Laney et al.
False memory
• Title:
• Asparagus, a Love Story. Healthier eating could be just a false memory away.
• Year: 2008
Psychology being investigated
• People’s memories of events of their own lives can be incorrect.
• Researchers have been able to implant false details for actual events and entirely false events.
• From all the stored information, people can reconstruct memories by lling in the gaps and
using false information that gets embedded as actual information.
Background
• Human memory is subject to many types and levels of distortion.
• Previous research has focused on negative and neutral false memories. This research focuses
on implanting positive false memories.
Aims
Overall Aims:
• To investigate whether positive false memories for loving asparagus can be implanted into
people and then charge their childhood memories about liking asparagus.
• To investigate the consequences of implanting positive false memories in terms of the e ects it
has on liking asparagus and choosing asparagus.
Experiment 1
Aims
• To investigate whether positive false memories for loving asparagus can be. Implanted into
people and then change their childhood memories about liking asparagus.
Procedure
• Research Method: Laboratory experiment and Questionnaires
• Experimental Design: Independent Measures Design
• IV: Love group and control group; believers and non-believers.
• DV: Ratings on critical items on both questionnaires - comparing session 1 and 2
• Sample: 128 undergraduates at the University of California from which 77% were females. The
sample had a mean age of 20.8 years and were randomly assigned to the “love” or “control”
group.
• Sampling Technique: Volunteer Sampling
• At Session 1, participants were told that they would be completing a series of questionnaires for
a study of the relationship between food preferences and personality. They were not told
anything about false memories in order to limit the in uence of demand characteristics.
• They completed the Food History Inventory (FHI) which consisted of 24 items included the
critical item “Loved asparagus the rst time you tried it” in the 16th position. Participants rated
each item on a scale of 1 = de nitely did not happen and 8 = de nitely did happen before the
age of 10.
• Participants then completed the Restaurant Questionnaire (RQ) that assessed their desire to eat
32 separate dishes including the critical item “sautéed asparagus spears”. This questionnaire
was formatted to look like a menu with 5 categories. Participants were asked to imagine they
were out on a special dinner and order each item regardless the pice. They circled their ratings
for 1 = de nitely yes to 8 = de nitely no.
• Participants completed 3 additional “ ller” questionnaires - a personality measure, Marlowe -
Crowne Social Desirability Scales, and a questionnaire on eating habits - to disguise the true
aim of the study.
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False memory
• Title:
• Asparagus, a Love Story. Healthier eating could be just a false memory away.
• Year: 2008
Psychology being investigated
• People’s memories of events of their own lives can be incorrect.
• Researchers have been able to implant false details for actual events and entirely false events.
• From all the stored information, people can reconstruct memories by lling in the gaps and
using false information that gets embedded as actual information.
Background
• Human memory is subject to many types and levels of distortion.
• Previous research has focused on negative and neutral false memories. This research focuses
on implanting positive false memories.
Aims
Overall Aims:
• To investigate whether positive false memories for loving asparagus can be implanted into
people and then charge their childhood memories about liking asparagus.
• To investigate the consequences of implanting positive false memories in terms of the e ects it
has on liking asparagus and choosing asparagus.
Experiment 1
Aims
• To investigate whether positive false memories for loving asparagus can be. Implanted into
people and then change their childhood memories about liking asparagus.
Procedure
• Research Method: Laboratory experiment and Questionnaires
• Experimental Design: Independent Measures Design
• IV: Love group and control group; believers and non-believers.
• DV: Ratings on critical items on both questionnaires - comparing session 1 and 2
• Sample: 128 undergraduates at the University of California from which 77% were females. The
sample had a mean age of 20.8 years and were randomly assigned to the “love” or “control”
group.
• Sampling Technique: Volunteer Sampling
• At Session 1, participants were told that they would be completing a series of questionnaires for
a study of the relationship between food preferences and personality. They were not told
anything about false memories in order to limit the in uence of demand characteristics.
• They completed the Food History Inventory (FHI) which consisted of 24 items included the
critical item “Loved asparagus the rst time you tried it” in the 16th position. Participants rated
each item on a scale of 1 = de nitely did not happen and 8 = de nitely did happen before the
age of 10.
• Participants then completed the Restaurant Questionnaire (RQ) that assessed their desire to eat
32 separate dishes including the critical item “sautéed asparagus spears”. This questionnaire
was formatted to look like a menu with 5 categories. Participants were asked to imagine they
were out on a special dinner and order each item regardless the pice. They circled their ratings
for 1 = de nitely yes to 8 = de nitely no.
• Participants completed 3 additional “ ller” questionnaires - a personality measure, Marlowe -
Crowne Social Desirability Scales, and a questionnaire on eating habits - to disguise the true
aim of the study.
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