Running h ead: METAMEMORY: SELF-REFERENCE AND MISINFORMATION

Metamemory and the Effects of Self-Reference on the

Misinformation Effect

Jennifer A. Masterson

Metamemory and the Effects of Self-Reference on the

Misinformation Effect

Metamemory refers to people’s awareness, knowledge and control of their memory (Matlin, 2002). When people are presented with misleading information about precisely learned or witnessed material, they are likely to mix up the original information with the misleading information (Loftus, 1991; Wright & Loftus, 1998). This phenomenon is referred to as the misinformation effect. Over the past quarter of a century, hundreds of studies have been conducted that demonstrate the effects of misinformation on memory performance (Wright & Loftus, 1998).

It has been found that people are especially susceptible to being influenced when there is a delay between when the initial information is encoded and when the misinformation is given (Harvley, Patel, Tucker, & Thrasher, 1996). Loftus, Miller, and Burns (1978) found that misinformation effects are largest when there is a large delay between initial presentation of information and the misleading information and when testing comes close in time after the misinformation is given. In their 1978 study, Loftus and her co-authors showed participants a series of slides. In the sequence, a car stopped at an intersection and proceeded to turn and hit a pedestrian. Half of the participants saw a slide with a yield sign while the other half saw a slide with a stop sign. Twenty minutes to a week after the slides were shown, participants answered questions regarding the details of the accident. The questions consisted of ones that were consistent with the original slides, questions that were misleading and questions that were neutral. Loftus and her co-authors found that people who saw inconsistent information were much less accurate than people in the other two conditions. They also found that the longer the period of delay between when slides had been shown and when participants were tested, the less the percentage of answers subjects got right.

In many post-event misinformation studies, participants are shown a sequence of slides depicting scenes, are misled about various aspects of the original slides, and are then given a forced choice recognition task that requires the participant to choose between the original item and the misinformed item (Loftus et al., 1978). Some studies use tests of recognition that involve yes/no questions, and others use multiple choice questions to assess scores. However, no matter which form of test is used, all of them can be used to not only assess scores that reflect the misinformation effect, but also how the information is encoded.

In a study conducted by Harvley et al. (1996), it was predicted that familiar stimuli would be a good way of encoding information thus reducing the misinformation effect. However, they did not find significant results to support this hypothesis. Research has shown that self-reference is a good way to encode information, therefore, maybe it would in turn decrease the misinformation effect.

The self-reference effect (SRE) seems to result because “the self is a well-developed and often-used construct that promotes elaboration and organization of encoded information” (Symons & Johnson, 1997, p. 371). It is indicated that self-referent encoding has been shown to produce better recall than mere semantic coding (Klein & Kihlstrom, 1986). Not only has it been indicated that the SRE affects encoding, but it has also been found that it is an important component of deeper level processing strategies (Lord, 1980). Lord also found that when considering actual precepts, it is obvious that people are highly likely to remember information that is related to the self. There have been many studies done that suggest the self-structure as unique, relative to other concepts ( Rogers, Kuiper & Kirker, 1977; Symons & Johnson, 1977) in its motivational and affective implications as well as in its structure and content.

Some studies have also suggested that self-referencing may aid in the learning and retention of course material (Hartlep & Forsyth, 2000). For example, D. R. Forsyth and Wibberly (1993) asked students to evaluate whether each adjective presented orally in a list was self-descriptive. When later asked to recall the lists, students recalled more of the self-referent adjectives. Therefore, it is plausible that teachers should use this method for helping students to retain material for exams.

The present study focuses on the study done by Harvley and his colleagues, and attempts to repeat the study using the self as the encoding stimulus rather than a familiar person as the encoding stimulus. In order to further explore how SRE affects the misinformation effect, this study also uses a scale of confidence in order to assess the accuracy of the participants. Although Harvley et al. also used a scale of confidence, they did so as an entirety of all twenty questions during the recognition tasks. This allowed for one score of confidence for each participant. In the present study, a scale of confidence was used for each individual question in order to assess not the questions as a whole, but each type of question individually. The types of questions involved misled, reinforced and control items. This confidence scale was used as a the accuracy of the participants beliefs in answering each question.

As Harvley et al. (1996) hypothesized with a familiar stimulus, I also predict that the use of a self-reference will decrease the misinformation effect. Participants who are merely told to imagine someone else partaking in the situations presented will be more apt to being misled during a subsequent test when given a narrative with misleading information. However, I do not believe that either group would perform better on control questions when given a subsequent test. This is due to the participants not seeing this information since the slides, thereby not having new material to interfere with the old. As for the reinforced information, I thing all participants will perform best on these types of questions. This is because both sets of participants were exposed to this information twice, allowing for repetition, which helps with retention.

As for accuracy, I expect that on misleading questions, people who used the self to encode information would be more accurate in their confidence predictions. However, participants would be more accurate in their confidence levels for control items and reinforced items for both groups. As for reinforced information, due to the type of encoding I would expect people who used the self to encode information would be slightly more accurate in their confidence levels than participants who were told to imagine someone else in the situation. I predict that participants in both groups would be equally accurate on control questions, but less accurate on control questions than reinforced questions. This is due to seeing the items twice: at initial presentation and in the narrative.

Method

Participants

Participants were 56 undergraduate psychology students who volunteered to partake in the study.

Materials

For presentation of the initial material, 46 slides were used. These slides were picture images created by a 35-mm camera projected on a television screen.

For the final test, a set of 20 questions was devised in the following maner. There were 9 misled questions, 6 reinforced questions and 5 control questions. Each question was asked in a different maner (see Table 1). The nine misled questions referred to information that had been misled in the narrative, while the six reinforced questions referred to information that was consistent in both the initial slides and the subsequent narrative. The control questions pertained to material that was only found in the original set of slides, and was not found in the narrative.

Two interpolated tasks were devised to serve as delay periods between: (1) The initial 46 slides and the narrative, and (2) the narrative and the final set of questions. The first task was a crossword puzzle and the second task was a short math test. For both tasks, subjects were allotted 5 min.

Procedure

This experiment was conducted as a 3 X 2 design. The misinformation effect variable was within subjects. All of the participants received misled, reinforced and control questions. The second variable had to do with whether the participant was told to imagine himself or herself as being part of the situation portrayed in the slides or if the participant was told to imagine someone else as being part of the situation portrayed in the slides. This variable was between subjects.

Participants were exposed to seven different phases: the instructional phase, slide presentation, interpolated task, the narrative, second interpolated task, and the test questions phase as they had been in the study done by Harvley et al (1996). In the instructional phase, half of the participants were told to relate the images being presented to themselves and the other half of the participants were told to relate the images to someone else, in this situation an unfamiliar person named Jack. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two groups.

After reading the instructions, participants viewed the set of 46 pictures and were allowed 3 s for each picture. Both groups, the ones who were told to use self-reference and the ones, who did not use self-reference, both viewed the same set of 46 pictures. After completing this task, participants were asked to work on a crossword puzzle. This task lasted for 5 min.

The fourth phase of the experiment was the narrative story. This story was designed to explain the slide presentation. This narrative contained 16 sentences in which some of the material was manipulated to differ from the slide presentation. Participants were given as much time as needed to read the narrative in order to ensure that they had read and understood the story. Upon completion of this task, participants were given another distractor test that consisted of 25 moderately difficult math questions. This task lasted for 5 min.

The final phase of this experiment was the acquisition test question phase. Here, participants were instructed to answer a series of 20 questions regarding the slide show. Nine of the questions were misled, where the narrative differed from the original slides, 6 of the questions were considered reinforced because they related to information that had been viewed in the slides and reinforced in the narrative. The final five questions were control questions. These questions pertained to material that had been seen in the slides, but was not mentioned in the narrative.

Next to each of the 20 questions, the participants were given a scale that ranged from 1 (meaning not confident) to 7 (meaning very confident). Participants were asked to rate each question according to how confident they were about how accurately they answered each question.

References

Forsyth, D. R., & Wibberly, K. H. (1993). The self-reference effect: Demonstrating schematic processing in the classroom. Teaching of Psychology, 20, 237-238.

Hartlep, K. L., & Forsyth, G. A (2000). The effect of self-reference on learning and retention. Teaching of Psychology, 27, 269-271.

Harvley, P. R., Patel, B. R., Tucker, S. J., & Thrasher, L. W. (1996). Meamemory and the effects of familiar stimuli on misinformation effect. Unpublished manuscript, University of Florida. Retrieved March 26, 2003, from http://www.psych.ufl.edu/~levy/96_9.htm

Klein, S. B., & Kihlstrom, J. F. (1986). Elaboration, organization, and the self-reference effect in memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 115, 26-38.

Loftus, E. F. (1991). When a lie becomes memories of truth: Memory distortion after exposure to misinformation. American Psychological Society, 3, 121-126.

Loftus, E. F., Miller, D. G., & Burns, H. J. (1978). Semantic integration of verbal information into visual memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 4, 19-31.

Lord, C. G. (1980). Schemas and images as memory aids: Two modes of processing social information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 257-269.

Matlin, M. W. (2002). Cognition: Fifth Edition. SUNY Geneseo, Earl McPeek.

Rogers, T. B., Kuiper, N. A., & Kirker, W. S. (1977). Self-reference and the encoding of personal information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 677-688.

Symons, C. S., & Johnson, B. T. (1997). The self-reference effect in memory: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 121, 371-394.

Wright, S. B., & Loftus, E. F. (1998). How misinformation alters memories. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 71, 155-164.

Table 1

Narrative and Question Type Examples

Question Type Question

Control Steve has a ____ phone.

A.) Cordless

B.) Rotary

Reinforced Steve snacks on a?

A.) Banana

B.) Apple

Misled Steve plays with his pet ____ before bed.

A.) Cat

B.) Dog

Narrative Excerpt:

Steve watched a little TV and decides to make a phone call to one of his friends. Before bed, Steve decides to have an apple as a snack. Steve plays with his ped dog “Danny-boy” and wishes him a goodnight (Steve actually has a cat).

(This excerpt and questions came from the Harvley et al. study, 1996)