With sadness comes accuracy; with happiness, false memory: mood and the false memory effect

Psychol Sci. 2005 Oct;16(10):785-91. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01615.x.

Abstract

The Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm lures people to produce false memories. Two experiments examined whether induced positive or negative moods would influence this false memory effect. The affect-as-information hypothesis predicts that, on the one hand, positive affective cues experienced as task-relevant feedback encourage relational processing during encoding, which should enhance false memory effects. On the other hand, negative affective cues are hypothesized to encourage item-specific processing at encoding, which should discourage such effects. The results of Experiment 1 are consistent with these predictions: Individuals in negative moods were significantly less likely to show false memory effects than those in positive moods or those whose mood was not manipulated. Experiment 2 introduced inclusion instructions to investigate whether moods had their effects at encoding or retrieval. The results replicated the false memory finding of Experiment 1 and provide evidence that moods influence the accessibility of lures at encoding, rather than influencing monitoring at retrieval of whether lures were actually presented.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Acoustic Stimulation / methods
  • Affect / physiology*
  • Cues
  • Happiness*
  • Humans
  • Mental Recall / physiology
  • Repression, Psychology*
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Students / psychology