Prime time news: The influence of primed positive and negative emotion on susceptibility to false memories

Abstract

We examined the relation between emotion and susceptibility to misinformation using a novel paradigm, the ambiguous stimuli affective priming (ASAP) paradigm. Participants (N = 88) viewed ambiguous neutral images primed either at encoding or retrieval to be interpreted as either highly positive or negative (or neutral/not primed). After viewing the images, they either were asked misleading or non-leading questions. Following a delay, memory accuracy for the original images was assessed. Results indicated that any emotional priming at encoding led to a higher susceptibility to misinformation relative to priming at recall. In particular, inducing a negative interpretation of the image at encoding led to an increased susceptibility of false memories for major misinformation (an entire object not actually present in the scene). In contrast, this pattern was reversed when priming was used at recall; a negative reinterpretation of the image decreased memory distortion relative to unprimed images. These findings suggest that, with precise experimental control, the experience of emotion at event encoding, in particular, is implicated in false memory susceptibility.

Keywords:

• Emotion
• False memory
• Memory

Notes

¹ Selected photos include images numbers: 4598, 7620, 8117, 8190, 8300 and 8400.

² Although some of the primed interpretations (i.e., situations) may be more familiar or distinctive to participants than others, we contest that the advantage of the ASAP procedure lies primarily in the constancy of image characteristics across condition. Importantly, questions assessing memory accuracy and distortion concern image, not situational, details.

³ Only one major misleading detail was included to reduce the possibility of making participants aware of the misleading nature of the questions. For a similar procedure see Porter et al., 2010.