Effects of Working Memory Interference on the Elicitation of Emotional False Memories

Working memory may provide a means of holding information in mind that reduces susceptibility to false memories. In contrast anxiety might make individuals’ more prone to false memory intrusions, particularly those with an emotional content. This project explores whether any such protection depends on individuals’ working memory capacity, levels of anxiety, the amount of to-be-remembered information, and the nature of intrusion probes. At least fifty adult participants will be assessed. Participants will complete a version of a working memory task in which a pre-load of semantically-related words is followed by a period of distraction, and then a recognition test. The amount of information to be remembered will be varied across trials, as will whether the memory items prompt a neutral or negatively-valenced false memory. The nature of distraction will be varied between participants. Participants’ short-term memory capacity and state and trait levels of anxiety will also be measured. unknown other