep

Slow

Seat

Yawn

Mountain

Sweet

The responses are recorded.

Next, the participant is shown List 3 in colour.

List 3

1 2 3

Hill Table Bed

Valley Sit Rest

Climb Legs Awake

Summit Seat Tired

14
 Top Couch Dream

Molehill Desk Wake

Peak Recliner Snooze

Plain Sofa Blanket

Glacier Wood Doze

Goat Cushion Slumber

Bike Swivel Snore

Climber Stool Nap

Range Sitting Peace

Steep Rocking Yawn

Ski Bench Drowsy

Next, they are shown List 4 in Black colour.

List 4

Couch

Molehill

Sleep

Slow

Seat

Yawn

Mountain

Standing

The responses are recorded. The responses are compared and interpretations are made.

Results

15
The experiment was done on two girls aged 21 years.

Participant 1 Participant 2

Trial 1 : Recognized 2 words correctly. Trial 1 : Recognized 1 word correctly. No

false recognition was made.

No false recognition was made.

Trial 2 : Recognized 3 words correctly. Trial 2: Recognized 3 words correctly. No

false recognition was made.

No false recognition was made.

Discussion

The aim of the experiment was to find the effect of colour coding on Recognition Memory

and to find out if false recognition occurs. The trial was done on 2 participants and so the

results cannot be taken as conclusive since the sample size is really small. However it is seen

that both the participants’ recognition memory increased in the second trial. There can be 2

reasons to this:

1. Practice and familiarity effect has happened. The list is familiar to the participant

when shown for the second time and so there is a chance that memory retention

increased.

2. The colours helped the participants to remember more words in thus aiding in

memory recognition.

One thing to be noted is that both the participants did not report any false recognition.

This can be because the participants were well focussed and a deeper level of processing

must have taken place in a short span of time.

16
 There is a good chance of false recognition taking place if the experiment was done

on a large sample. However, it can be seen that colours do play a role in encoding.

Conclusion

False recognition was not reported but there was an increase the number of words that

were recognized.

References:

1. Sikora-Wachowicz, B., Lewandowska, K., Keresztes, A., Werkle-Bergner, M.,

Marek, T., & Fafrowicz, M. (2019). False Recognition in Short-Term Memory-Age-

differences in Confidence. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 2785.

2. memory | Definition, Retrieval, & Forgetting | Britannica

3. Dzulkifli, M. A., & Mustafar, M. F. (2013). The influence of colour on memory

performance: a review. The Malaysian journal of medical sciences : MJMS, 20(2), 3–

9.

4. Roediger, H. L., & McDermott, K. B. (1995). Creating false memories: Remembering

words not presented in lists. Journal of experimental psychology: Learning, Memory,

and Cognition, 21(4), 803.

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