A prospective investigation of the vulnerability of memory for positive and negative emotional scenes to the misinformation effect.

Abstract

This study examined (prospectively) the impact of the emotional content of visual scenes on memory accuracy and susceptibility to misinformation over time. After viewing a highly positive and highly negative photographic image, half of participants (N ϭ 80) were exposed to misinformation concerning the images and later responded to a series of questions about the details of each. After 1 week or 1 month, participants returned and were asked (unexpectedly) about the images. Overall, memories of misled participants were substantially less accurate than nonmisled participants, a pattern persisting at 1-week and 1-month follow-up, although the passage of time decreased accuracy of all participants. Relative to positive images, negative images were associated with a greater susceptibility to false memories for a major misleading detail at both sessions. Thus, relative to positive emotion, negative emotion specifically heightens suggestibility in the presence of major misinformation.

Misremembering Events: Emotional Valence, Psychopathic Traits, and the Misinformation Effect

“…That said, other studies have found that positive and negative scenes are well-remembered and less susceptible to change or misleading suggestions over time relative to neutral events (Brown and Schaefer 2010). These conflicting results may arise from methodological issues (i.e., measuring frequency relative to accuracy, how misinformation is calculated, varying levels of arousal associated with stimuli; Berntsen 2002; Van Damme and Smets 2014), failure to differentiate between central and peripheral details of events/scenes (e.g., Brown and Schaefer 2010;Porter et al 2010), and a lack of consideration of how individual differences influence susceptibility to misinformation (e.g., Zhu et al 2010). Our aim in this study was to address scene emotionality foremost, as well as personality factors that influence emotional processing.…”

“…The most common form of presentation of misinformation is through the use of leading questions, which generally result in false recollections of suggested details that were not present in the original scene/event (e.g., Ibabe and Sporer 2004;Porter et al 2010). Recent studies have turned their attention to examining misinformation in the context of scenes/events of differing emotional valence (e.g., Porter et al 2010;Van Damme and Smets 2014).…”

“…In a recent study, Porter et al (2010) found that negative scenes were more susceptible to misinformation effects and altered recall. Similarly, Van Damme and Smets (2014) reported that negative scenes were susceptible to incorporation of misinformation for both central and peripheral details when arousal was high.…”

“…Recent studies have turned their attention to examining misinformation in the context of scenes/events of differing emotional valence (e.g., Porter et al 2010;Van Damme and Smets 2014). While it is generally understood that emotional stimuli tend to be recalled more accurately then neutral stimuli (e.g., Christianson 1992), memory for emotional events also may be subject to distortion under various conditions (i.e., exposure to misinformation; Porter et al 2003).…”

“…Using a basic misinformation paradigm, we sought to determine the individual and collective influence of these variables, and investigate how psychopathic personality traits may moderate memory processes for emotional events. Based on comparable extant research (e.g., Christianson et al 1996;Porter et al 2003Porter et al , 2010; Van Damme and Smets 2014), we predicted the following: (1) emotion would enhance memory for central details and result in poorer memory for peripheral details (overall), and this effect should be especially evidenced for the negative emotional scene; (2) participants should be more susceptible to misinformation in the emotional relative to neutral conditions; (3) individuals high in psychopathic traits would show little difference in their recall of central and peripheral details for emotional scenes; and (4) individuals high in psychopathic traits would be less likely to recall misleading information relative to the low psychopathic trait group in all images (positive, negative, or neutral). We employed a 3 (emotional valence: negative, neutral, positive) X 2 (psychopathic traits: high, low) X 2 (misinformation condition: misleading, nonleading) mixed multivariate design to test these hypotheses.…”