Examining emotion specific memories: An investigation into the persistence of true and false memories

当人们回忆起没有发生的事件或错误地回忆起发生了的事件时，错误记忆就会发生。在法律背景下，对事件的不准确回忆可能导致定罪错误。因此，建立错误记忆可能发生的条件是很重要的。当人们接触到犯罪时，无论是作为目击者还是受害者，他们往往会经历一件有可能引发负面情绪的负面事件。此外，在经历这一负面事件和在法律诉讼期间召回它之间可能会有相当长的延迟。这些来自法医背景的重要因素直到最近才在错误记忆研究中得到检验。在实验室研究错误记忆最流行的方法之一是迪斯/罗迪格-麦克德莫特(DRM)范式。在这个范例中，参与者研究所有语义关联的单词列表(例如，雪茄、香烟、烟囱)与一个未呈现的单词(例如，烟雾)。我们把这个词称为关键诱饵。在随后的记忆测试中，参与者经常错误地回忆和识别这些关键的诱饵，而不是被研究的项目。我们把这称为错误记忆。此外，当参与者被要求对关键诱饵做出记忆-知道的判断时(其中，记忆反应表明参与者可以在精神上重新体验所研究项目的呈现，而知道反应表明参与者认为某个项目是熟悉的，但不能回忆起它的呈现)，他们通常会做出记忆反应。因此，DRM范式可以产生生动的错误记忆。一些实验已经使用该范式研究了负面情绪对错误记忆形成的影响。参与者可能会被要求在特定情绪下使用临时情绪诱导技术学习信息。参与者也可能被要求学习内容上负面或正面的信息。与取证情况特别相关的是，研究还操纵了参与者学习信息然后完成记忆测试的延迟。然而，研究尚未检验与这种取证情况相关的特定情绪如何影响对与该情绪相关的特定信息的回忆。考虑到最近的研究表明，我们对与我们研究时所经历的情绪/情绪相匹配的信息产生了更多的真实(和虚假)记忆，我们相信这一点可能特别有趣。此外，尽管研究表明，负面虚假记忆随着时间的推移而增加，但最近的证据表明，这种对情感虚假记忆的选择性巩固可能优先发生在睡眠期间，而不是随着时间本身的推移。解释来自REM睡眠期间发生的神经化学变化，这些变化导致大脑区域的活动，这些区域被认为在选择性巩固情绪刺激方面发挥作用。睡眠巩固在负性情绪错误记忆形成中的作用还有待研究。这项提案中概述的一系列实验将进一步研究这些因素(在这些事件中引发的特定情绪，以及事件编码和检索之间的延迟时间和类型)，这些因素可能会调节人们错误记忆情绪相关信息的程度。

False memories occur when people recollect events that did not happen or incorrectly recollect events that did happen. In legal contexts, the inaccurate recollection of events can lead to errors in convictions. It is therefore important to establish the conditions under which false remembering can occur. When people are exposed to a crime, either as a witness or a victim, they tend to experience a negative event that has the potential to induce a negative emotion. Furthermore, there can then be a considerable delay between experiencing this negative event and recalling it during legal proceedings. These important factors from the forensic context have only recently been examined in the false memory research. One of the most popular methods for studying false remembering in the laboratory is the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. In this paradigm, participants study a list of words that all semantically associated (e.g., cigar, cigarette, chimney) to one nonpresented word (e.g., smoke). We refer to this word as the critical lure. On subsequent memory tests, participants often falsely recall and recognise these critical lures more frequently than the studied items. We refer to this as a false memory. Moreover, when participants are asked to make remember-know judgments to the critical lures (where a remember response indicates participants can mentally re-experience the presentation of a studied item and a know response indicates participants believe an item is familiar but cannot recollect its presentation) they typically make a remember response. The DRM paradigm can therefore produce vivid false memories.A few experiments have studied the effect of negative emotions on false memory formation using this paradigm. Participants may be asked to study information while in a particular mood using a temporary mood induction technique. Participants may also be asked to study information that is emotionally negative or positive in content. Of particular relevance to forensic situations, research has also manipulated the delay from when the participants studies the information and then completes the memory test. However, research has yet to examine how specific emotions relevant to such forensic situations may impact on recall of specific information relevant to that emotion. We believe this could be of particular interest given that recent research shows we produce more true (and false) memories for information that matches the emotion/mood that we were experiencing at the time of study.Furthermore, although research has shown that negative false memories increase over time, recent evidence suggests that this selective consolidation for emotional false memories may occur preferentially during sleep rather than over time per se. The explanation comes from neurochemical changes that occur during REM sleep that result in activity in brain regions that are thought to play a role in the selective consolidation of emotional stimuli. The role of sleep consolidation on the formation of negative emotional false memories has yet to be examined. The series of experiments outlined in this proposal will further examine these factors (specific emotions elicited during these events and the time and type of delay between encoding and retrieval of the event) that have the potential to mediate the degree to which people falsely remember emotion relevant information.