Running head: MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 1
Modality Effects in False Memory Production Using the Misinformation Paradigm
Megan Hendrich
Marietta College
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Marietta College
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Master of Arts in Psychology
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 3
Abstract
Human memories are often prone to memory errors and distortions (Loftus, 2005; Straube,
2012). One commonly studied memory error is false memory, which refers to memories or details in memories that are fictitious or altered (Straube, 2012). Past research using the Deese-
Roediger-McDermott (DRM) task (Roediger & McDermott, 1995) has found that the modalities—specifically visual or auditory—in which information is encoded and tested can affect rates of false memory (e.g., Smith & Hunt, 1998); however, little research has examined how modality effects may impact false memory in the misinformation paradigm. The current study examined the effects of visual and auditory modalities and encoding-misinformation modality mismatch on false memory using the misinformation paradigm. Participants completed the misinformation paradigm in visual and/or auditory modalities for the event encoding phase and misinformation phase, and then participants’ veridical memory rate, misinformation- consistent response rate, and false memory rate were examined. It was found that the misinformation modality had a significant effect on the veridical memory rate. Participants in the auditory misinformation modality had higher veridical memory scores than participants in the visual misinformation modality. It is suggested that hearing the auditory description of the event during the second phase of the misinformation paradigm may have strengthened participants’ memories of the unmanipulated information more than viewing the pictorial description strengthened participants’ memories.
Keywords: false memory, misinformation paradigm, modality effects, visual and auditory MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 4
Modality Effects in False Memory Production Using the Misinformation Paradigm
Decades of research on memory has shown that human memories are prone to memory errors and distortions (Loftus, 2005; Loftus, Miller, & Burns, 1978; Straube, 2012). One commonly studied memory error is false memory, which refers to memories or details in memories that are fictitious or altered (Straube, 2012). The two main paradigms for studying false memory include the misinformation paradigm (Loftus et al., 1978) and the Deese-Roediger-
McDermott (DRM) task (Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Research using the DRM task has found that the modalities—specifically visual or auditory—in which information is encoded and tested can affect rates of false memory (Gallo, McDermott, Percer, & Roediger, 2001;
Olszewska, Reuter-Lorenz, Munier, & Bendler, 2015; Smith & Hunt, 1998); however, little research has examined how modality effects may impact false memory in the misinformation paradigm (Dijkstra & Moerman, 2012; Stark, Okado, & Loftus, 2010). The current study examined the effects of visual and auditory modalities and encoding-misinformation modality mismatch on false memory using the misinformation paradigm.
False Memory Research
False memory refers to the type of memory error that involves remembering events or details of events that did not actually happen (Straube, 2012). Declarative memories—memories that can be consciously recalled such as events and knowledge—are more prone to false memories than other memory systems, likely because declarative memories are flexible representations of the world, and their flexibility can lead to errors (Straube, 2012). Further, episodic memory—a subset of declarative memory that is characterized as memory for autobiographical events—is the most frequently researched aspect of false memory because it is considered most vulnerable to memory errors due to its constructive nature. This type of memory MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 5 is constructive because it involves combining pieces of information so that one’s memories are more easily accessible and organized, and the new information is integrated with previous knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs (Schacter, 2012). The constructive nature of memory is seen as adaptive because it supports the processing of memories in a way that is useful and promotes efficient functioning. For example, combining and integrating new and old information allows people to develop and update schemas that help them understand how the world works and make judgments quickly. This can also lead to generalization and abstract thinking that can allow people to imagine future events, without experiencing them, based on past knowledge. However, this constructive process also often leads to memory errors and distortions. Due to this process, episodic memories are not perfect reflections of the world; they are highly influenced by factors such as prior knowledge and emotion (Straube, 2012). Therefore, even though people may be confident in their memories, their memories may be inaccurate representations of what actually occurred (Loftus, 2005).
Some of the first research looking at false memory was performed by Loftus et al. (1978), where the researchers investigated how people’s memories of an event are affected after being provided with misinformation about the event. In this series of studies, the researchers presented participants with a series of pictures showing the progression of an auto-pedestrian accident. The critical pictures involved showing the car at the corner of an intersection (before the accident) with either a stop sign or a yield sign on the corner. The participants then completed a questionnaire in which the critical question asked if the car was passed by another car while at either a stop or yield sign. Half of the participants received consistent information (e.g., stop sign in picture and question), and half of the participants received inconsistent information (e.g., yield sign in picture and stop sign in question). After a filler activity, participants viewed pairs of MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 6 pictures and were asked which one was in the original set of pictures. The critical pair of pictures showed the car stopped at either a stop sign or a yield sign.
Overall, the experiments by Loftus et al. (1978) showed that the misleading information led people to have less accurate responses on the memory tests, and people believed that the misinformation was what they actually saw in the original pictures. The effect of misinformation is similar to the effect of retroactive interference, which occurs when new information interferes with the accuracy of past memories; however, the misinformation also biases the memory instead of just interfering with its accuracy (Loftus, 2005). Additionally, this series of experiments examined several factors related to the misinformation effect. First, the experiments showed that participants’ responses were not influenced by demand characteristics (e.g., if the participants noticed the different signs from the picture and question, guessed the experimental hypothesis, and then based their answer on that). Second, the participants had in fact seen the original sign
(i.e., if they had not seen the original sign, the misinformation may have just added information where there was none previously). Finally, these experiments showed that performance on the memory test was poorer if the misleading information was presented after a delay in which the original memory may have been weakened. These studies—and further research on the topic— show that people integrate information from multiple sources into their memories, which can be detrimental in some cases because it may lead to incorrect or false memories.
Further research using misinformation techniques has shown that people are able to recall completely false autobiographical events after receiving misleading information (Loftus &
Pickrell, 1995). Loftus and Pickrell (1995) conducted the first “lost in the mall” study to show how false events could be implanted in people’s memories. After talking with family members of the participants, the researchers constructed a realistic false memory for each participant: getting MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 7 lost in a mall or store at the age of five and being assisted by an elderly person. Throughout two interviews about the false event, a quarter of the participants indicated that they had at least a partial memory of the event; however, compared with their descriptions of true-life childhood events, the participants described the false events with less detail and less clarity. Interestingly, the researchers also found that some participants began to add their own details to the false memories by their last interview and were reluctant to believe that the memories were false. This study is one example of how entire false memories can be supplanted through suggestion.
Other research studies have additionally shown that false memories can persist for a long time after the initial encoding (Lommen, Engelhard, & van den Hout, 2013; Zhu et al., 2012).
For example, during interviews about stressful experiences during recent military deployment to
Afghanistan, Lommen et al. (2013) suggested to soldiers a fictional event had occurred during deployment. All the soldiers initially stated that they had not experienced that event; however, seven months later, 26% of the soldiers believed they had experienced the event during deployment. A different study by Zhu et al. (2012) used the misinformation paradigm—a common false memory induction technique based on the methods used by Loftus et al. (1978) that presents a series of pictures followed by a misinformation narrative (described below)—to show that false memories can last for at least a year and a half after the memory was initially encoded. The researchers found that the false memory traces were as strong as the true memory traces when tested after that time period (Zhu et al., 2012).
The research methods used by Loftus et al. (1978) represent the seminal research on the misinformation effect; however, false memory has also been researched using other paradigms.
The most common method for studying false memory is the DRM task (Roediger & McDermott,
1995). In this task, people are presented with a list of to-be-remembered words. The lists are MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 8 created by using words that are semantically related to a critical word (e.g., the critical word sleep is associated with words such as bed, rest, tired, nap, etc.), but the critical word is not actually included in the list (see Figure 1). Roediger and McDermott (1995) found that the critical words were falsely remembered—through both recall and recognition—at a rate similar to correct memory for other words on the list. Additionally, people were often confident that the critical word was in the original list, and they sometimes indicated that they actually remembered hearing the critical item in the list rather than just generally “knowing” that the item was presented. The authors concluded that false memories could occur if the memory fits the general schema of past memories, and the false memories could act as actual conscious recollections
(i.e., remember judgments) rather than just gist memories (i.e., know judgments). Overall, the large body of research on false memory shows that false memories can occur easily and frequently, and these memories can last for long periods of time.
The DRM task is by far the most common measure of false memory; one review of 198 false memory articles reported that 41.4% of the studies used the DRM task compared to 16.2% using a misinformation-related paradigm (Pezdek & Lam, 2007). However, some researchers have questioned the applicability of the DRM task to naturalistic contexts and argued that the misinformation paradigm is considered to be more applicable to real-world memory distortions
(Frenda, Patihis, Loftus, Lewis, & Fenn, 2014; Lo, Chong, Ganesan, Leong, & Chee, 2016; Stark et al., 2010). Chatburn, Kohler, Payne, and Drummond (2017) note that the DRM task only uses a single sensory modality; however, there may be differences in false memory in different sensory modalities because they use different regions of the brain. Additionally, the brain uses other processing options that are not reflected in the DRM task, and the DRM task may only represent one mechanism of false memory generation (Chatburn et al., 2017; Straube, 2012). MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 9
Furthermore, some research has suggested that the DRM task and misinformation paradigm assess different types of false memory (Calvillo & Parong, 2016; Zhu, Chen, Loftus, Lin, &
Dong, 2013). The misinformation paradigm, as described below, focuses on discriminating between two external memory sources, whereas the DRM task focuses on discriminating between an external memory source and an internal memory source (Calvillo & Parong, 2016).
The differences in the DRM task and misinformation paradigm may influence the results of false memory studies, so it is important to investigate false memory using both paradigms. Almost all the studies looking at modality effects in false memory, however, have used the DRM task.
Misinformation paradigm. The misinformation effect refers to a memory distortion that occurs after receiving false or misleading information (Loftus, 2005). Therefore, in the misinformation paradigm, participants are presented with false information about an event after witnessing the actual event (Lo et al., 2016). Outside of research, the misinformation effect is often referenced when talking about eyewitness testimony (Loftus, 2005). Eyewitnesses to a crime or event may be influenced to misremember the event based on leading or suggestive questions presented by police or lawyers. Eyewitnesses may also be influenced by later seeing information about the event in the media. The misinformation paradigm is meant to be more applicable to these real-world situations because it relies on two external sources of memory rather than an external and an internal source, such as the DRM task uses. The misinformation paradigm utilizes three main phases: event encoding (i.e., the presentation of pictures depicting an event), misinformation (i.e., the presentation of narrative sentences that give false information about the previously viewed pictures), and memory and source tests (i.e., tests asking what occurred in the original pictures and from where they remembered this information). MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 10
For example, during the event encoding, participants may view a series of 50 pictures depicting a man stealing a woman’s wallet (Frenda et al., 2014). In one of the critical pictures, the man puts the wallet into his jacket pocket. Later in the misinformation phase, the participants read a narrative that describes the series of pictures; however, three statements are changed so that they are providing misinformation. One of the critical statements might say that the man put the woman’s wallet in his pants pocket, which would be misinformation, as the man actually put the wallet in his jacket pocket. After a break (studies have used varying intervals), the participants would then take the memory test that asks where the man hid the woman’s wallet in the original set of pictures: his jacket pocket (original information), his pants pocket
(misinformation), or his sleeve (novel information). Immediately after the memory test, the participants would take the source test. They would be presented with the questions they just answered on the memory test accompanied by a question asking where they acquired the information: pictures only, narratives only, both (and they were the same), both (and they were different), or they guessed.
The misinformation paradigm provides the researcher with measures of participants’ veridical memory rate, misinformation-consistent response rate, and false memory rate (Frenda et al., 2014). Veridical memory is assessed by determining the rate of correct responses to noncritical questions (i.e., questions not involving any misinformation). The misinformation- consistent response rate is the rate at which participants used misinformation from the narratives when responding to critical questions. Finally, the false memory rate is the percentage of times participants chose the misinformation and indicated on the source test that it came from the pictures (by choosing “pictures only” or “both (and they were the same)”). MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 11
Typically, the misinformation phase is presented using written narratives; however, some studies have presented the misinformation in the form of pictures (Manning & Loftus, 1996;
Okado & Stark, 2005). In this case, the misinformation is presented using the same set of pictures with a few critical details changed. One study found that this procedure still resulted in false memories, but the written narrative misinformation resulted in more false memories than the pictorial misinformation (Manning & Loftus, 1996). Okado and Stark (2005) used pictorial misinformation in an fMRI study that investigated the encoding processes involved in false memories. The researchers stated that the pictorial misinformation was used to make the fMRI analyses easier since the different modalities (i.e., event encoding using pictures and misinformation using words) are processed in different regions of the brain.
Modality Effects in False Memory Research
The event encoding in the misinformation paradigm is almost always a visual version of false memory; however, false memories can occur in other sensory modalities as well (Chatburn et al., 2017). Much of the research looking at modality effects in false memory has used the
DRM task. Originally, the DRM task encoded the word lists aurally by having participants listen to the list of words being read aloud or presented on a tape player (Roediger & McDermott,
1995). But soon after the development of the DRM task, researchers began to question if the effects would differ between aurally-presented lists and visually-presented lists (Smith & Hunt,
1998). The first study that examined this modality effect was performed by Smith and Hunt
(1998), who found that an auditory presentation of the DRM task had higher rates of false memory than a visual presentation of the DRM task. The researchers proposed that this was due to better differentiation of study items during visual processing. Additionally, they also proposed that the thought of the unpresented words during encoding is more similar to the auditory MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 12 presentation rather than the visual presentation of words (Hunt, 2003; Smith & Hunt, 1998). The findings that more false memories occur after auditory presentation of the DRM task compared to visual presentation have been replicated by other researchers as well (Cleary & Greene, 2002;
Gallo et al., 2001; Kellogg, 2001; Pierce & Gallo, 2011).
Interestingly, the modality effect may depend on the amount of time between encoding and test (Olszewska et al., 2015). Olszewska et al. (2015) found that using a short-term memory
(STM) variant of the DRM task produced fewer false memories in the auditory presentation compared to the visual presentation; however, when they later tested participants’ memories using the standard long-term memory (LTM) variant of the DRM task, they found the same pattern as previous research has found: fewer false memories using visual presentation. This
STM advantage for auditory presentation is predicted by past research that suggests that auditory memories are richer and more detailed than visual memories (e.g., Penney, 1989). Because of these findings, researchers performing one early study examining the modality effect in the DRM task predicted and found that there were fewer false memories in the auditory modality compared to the visual modality (Maylor & Mo, 1999). However, as mentioned previously, the overwhelming majority of studies have found that in typical LTM presentations of the DRM task, there are fewer false memories in the visual modality. Olszewska et al. (2015) further suggested that the initial advantage for auditory memories in the short-term may disappear in long-term tests because auditory memory traces experience degradation and decay faster than visual memory traces.
Modality studies have also revealed that a mismatch between study and test modalities leads to worse veridical memory and more false memory (Maylor & Mo, 1999; Olszewska et al.,
2015). For example, Maylor and Mo (1999) found that matching study-test modalities (e.g., MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 13 auditory study presentation and auditory test presentation) led to less false recognition of unpresented critical words in the DRM task. This finding is predicted by the encoding-specificity effect (Tulving & Thomson, 1973), which suggests that when the encoding/study and retrieval/test modalities are the same, there should be better veridical memory than when the modalities are mismatched. Similarly, Olszewska et al. (2015) found better veridical memory and fewer false memories when matching auditory study presentation with auditory test presentation and when matching visual study presentation with visual test presentation compared to auditory-visual or visual-auditory presentations.
Almost all studies looking at modality effects in false memory have used the DRM task; however, some research has suggested that this effect may also be present in the misinformation paradigm. In one study by Stark et al. (2010), the researchers presented the misinformation paradigm using two different sensory modalities in the first two phases: event encoding was presented visually, and misinformation was presented aurally. The researchers examined if participants’ brain activity was different for their true versus their false memories since their true memories would be encoded visually while their false memories would be encoded aurally. The hypothesis that there would be different brain activity between the two types of memories is supported by the sensory reactivation phenomenon (Nyberg, Habib, McIntosh, & Tulving, 2000), which proposed that the sensory regions that are activated during the encoding of an event are reactivated during the retrieval of the memory. Additionally, Slotnick and Schacter (2004) proposed that sensory regions may show differences in brain activity for true and false memories that are unavailable to conscious recollection. Stark et al. (2010) found that participants’ true memory (which was encoded visually) was related to activity in the visual cortex, while participants’ false memory (which was encoded aurally) was related to activity in the auditory MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 14 cortex. Their results indicated that the memories reactivated the areas of the brain in which they were encoded based on their sensory modality. Additionally, although participants’ brains had more activity in the auditory cortex when remembering a false memory, the participants still consciously (and incorrectly) believed that they saw that memory in the original pictures.
Overall, this shows that there may be modality effects in the misinformation paradigm that are similar to those found in the DRM task.
There is a limited amount of research that translates the full misinformation paradigm into different sensory modalities, but one study by Dijkstra and Moerman (2012) uses visual, auditory, and motor/enactment versions of the misinformation paradigm to examine how each encoding modality affects false memory. Each version told the story of a man visiting a friend’s home. In the visual condition, the participants viewed pictures of a man visiting his friend. In the auditory condition, the participants listened to a narrative about a man visiting his friend. In the enactment condition, the participants mimicked the actions while viewing the visual pictures.
The misinformation was presented in writing for all conditions. The researchers found that participants had better veridical memory in the enactment condition; this held true at a delayed memory test after one year. They also found that acceptance of misinformation was lowest in the auditory condition, although that effect did not persist one year later.
A recent article by Ulatowska, Olszewska, and Hanson (2016) presented two studies examining modality effects in the misinformation paradigm. The first study translated the event encoding phase of the misinformation paradigm into a video, pictures, a written narrative, and an auditory narrative; the misinformation and memory testing phases were presented in writing.
They found that participants in the written and auditory modalities had less false memory than participants in the video and pictures modalities. They explained their findings based on the MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 15 encoding-specificity effect, stating that the written and auditory modalities matched the written testing format, which made it easier for participants to retrieve the original information. The second study translated all three phases (i.e., event encoding, misinformation, and testing phases) of the misinformation paradigm into verbal and pictorial modalities. The researchers did not find significant effects of the event encoding modality or testing modality on false memory; however, they found that participants had higher rates of false memory after being presented with auditory misinformation. They also found that participants who experienced the same modality for the event encoding and testing phases showed lower misinformation susceptibility, again supporting the encoding-specificity effect.
Current Study
The current study further examined how modality effects influence false memory using the misinformation paradigm. Specifically, the current study assessed if there were differences in veridical and false memory between auditory and visual presentations of the misinformation paradigm and if there was an effect on memory when the encoding and misinformation modalities were matched or mismatched. First, participants experienced the event encoding phase of the misinformation paradigm either visually (i.e., viewed a series of pictures depicting a scene) or aurally (i.e., listened to a recording describing a scene). Second, participants experienced the misinformation phase of the paradigm either visually (i.e., viewed a series of pictures presenting misinformation) or aurally (i.e., listened to a recording describing the misinformation). Finally, participants were given written memory and source tests.
The study used a multifactor between-subjects design to examine both encoding modality and misinformation modality, which resulted in four conditions as shown in Table 1: visual encoding and visual misinformation (VV), visual encoding and auditory misinformation (VA), MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 16 auditory encoding and visual misinformation (AV), and auditory encoding and auditory misinformation (AA). Based on previous research findings regarding modality effects, it was expected that participants would have higher rates of false memory in the auditory encoding conditions (i.e., AA and AV) compared to the visual encoding conditions (i.e., VV and VA). It was also expected that participants would have higher rates of false memory in the modality mismatched conditions (i.e., AV and VA) compared to the modality matched conditions (i.e.,
AA and VV).
Method
Participants
Participants for the current study were recruited from two sources. In the first group, participants were fluent English speakers recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk;
“Amazon Mechanical Turk,” 2018). In the second group, participants were introductory psychology students from Marietta College who were recruited through the Marietta College
Department of Psychology’s Research Participation Site. Participants were asked not to participate if they were under 18 years old or if they had any of the following conditions: uncorrected hearing or vision impairment, dementia, diagnosed memory loss, other memory impairments, ADHD, and ADD. MTurk participants received a payment of $1.00 for their participation in the study, and Marietta College participants received course credit for their participation in the study. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions
(VV, VA, AV, and AA) in which the presentation modalities for the event encoding and misinformation phases were varied.
A total of 165 participants completed the study (115 participants from MTurk and 50 participants from Marietta College); however, only 92 participants were included in the analyses MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 17
(63 participants from MTurk and 29 participants from Marietta College). Of the 92 participants included in the analyses, the age ranged from 18 to 67 years old (M = 32.14 years, SD = 13.61), and there were 33 men, 58 women, and one transgender participant. Because the study was performed online, various attention checks were included to ensure the participants were paying attention to the study, and exclusion criteria were determined before data collection. Forty-four participants were excluded for failing to achieve a veridical memory score of at least 67%, which indicated a failure to pay attention to the pictures or sentences during the first two phases of the misinformation paradigm. Eighteen participants were excluded for failing to achieve an average reaction time under 500 ms during the two presentations of the psychomotor vigilance task
(PVT), which indicated that the participants often had attention lapses during the task. Eight participants were removed as outliers in the data, which was based on participants’ scores for each dependent variable being over two standard deviations from the mean. Additionally, one participant was excluded for reporting having experienced a computer error during the study, one participant was excluded for skipping parts of the study, and one participant was excluded for being under 18 years old.
Materials
The entirety of the study was completed online on the computer using Inquisit Web
(Millisecond Software, 2018b). Participants first viewed an informed consent document that explained the study and ensured confidentiality, and participants agreed to participate electronically. The informed consent document involved deception in that it did not reveal that the purpose of the study was to examine false memory, but rather, participants were told that the study examined the effect of repetition on memory and cognitive performance. The MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 18 misinformation paradigm was the primary task used in this study; however, other filler tasks and questionnaires were included during the breaks in the misinformation paradigm.
Misinformation paradigm. The misinformation paradigm includes three main phases: the event encoding phase, misinformation phase, and memory and source tests (see Figure 2).
The materials for the misinformation paradigm were adopted from Okado and Stark (2005).
During the event encoding phase, participants were presented with either 50 pictures describing an event in the visual modality or 50 recorded sentences describing an event in the auditory modality (Appendix A). The pictures were presented one at a time for 3,500 ms each with 500- ms inter-trial intervals. The sentences were presented in a slow, clear voice with 500-ms inter- trial intervals. The pictures and sentences depicted the progression of a man breaking into a car and searching it for items to steal.
The second phase of the misinformation paradigm, the misinformation phase, was then presented after a 30-min break. Participants were presented with 50 pictures in the visual modality or 50 recorded sentences in the auditory modality describing the same event that was presented in the event encoding phase; however, 12 critical pictures or sentences were changed to contain misinformation (Appendix B). For example, in the event encoding phase, a piece of critical information was that the man used a credit card to break into the car; whereas, in the misinformation phase, the information was changed to depict a man using a hanger to break into the car. The pictures were again presented one at a time for 3,500 ms each with 500-ms inter-trial intervals, and the recorded sentences were presented with 500-ms inter-trial intervals.
After a 20-min break, participants took memory and source tests to examine their veridical memory, misinformation-consistent responses, and false memory. The first memory test (Appendix C) included open-ended response questions asking about what the participants MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 19 saw in the original event encoding phase. The second memory test (Appendix D) included multiple-choice questions to again ask about what the participants saw in the original event encoding phase; the multiple-choice options for critical questions included the correct answer
(e.g., credit card), the misinformation (e.g., hanger), and an unpresented foil (e.g., crow bar). The source test (Appendix E) was presented along with the second memory test. Each multiple- choice memory question was accompanied by a question that asked from where the participant remembered this information: the first presentation, the second presentation, both (and they were the same), both (and they were different), or they guessed. Each multiple-choice memory question was also accompanied by a confidence level question that asked how sure the participants were of their answers on a 5-point Likert scale (i.e., from “Not at all sure” to
“Completely sure”). A similar confidence level scale was used in a misinformation effect study by Mahé, Corson, Verrier, and Payoux (2015).
Brief mood introspection scale (BMIS). The BMIS (Appendix F) is a 17-item measure that assesses individuals’ self-reported mood on eight positive (e.g., happy, calm) and eight negative (e.g., gloomy, tired) adjectives (Mayer & Gaschke, 1988). The first 16 items measure participants’ mood based on a 4-point Likert scale (i.e., from “Definitely do not feel” to
“Definitely feel”). The final item asks about participants’ overall mood on a 21-point scale ranging from -10, “Very unpleasant,” to 10, “Very pleasant.” The BMIS has been utilized in other research studies using the misinformation paradigm (e.g., Van Damme & Smets, 2014) because of past research suggesting that mood affects people’s suggestibility (Forgas, Laham, &
Vargas, 2005; Van Damme & Seynaeve, 2013). MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 20
Demographics questionnaire. A brief demographics questionnaire (Appendix G) was included to ask about participants’ basic information, including their gender, age, race, level of education, and country of residence.
Filler tasks. These tasks were included during the breaks of the misinformation paradigm. To the participants, they were referred to as cognitive performance tasks.
N-back task. The N-back task (Appendix H) is a common measure of working memory
(Kirchner, 1958). This task involves assessing participants’ short-term memory for previously presented stimuli (Sweet, 2011). The participant must decide if the current stimulus—presented as a letter—is the same as the stimulus presented “n” times previously. For example, in a two- back task, the participants must indicate if the stimulus is the same as the one presented two times earlier. The current study specifically used a combination of zero-back (i.e., compares the stimulus to an initial target stimulus), one-back, two-back, and three-back tasks. The tasks took approximately 10 min to complete. The N-back task was downloaded from the Millisecond Test
Library (Millisecond Software, 2017b). The N-back task has been used in previous research as a filler task during the misinformation paradigm (e.g., Volz, Leonhart, Stark, Vaitl, & Ambach,
2017).
Psychomotor vigilance task (PVT). The PVT (Appendix I) is a measure of sustained attention and alertness (Dinges & Powell, 1985). During the task, participants respond to visual stimuli that appear on the screen at random times. The stimuli are often presented as a timer that counts how long it takes the participant to respond. Participants’ reaction times are measured to examine lapses in attention and impulsivity (Rego, n.d.). A reaction time longer than 500 ms is considered a lapse in attention (Thomann, Baumann, Landolt, & Werth, 2014). The PVT has been used in previous studies in between phases of the misinformation paradigm (e.g., Lo et al., MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 21
2016). While generally used to assess individual’s alertness after sleep loss (Rego, n.d.), the task was used in the current study as an attention check to assess how well online participants paid attention to the study. The PVT was presented for 10 min during the first break and 5 min during the second break. The PVT was downloaded from the Millisecond Test Library (Millisecond
Software, 2018a).
Stroop task. The Stroop task (Appendix J) is a well-known task used to measure cognitive interference (Stroop, 1935). The task presents color words in various ink colors, such as the word “green” presented in red ink or the word “blue” presented in yellow ink. The participant’s job is to indicate the ink color of the presented word, which is often difficult because people read words faster than they can name words’ properties (MacLeod, 2015). When the color is congruent with the word, there is no cognitive interference; therefore, reaction time is faster. However, when the color is incongruent with the word, the participant must process the correct response, which results in slower reaction times. The Stroop task has been used in previous research as a 5-min filler task during the misinformation paradigm (e.g., Volz et al.,
2017). In the current study, the Stroop task was used as a 5-min filler task during both breaks.
The Stroop task was downloaded from the Millisecond Test Library (Millisecond Software,
2017a).
Procedure
Participants signed up for the study online through either MTurk or the Marietta College
Department of Psychology’s Research Participation Site. The entirety of the study was completed online on the computer using Inquisit Web. The study took approximately 70 min to complete. Participants first viewed an informed consent document and agreed to participate electronically. After consenting, all participants heard a 1.5-min recording with a welcome MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 22 message and study instructions in the researcher’s voice; this was used to add a personal element to the online study and to ensure the auditory conditions could be heard in the study before proceeding. During the informed consent and recorded instructions, participants were asked to complete the study in a distraction-free environment, including free of music, television, and other noises. They were also provided with the exclusion criteria and asked not to participate if they fit any of the criteria.
Participants then began the event encoding phase of the misinformation paradigm in either the visual or auditory modalities. They were presented with 50 pictures in the visual modality (i.e., conditions VV and VA) or 50 recorded sentences in the auditory modality (i.e., conditions AA and AV) describing an event. The event encoding phase took approximately 3.5 min for the visual modalities and 3.75 min for the auditory modalities. After the event encoding phase, there was approximately a 30-min interval in which participants completed the BMIS, demographics questionnaire, and then a variety of filler tasks, which were referred to as cognitive performance tasks. The filler tasks included a 10-min PVT, a 5-min Stroop task, and a
10-min N-Back task.
Participants then completed the misinformation phase of the misinformation paradigm.
They were presented with 50 pictures in the visual modality (i.e., conditions VV and AV) or 50 recorded sentences in the auditory modality (i.e., conditions AA and VA) describing the same event that was presented in the event encoding phase; however, 12 critical pictures or sentences were changed to contain misinformation. The misinformation phase took approximately 3.5 min for the visual modalities and 3.75 min for the auditory modalities. After the misinformation phase, there was approximately a 25-min interval in which participants again completed the
BMIS, a 5-min PVT, a 5-min Stroop task, and a 10-min N-Back task. MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 23
Finally, participants completed the memory tests to examine their veridical memory, misinformation-consistent responses, and false memory. Participants first completed the open- ended response memory test, and then they completed the multiple-choice memory test, in which each multiple-choice question was accompanied by a source question and a confidence level question. After completing the tests, participants viewed a debriefing screen that explained the purpose of the study and thanked them for their participation.
Results
The data from the 165 participants who completed all parts of the study were first imported from Inquisit Web to Microsoft Excel. The final dataset used for the analyses included
92 participants. Each participant’s veridical memory rate, misinformation-consistent response rate, and false memory rate were calculated based on their responses to the multiple-choice memory questions. The veridical memory rate was calculated by dividing the number of noncritical questions each participant answered correctly by six—the total number of noncritical questions included in the memory test. Participants who answered less than four of the six noncritical questions correctly, receiving a score of less than 67%, were excluded from the analyses (i.e., 44 participants). The misinformation-consistent response rate was calculated by determining the number of critical questions each participant answered consistent with the information presented in the misinformation phase and dividing that number by 12—the total number of critical questions included in the memory test. The false memory rate was calculated by determining the number of critical questions each participant answered consistent with the information presented in the misinformation phase, while also answering on the source test that they remembered this information from either the first presentation or both presentations (and they were the same). This number was then divided by 12 to calculate the false memory rate. MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 24
Next, participants’ PVT scores for each PVT presentation were calculated by taking the mean response latency for all trials in which the participant did not have a false start (i.e., responded before the stimulus appeared on the screen). Participants who had an average reaction time longer than 500 ms in either PVT presentation were excluded from the analyses (i.e., 18 participants). Data from three other participants were excluded for other issues described previously. Finally, participants’ BMIS scores were calculated by reverse-scoring the eight negatively worded items and then summing each participant’s responses for the first 16 items.
The scores for each presentation of the BMIS were calculated separately. The aggregated data and demographic data for each participant were then imported into SPSS for analysis.
Before completing the main analyses, data for the veridical memory rate, misinformation- consistent response rate, and false memory rate were analyzed for normality and homoscedasticity. To assess normality, each dependent variable was analyzed based on its skewness, kurtosis, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, histogram, and Q-Q Plot. To assess homoscedasticity, each dependent variable was grouped based on the encoding modality and misinformation modality, and then both groupings were analyzed based on their box-and- whisker plot, Levene's test of equality of variances, and variance ratio. The data did not meet the assumptions of normality and homoscedasticity; thus, data transformations—including a log transformation, square root transformation, and reciprocal transformation—were attempted to correct for these issues. The transformations did not significantly improve the normality or homoscedasticity of the data. Therefore, outliers for each dependent variable were trimmed from the data based on two standard deviations from the mean. Data from a total of eight participants were removed, leaving data from 92 participants to be included in the analyses. Using a Mann-
Whitney U test, it was found that the participants who were removed as outliers (Mdn = 48.50, MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 25
SD = 10.28) were significantly older than the rest of the participants (Mdn = 30.00, SD = 13.61; see Figure 3), U = 135.50, z = -2.96, p = .003, r = -.30. Trimming the outliers allowed the data for the dependent variables to meet the assumption of homoscedasticity; however, it still did not meet the assumption of normality—although the normality was slightly improved for all variables. Nevertheless, due to the robustness of the analysis of variance tests (e.g., Schmider,
Ziegler, Danay, Beyer, & Bühner, 2010) and the fact that trimming the data allowed it to meet the assumption of homoscedasticity, a two-way multivariate analysis of covariance
(MANCOVA) was used to analyze the data. Means and standard deviations for each of the dependent variables after trimming can be found in Table 2.
A two-way MANCOVA was used to examine the effect of encoding modality and misinformation modality (independent variables) on participants’ veridical memory rate, misinformation-consistent response rate, and false memory rate (dependent variables).
Participants’ age was included as a covariate to control for any age-related memory differences.
A significant main effect was found for the misinformation modality (see Figures 4-6), F(3, 85)
= 3.25, p = .026, partial η2 = .10. Significant main effects were not found for the encoding modality (see Figures 7-9), F(3, 85) = .70, p = .554, partial η2 = .02, or the interaction between encoding modality and misinformation modality (see Figures 10-12), F(3, 85) = 2.07, p = .110, partial η2 = .07. Additionally, the covariate age did not have a significant main effect, F(3, 85) =
.68, p = .568, partial η2 = .02.
The misinformation modality had a significant effect on the veridical memory rate (see
Figure 4), F(1, 87) = 9.35, p = .003, partial η2 = .10, but it did not have a significant effect on the misinformation-consistent response rate (see Figure 5), F(1, 87) = .34, p = .564, partial η2 = .004, or false memory rate (see Figure 6), F(1, 87) = .08, p = .781, partial η2 = .001. For the significant MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 26 effect of the misinformation modality on the veridical memory rate, participants in the auditory misinformation modality had higher veridical memory scores than participants in the visual misinformation modality.
Discussion
It was hypothesized that participants would have higher rates of false memory in the auditory encoding conditions (i.e., AA and AV) compared to the visual encoding conditions (i.e.,
VV and VA). It was also hypothesized that participants would have higher rates of false memory in the modality mismatched conditions (i.e., AV and VA) compared to the modality matched conditions (i.e., AA and VV). The analyses did not find any significant effects based on the encoding modality or the interaction between encoding modality and misinformation modality; therefore, the results did not support these hypotheses. However, there was a significant effect based on the misinformation modality. This effect showed that participants in the auditory misinformation conditions (i.e., AA and VA) had higher rates of veridical memory than participants in the visual misinformation conditions (i.e., VV and AV).
The study by Dijkstra and Moerman (2012), which examined modality effects using visual, auditory, and motor/enactment versions of the misinformation paradigm, found that the enactment condition led to better correct recognition (i.e., veridical memory) compared to the visual or auditory conditions. However, contrary to the current study, they found no differences in correct recognition between the auditory and visual conditions. This study only varied the modality of the encoding conditions while presenting all misinformation in writing, making it difficult to compare their results with the results of the current study.
More relevant is the study by Ulatowska et al. (2016), which translated all phases of the misinformation paradigm into auditory and visual modalities. They did not examine participants’ MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 27 veridical memory; however, they found that participants had higher rates of false memory after receiving auditory misinformation. The researchers explained this effect by comparing it to the short-term verbal memory theory postulated by Penney (1989). Penney (1989) suggested that auditory memories result in better short-term retention than visual memories, because auditory memories are richer and more detailed than visual memories, resulting in an auditory “echo” that persists for a longer amount of time. Additionally, de Gelder and Vroomen (1997) explained that auditory memories, specifically auditory speech memories, have a memory advantage because of the way they are processed. Auditory speech memories are automatically stored in a verbal format with a linguistic and phonological code; whereas, for visual memories to be remembered in a verbal format, they must go through phonological recoding, which takes more time and is less automatic. Based on these theories, Ulatowska et al. (2016) suggested that their findings of more false memory after auditory misinformation was because the auditory memory was stronger, making it more likely to overwrite the previously presented information. In the current study, participants’ higher rates of veridical memory after experiencing the auditory misinformation may be explained the same way. Hearing the auditory description of the event, regardless of the initial encoding modality, may have strengthened participants’ memories of the unmanipulated information more than viewing the pictorial description strengthened participants’ memories. In other words, during the misinformation phase, the auditory information may have left a stronger and more detailed memory trace than the visual information. The reason the effect was revealed in the misinformation phase, but not the event encoding phase, might be because the misinformation phase was the last phase before the testing phase.
The finding that participants in the auditory misinformation modality had higher rates of veridical memory may also be because the auditory misinformation format—compared to the MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 28 visual misinformation format—is more similar to the written testing format, supporting the encoding-specificity effect (Tulving & Thomson, 1973). In accordance with the theory by de
Gelder and Vroomen (1997), the auditory information and written tests are automatically stored in a verbal format; whereas, the visual information requires phonological recoding before being stored in a verbal format, making it less similar to the written tests. Additionally, the studies by
Ulatowska et al. (2016) and research using the DRM paradigm have shown that a match between the encoding and testing formats leads to higher veridical memory and less misinformation susceptibility. The encoding-specificity effect, in addition to Penney’s (1989) short-term verbal memory theory, may further explain the effect of higher veridical memory after the presentation of auditory misinformation.
Another interesting finding in the current study was that participants whose data were removed as outliers were significantly older than the rest of the sample. The ages of the participants who were outliers ranged from 31 to 60 years old with a median age of 48.5 years old; whereas, the ages of the participants in the rest of the data ranged from 18 to 67 years old with a median age of 30 years old. Previous research has found that older individuals generally have less accurate memories and are more susceptible to misinformation (Cohen & Faulkner,
1989; Loftus, Levidow, & Duensing, 1992). Additionally, older individuals tend to make more memory and source monitoring errors (Cohen & Faulkner, 1989). The results of the current study seem to support these findings. Future studies looking at modality effects in the misinformation paradigm may want to control the age groups of their samples in order to better examine if age plays an additional role in modality effects outside of the general effect showing that older individuals are more susceptible to misinformation. MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 29
One limitation of the current study is that this study produced low misinformation- consistent response and false memory rates, which made the data for these variables— particularly the false memory rate—challenging to analyze. The average misinformation- consistent response rate for all conditions was 21%, while the average false memory rate for all conditions was 8%. Both variables were strongly positively skewed. These averages were slightly lower than the rates found in other misinformation studies. For example, a study by
Frenda et al. (2014), which examined the effects of sleep deprivation on false memory using the misinformation paradigm, exhibited misinformation-consistent response rates of 28% to 38% and false memory rates of 13% to 18%.
One possible reason for the low rates of misinformation-consistent responses and false memory in the current study may be that the misinformation used was often central information
(i.e., critical details about the main event). Past research has shown that false memory tends to be higher for peripheral details (i.e., noncritical details) of an event rather than for central details
(Luna & Migueles, 2009; Ulatowska et al., 2016). In the current study, the critical information was often the focus of the picture or sentence (see Appendices A and B), even if it was not by definition a central detail. Because of this, the original critical information may be remembered more accurately than if it were presented as peripheral information, leading to low misinformation-consistent response and false memory rates. Some studies using the misinformation paradigm have included central versus peripheral details as one of the independent variables (e.g., Ulatowska et al., 2016). Controlling for this factor may lead to different misinformation-consistent response and false memory rates, which may be important in future studies on modality effects. MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 30
Another limitation of the current study is that all memory tests were presented in a written format, making the testing format more similar to the auditory modalities. The encoding- specificity effect that is often referenced in modality studies using the DRM task (e.g.,
Olszewska et al., 2015) suggests that using the same modality in the encoding and testing phases should lead to less false memory than using different modalities in those phases. Accordingly, the study by Ulatowska et al. (2016) manipulated the modality of the testing phase in addition to the encoding and misinformation phases. They found an interaction between the encoding and testing modalities—participants who experienced the same modality in the encoding and testing phases showed lower false memory, supporting the encoding-specificity effect and past research examining modality effects using the DRM task. Furthermore, Ulatowska et al. (2016) also hypothesized that a modality match between the misinformation and testing phases might result in more errors. Just as a modality match between the encoding and testing phases makes retrieval of the original memories easier, a modality match between the misinformation and testing phases may make retrieval of the misinformation easier. Future research should further examine the effect of modality on false memory by translating all three phases of the misinformation paradigm—the event encoding phase, misinformation phase, and testing phase—into visual and auditory modalities. It may also be interesting to examine how written information differs from visual and auditory information by also translating all three phases into a written modality.
One other limitation of the current study is that although data were collected from 165 participants, only data from 92 participants were used in the analyses due to participants not meeting the attention checks and the data not meeting the assumptions of normality and homoscedasticity. This number was below the power analysis recommendation of 112 participants. Collecting enough data to meet the recommended number of participants may MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 31 change the results of the analyses. Additionally, the large number of people excluded due to not meeting the attention check requirements may be a result of this study being completed online.
Previous research has shown that collecting data online, such as through MTurk, allows researchers to collect a large amount of high-quality, valid data (e.g., Buhrmester, Kwang, &
Gosling, 2011; Mason & Suri, 2012). However, online data collection does not allow the researcher to control the environment in which the participants are completing the study. The instructions in the current study asked participants to complete the study in a distraction-free environment, including free of music, television, and other noises; however, there is no way to ensure online participants are complying with this request. Environmental distractions may have been the reason for a large number of participants not meeting the attention check requirements.
Given that there are still only a small number of studies, such as those by Dijkstra and
Moerman (2012) and Ulatowska et al. (2016), that have researched modality effects using the misinformation paradigm, future research should continue to examine how auditory and visual modalities affect false memory using this specific paradigm. Manipulating the modalities of all phases of the misinformation paradigm, including the testing phase, will be beneficial in parsing out how modalities affect each part of memory processing. Additionally, it may be important for future studies to include controls for the effects of age and type of information (i.e., central vs. peripheral) on false memory, seeing as these factors may have influenced the results of the current study. Combining the results of past modality studies using the DRM task with future research using the misinformation paradigm would allow researchers to better examine how modality effects may influence real-world memory distortions in naturalistic contexts, such as those commonly experienced by eyewitnesses.
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 32
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Zhu, B., Chen, C., Loftus, E. F., He, Q., Chen, C., Lei, X., … Dong, Q. (2012). Brief exposure to
misinformation can lead to long-term false memories. Applied Cognitive Psychology,
26(2), 301-307. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1825
Zhu, B., Chen, C., Loftus, E. F., Lin, C., & Dong, Q. (2013). The relationship between DRM and
misinformation false memories. Memory & Cognition, 41(6), 832-838.
https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-013-0300-2
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 39
Table 1
Current Study Conditions
Encoding modality
Misinformation modality Visual Auditory
Visual VV AV
Auditory VA AA
Note. The current study had a multifactor between-subjects design with encoding modality and misinformation modality as the independent variables. It was expected that participants would have higher rates of false memory in the auditory encoding conditions (i.e., AA and AV) compared to the visual encoding conditions (i.e., VV and VA). It was also expected that participants would have higher rates of false memory in the modality mismatched conditions
(i.e., AV and VA) compared to the modality matched conditions (i.e., AA and VV).
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 40
Table 2
Means and Standard Deviations for Dependent Variables by Condition
VM rate MCR rate FM rate
EM MM n M SD M SD M SD
Visual Visual 26 .78 .11 .17 .15 .07 .09
Auditory 22 .86 .12 .22 .12 .08 .08
Total 48 .82 .12 .19 .14 .07 .08
Auditory Visual 25 .81 .12 .26 .17 .08 .07
Auditory 19 .89 .14 .17 .16 .09 .08
Total 44 .84 .13 .22 .17 .08 .07
Total Visual 51 .79 .12 .21 .16 .07 .08
Auditory 41 .87 .13 .20 .14 .08 .08
Total 92 .83 .13 .21 .15 .08 .08
Note. VM rate = veridical memory rate; MCR rate = misinformation-consistent response rate;
FM rate = false memory rate; EM = encoding modality; MM = misinformation modality.
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 41
Bed Critical word: Sleep Remember: Rest Participants believe they heard the word Tired Recall presented in the Dream Recognition original list.
Word List Word Night Judgments Know:
Blanket Memory Test Participants "know" Snore that the word was Nap in the original list, Peace but they do not remember hearing it. Yawn
Figure 1. DRM task example. The first box shows the list of to-be-remembered words that are presented to participants. Each word is semantically related to the critical word “sleep.”
Participants often indicate that they remember the unpresented critical word in the original list using both recall and recognition tests (Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Participants also often indicate that they remember hearing the critical word being presented rather than just generally
“knowing” that the critical word was presented.
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 42
Memory and Event encoding Misinformation source tests
What did the young man
use to break into the car? a) Credit card
b) Crow bar c) Hanger
“He used a credit card “He used a hanger to Where do you remember your answer from? to open the car door.” open the car door.”
Figure 2. Misinformation paradigm example for the current study. Participants experience the event encoding phase either visually or aurally. After a break, participants then experience the misinformation phase either visually or aurally. After a second break, participants complete the memory and source tests. The multiple-choice memory test asked about what the participants saw in the original event encoding phase; the multiple-choice options for critical questions included the correct answer (e.g., credit card), the misinformation (e.g., hanger), and an unpresented foil (e.g., crow bar). A source question accompanied each multiple-choice memory question, which asked from where the participant remembered this information: the first presentation, the second presentation, both (and they were the same), both (and they were different), or they guessed. Participants’ veridical memory, misinformation-consistent response, and false memory rates were calculated based on their responses to the memory and source questions.
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 43
Figure 3. The median age difference between participants removed as outliers and participants in the rest of the sample. Using a Mann-Whitney U test, it was found that the participants who were removed as outliers (Mdn = 48.50, SD = 10.28) were significantly older than the rest of the participants (Mdn = 30.00, SD = 13.61), U = 135.50, z = -2.96, p = .003, r = -.30.
* p < .05
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 44
Figure 4. The effect of misinformation modality on the veridical memory rate. The misinformation modality had a significant effect on the veridical memory rate, F(1, 87) = 9.35, p
= .003, partial η2 = .10.
* p < .05
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 45
Figure 5. The effect of misinformation modality on the misinformation-consistent response rate.
The misinformation modality did not have a significant effect on the misinformation-consistent response rate, F(1, 87) = .34, p = .564, partial η2 = .004.
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 46
Figure 6. The effect of misinformation modality on the false memory rate. The misinformation modality did not have a significant effect on the false memory rate, F(1, 87) = .08, p = .781, partial η2 = .001.
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 47
Figure 7. The effect of encoding modality on the veridical memory rate. A significant main effect was not found for the encoding modality, F(3, 85) = .70, p = .554, partial η2 = .02. MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 48
Figure 8. The effect of encoding modality on the misinformation-consistent response rate. A significant main effect was not found for the encoding modality, F(3, 85) = .70, p = .554, partial
η2 = .02.
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 49
Figure 9. The effect of encoding modality on the false memory rate. A significant main effect was not found for the encoding modality, F(3, 85) = .70, p = .554, partial η2 = .02.
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 50
Figure 10. The effect of encoding modality and misinformation modality on the veridical memory rate. A significant main effect was not found for the interaction between encoding modality and misinformation modality, F(3, 85) = 2.07, p = .110, partial η2 = .07.
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 51
Figure 11. The effect of encoding modality and misinformation modality on the misinformation- consistent response rate. A significant main effect was not found for the interaction between encoding modality and misinformation modality, F(3, 85) = 2.07, p = .110, partial η2 = .07.
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 52
Figure 12. The effect of encoding modality and misinformation modality on the false memory rate. A significant main effect was not found for the interaction between encoding modality and misinformation modality, F(3, 85) = 2.07, p = .110, partial η2 = .07.
Running head: MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 53
Appendices Running head: MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 54
Appendix A
Stimuli Examples for the Event Encoding Phase of the Misinformation Paradigm
The following pictures and sentences are examples of critical information during the event encoding phase of the misinformation paradigm. The stimuli were adopted from Okado and
Stark (2005).
He used a credit card to open the car door. He pulled out a bag of cocaine.
He headed towards the trunk closing the He then pulled down the sunshade and front door behind him. found a key.
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 55
Appendix B
Stimuli Examples for the Misinformation Phase of the Misinformation Paradigm
The following pictures and sentences are examples of critical information during the misinformation phase of the misinformation paradigm. The stimuli were adopted from Okado and Stark (2005).
He used a hanger to open the car door. He pulled out a bag of marijuana.
He headed towards the trunk leaving open He then pulled down the sunshade and the front door behind him. found a paper slip.
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 56
Appendix C
Open-Ended Memory Test for the Misinformation Paradigm
The memory tests were adopted from Okado and Stark (2005).
INSTRUCTIONS: What did you see during the original event? This test pertains to the story you saw or heard about the young man breaking into a car and stealing some items from the car.
Please answer the questions according to what you remember from the FIRST TIME you saw or heard the event. Type your answer in the space provided.
1. What type of jewelry did the man find in the trunk?
2. Which shoe(s) did the man bend down to tie?
3. Approximately how far (in feet) was the car parked from the tree in front of it?
4. What did the young man find in the purse that was inside the car?
5. What type of bills did the young man find in the change compartment?
6. After the young man opened the trunk, he thought he heard a noise and looked across
the street. Did he see someone?
7. On which hand(s) did the young man accidentally slam the trunk on?
8. How did the man open the trunk?
9. What was in the bag that the young man found in the trunk?
10. What did the man take from the glove compartment?
11. What did the young man use to break into the car? MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 57
12. What did the man, in frustration, do to the car after he slammed the trunk on his
hand(s)?
13. What university sticker was on the rear window?
14. When the man exited the car from the driver-side to head towards the trunk, what did
he do to the door?
15. As the man ran away, what happened to his hat?
16. What did the man find underneath the sunshade?
17. What coins were in the change compartment?
18. What type of car was parked behind the car the young man broke into? MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 58
Appendix D
Multiple-Choice Memory Test for the Misinformation Paradigm
The memory tests were adopted from Okado and Stark (2005).
INSTRUCTIONS: What did you see during the original event? This test pertains to the story you saw or heard about the young man breaking into a car and stealing some items from the car.
Please answer the questions according to what you remember from the FIRST TIME you saw or heard the event. Select the correct answer for each question.
For each question, you will also be asked about where you remember this information from and how confident you are in your answer.
1. What type of jewelry did the man find in the trunk?
a. Necklaces
b. Earrings
c. Rings and a watch
2. Which shoe(s) did the man bend down to tie?
a. Right
b. Left
c. Both
3. Approximately how far was the car parked from the tree in front of it?
a. Two feet MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 59
b. Fifteen feet
c. Forty feet
4. What did the young man find in the purse that was inside the car?
a. Wallet
b. Jewelry
c. Nothing
5. What type of bills did the young man find in the change compartment?
a. $1.00
b. $5.00
c. $20.00
6. After the young man opened the trunk, he thought he heard a noise and looked across the
street. What did he find?
a. A couple holding hands
b. A man walking his dog
c. Nothing
7. On which hand(s) did the young man accidentally slam the trunk on?
a. Right
b. Left
c. Both
8. How did the man open the trunk?
a. Crow bar
b. Hanger
c. Lever MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 60
9. What was in the bag that the young man found in the trunk?
a. Cocaine
b. Marijuana
c. Cigarettes
10. What did the man take from the glove compartment?
a. Tape
b. Nothing
c. Pen
11. What did the young man use to break into the car?
a. Credit card
b. Crow bar
c. Hanger
12. What did the man, in frustration, do to the car after he slammed the trunk on his hand(s)?
a. Kicked the car
b. Hit the car
c. Scratched the car
13. What university sticker was on the rear window?
a. Johns Hopkins University
b. University of Maryland
c. University of Chicago
14. When the man exited the car from the driver-side to head towards the trunk, what did he
do to the door?
a. Kicked it MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 61
b. Closed it
c. Left it open
15. As the man ran away, what happened to his hat?
a. Fell off
b. He noticed it was gone
c. Nothing
16. What did the man find underneath the sunshade?
a. Key
b. Paper slip
c. Money
17. What coins were in the change compartment?
a. Pennies
b. Dimes
c. Quarters
18. What type of car was parked behind the car the young man broke into?
a. Honda
b. Ford
c. Toyota
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 62
Appendix E
Source and Confidence Level Questions for the Misinformation Paradigm
Each question on the multiple-choice memory test was presented with the following questions:
Source Question:
Where do you remember your answer from?
a. The first presentation
b. The second presentation
c. Both (and they were the same)
d. Both (and they were different)
e. You guessed
Confidence Level Question:
How sure are you of your answer?
1 = Not at all sure
2
3
4
5 = Completely sure
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 63
Appendix F
Brief Mood Introspection Scale (BMIS)
The BMIS was adopted from Mayer and Gaschke (1988).
INSTRUCTIONS: Select the response on the scale that indicates how well each adjective or phrase describes your present mood.
(Definitely do not feel) (Do not feel) (Slightly feel) (Definitely feel)
1 2 3 4
Lively 1 2 3 4 Drowsy 1 2 3 4
Happy 1 2 3 4 Grouchy 1 2 3 4
Sad 1 2 3 4 Peppy 1 2 3 4
Tired 1 2 3 4 Nervous 1 2 3 4
Caring 1 2 3 4 Calm 1 2 3 4
Content 1 2 3 4 Loving 1 2 3 4
Gloomy 1 2 3 4 Fed up 1 2 3 4
Jittery 1 2 3 4 Active 1 2 3 4
Overall, my mood is:
Very Unpleasant Very Pleasant
-10 -9 -8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 64
Appendix G
Demographics Survey
Please answer the following demographic questions.
What is your gender?
o Male
o Female
o Transgender
o Other: ______
How old are you (in years)?
______
What is your race/ethnicity? Select all that apply.
American Indian or Alaska Native
Asian
Black or African American
White / Caucasian
Hispanic or Latino
Non-Hispanic
Other: ______
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 65
What is the highest level of education you have completed?
o Did not complete high school
o High school/GED
o Some college
o Bachelor’s Degree
o Master’s Degree
o Advanced Graduate work or Ph.D.
What country do you permanently reside in?
______
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 66
Appendix H
N-back Task Stimuli Examples
The following pictures are example screenshots from the N-back task. The N-back task was downloaded from the Millisecond Test Library (Millisecond Software, 2017b).
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 67
Appendix I
PVT Stimuli Examples
The following pictures are example screenshots from the PVT. The PVT was downloaded from the Millisecond Test Library (Millisecond Software, 2018a).
MODALITY EFFECTS IN THE MISINFORMATION PARADIGM 68
Appendix J
Stroop Task Stimuli Examples
The following pictures are example screenshots from the Stroop task. The Stroop task was downloaded from the Millisecond Test Library (Millisecond Software, 2017a).