1. Leonard L. LaPointe Maya F. Callender William D. Chatham Dorian A. Chen Lakeisha R. Cooper Laura L. Gingrich Jessica A. Obermeyer Communication Science & Disorders Florida State University Tallahassee (lllapointe@fsu.edu)lllapointe@fsu.edu

2.  Human memory is not a literal record of the world  It is influenced by knowledge and previous memories, biases, and restructured by new experiences  What is retrieved from memory can substantially differ from what was originally encoded, consolidated, or stored  (see Loftus, 2003; Schacter, 1995)

4.  Memory, like visual perception, is subject to illusions, fallibility, and malleability  Lexical-semantic associations have been shown to be associated with the generation of false memories  Roediger, H.L., & Mc Dermott, K.B. (1995)  Schacter, D.L. & Slotnick, S.D (2004)  The extent and demographics of influences that create false memories is unclearly understood

5.  Participants are presented lists of related words that are derived from a common associate that is omitted from the list  Words like pillow, bed, dream, rest, nap, drool, snore, are presented but sleep is not.  Sleep is the semantically-associated “critical lure” that is never presented on the list  False memory is demonstrated when participants, when tested, falsely recall or recognize the “critical lure” (i.e., sleep) that was never presented

6.  Previous research has established that women consistently outperform men on episodic memory tasks (Bridge, et al, 2004)  A large body of work has established a multitude of facilitatory effects estrogen has on hippocampal function, a neural system crucially related to memory  Some research has associated gender with both strength of false memories as well as confidence of false memories

7. 1. Can false memories be created by semantically related critical lures using the DRM paradigm? 2. Are females or males more susceptible to the creation of false or illusory memories? 3. Do females and males differ in their confidence ratings of their false memories?

8.  227 individuals were presented 15 word lists (15 words per list), each of which converged on a common list associate (critical lure), that was not presented  Critical lures tested after presentation of semantically-related word lists in our study  Rough, Sleep, Smoke, Smell, Sweet, Soft, Anger, Needle, City, Cup, Cold, Chair, Doctor, Window, Mountain

9. 1. Nurse 2. Sick 3. Lawyer 4. Medicine 5. Health 6. Hospital 7. Dentist 8. Physician 9. Ill 10. Patient 11. Office 12. Stethoscope 13. Surgeon 14. Clinic 15. Cure DOCTOR (Critical Lure; Tested but not presented) 1. Bed 2. Rest 3. Awake 4. Tired 5. Dream 6. Wake 7. Snooze 8. Blanket 9. Doze 10. Slumber 11. Snore 12. Nap 13. Peace 14. Yawn 15. Drowsy SLEEP (Critical Lure; Tested but not presented )

10.  “Remember” Lists (“Remember these words”)  15 Word Lists (15 words per list, plus Critical Lure)  Recorded lists with ISI of 1500 ms per word  Immediately after presentation of the Remember List, examiner read Test List  Participants asked to circle YES or NO along with a number representing his/her confidence level on the Likert 7 point scale that each item either was or was not on the Remember List.  11 words on each Test List  (5 semantically related; 5 unrelated; 1 critical lure)

11.  227 Participants  Undergraduates in Communication at Florida State University  124 Females; 103 Males Many of them enjoy talking on the cell phone, texting, listening to Lady Gaga, and saying “Like, you know…”

12. Females Mean Percentage Hits.6907 % Standard Deviation.4623  Nearly identical means for 227 participants:  Not statistically significant, obviously. Males Mean Percentage Hits.6937 % Standard Deviation.4652

13. Females Mean: 5.9 Standard Deviation 1.45  Equally confident  No statistically significant differences Males Mean:6.2 Standard Deviation 1.33

14. WORD NUMBER Rough 204 Sleep 188 Smoke 187 Smell 182 Sweet 172 Soft 170 Anger 169 Needle 145 City 144 Cup 143 Cold 135 Chair 134 Doctor 134 Window 129 Mountain 101

15. Critical LurePercent of Group Who Selected It Rough 90 Sleep 83 Smoke 82 Smell 80 Sweet 76 Soft 75 Anger 74 Needle 64 City 63 Cup 63 Cold 59 Chair 59 Doctor 59 Window 57 Mountain 45

17. 1. Can false memories be created by semantically related critical lures using the DRM paradigm? Answer: Emphatically yes. Nearly 70 % of critical lures are selected with great confidence (~6 on 7 point scale) as appearing on a word list (…these words were never presented)

18. 2. Are females or males more susceptible to the creation of false or illusory memories? Answer: No. 124 females and 103 males had nearly identical mean positive hit rates across 15 word lists (No statistically significant difference) 3. Do females and males differ in their confidence ratings of their false memories? Answer: No. Confidence ratings of females and males did not significantly differ in our sample

19.  Implications for Cognitive Neuroscience  Contributes to what we know about brain and behavior; alleged cognitive differences in gender; and cognitive- linguistic interactions  Underscores the malleability, fragility, and fallibility of human memory processes Cautions us about role of memory in eye witness testimony; autobiographic narratives; and memory in the aging nervous system  Despite some reported differences between women and men in biology, morphology, language functions, and remote control use, differences in susceptibility to false memory implantation appears to be equal across genders

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