1. Laurie S. Hunter, Alaina Manley, Casey Papa, Ashley Currin, Lynn Ray, Megan MacLane, Samantha Scalsky Department of Psychology Importance of the Research and Research Question Methodology Lists were adapted from Roediger and McDermott (1995). Only three lists were used: bread, chair, and foot. The DRM written word lists were presented individually in a Power Point presentation. The drawings display consisted of 3 sets of individual schematic pictures of the 12 list items. The photographs display consisted of 3 sets of individual photographic pictures of the 12 list items The recognition display consisted of six items presented originally, one false memory item, and five items not originally present. Realistic stimuli can reduce the number of falsely recalled items Findings Discussion Overall, consistent with previous research, our findings indicate false memories are more likely to occur using verbal stimuli rather than non-verbal stimuli. When given words the less realistic scenario requires more thought and connectivity, perhaps leading to deeper processing and false connections among items. The picture changes, however, when you consider list type. For items related to bread, words lead to significantly more false memories, than drawings and photographs. For items related to chair, only photographs yield significantly less false memories than words. Contrastingly, for items related to foot, drawings lead to significantly more false memories than words or photographs. Differences in false memories were similar for two of the three lists (bread and chair). Only the foot list suggested more false memories with drawings. Perhaps, information related to body parts elicits emotion or self comparison rather than truly evaluating false memories. Realistic scenarios elicit the least amount of false memories. We can relate the realistic information to everyday interactions. More realistic stimuli may foster connections among experiences leading to more accurate memory. Daily experiences more likely involve seeing images rather than seeing words. Next steps Future research will continue to address the issue of realism as a factor in reducing false memories, with emphasis on ecologically valid stimuli as a mirror of real world interaction. Three dimensional objects Actual interaction with objects Presentation of a scene depicting interaction with all related list items Future research will also address the role of emotional reaction to stimuli. Comparisons among various body parts exploring emotion as a mediator Monitor facial expressions of reactions to stimuli Leading to False memories DRM paradigm demonstrates memory can be altered. Using word lists, one can create false recall of a related, yet not presented, word The creation of a mental image of the related word may be a useful strategy to facilitate memory recall Perhaps self- creation of a mental image leads to deeper processing, thus increasing chances of falsely recalling information Research-created pictorial images of the words eliminates deeper processing, thus leading to fewer falsely recalled items (Hunter et al., 2004) What remains unclear is whether deeper processing is affected by verbal versus non- verbal stimuli or degree of realism. Do more realistic, ecologically valid stimuli reduce number of falsely recalled items? Main effect: F (2, 103) = 18.620, p < 0.05, Pairwise comparisons indicated number of falsely recalled items significantly differed among all three presentation formats: lowest for photographs (M = 0.162, SE = 0.053), then drawings (M = 0.454, SE = 0.052), and highest for words (M = 0.610, SE = 0.053). Interaction effect: F (4, 206) = 11.492, p < 0.05, The bread and chair lists yielded less false memories using photographic stimuli and the most false memories with words. The foot list also yielded less false memories using photographic stimuli, but the most false memories with drawings. Participants 106 participants (86 women, 20 men), aged from 18 to 51, M = 20.11, SD = 3.61 Conclusion More realistic information leads to less false memories. This research has implications for eyewitness accounts, investigations, and judicial processes. Research Question Pictorial images of False Memory Item Abstract This study investigated the effect of a critical lure on memory in a nonverbal context. The most realistic stimuli, photographs, result in the least amount of false memories, underlining the implications for the ecological validity of memory assessment. Hunter, Crowder, Leach and Norris (2004) created a set of schematic stimuli designed to represent three DRM word lists (bread, foot, chair) to compare number of falsely recalled items under four different conditions, spoken word list, written word list, context display (all items pictured together) and non-context display (items presented individually). The non-context display produced significantly less false memories than the remaining three conditions, but the stimuli were not realistic as they were schematic drawings.