Examining the Effect of Anxiety on the Development of False Memory

Examining the Effect of Anxiety on the Development of False Memory

Mariyam Malsha Muneer

8 September 2021

Up till the late 70s, people believed their memory worked in similar to a video-recorder, accurately collecting and storing every information seen and heard. This belief was brought to question after researchers started thorough investigation on memory, and found that in actuality memory is highly impressionable and prone to numerous errors such as the formation of false memories. There now appears to have been found many causes for the formation of false memories. However, limited to no research exists on the effect of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) on formation of false memories. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of GAD on the development of false memories by using the misinformation effect paradigm. Confidence-accuracy calibration (CAC) was assessed as a secondary analysis. Participants (N = 100) were recruited through online means and took part in a 15-45-minute-long experiment involving neutral stimuli. The experiment consisted of a video of an event and were subsequently asked to read a text description with misinformation after partaking in filler tasks. Afterwards their memory of the original event was tested. Results demonstrate that GAD and false memory are not significantly associated. CAC analysis revealed that participants were relatively aware of when their memory had been distorted by providing low confidence ratings to more inaccurate items and higher confidence ratings to accurately recalled answers. Additionally, false memories created due to misinformation was significantly observed, though GAD did have any influence over this. To conclude, GAD does not contribute to the formation of false memories.

memory, generalized anxiety disorder, confidence-accuracy calibration

A total of 100 participants were recruited and provided with an online link through social media sites, ages ranging from 18-50. Out of the recruited participants, 66 identified as females, 31 as males, two as non-binary and, one preferred not to say. The link begins with the consent sheet, and once the participants click to agree, they were then redirected to the start of the experiment.
Participant’s anxiety was tested by administering a standardized and validated tool, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire (GAD-7) (Spitzer et al., 2006), (see Appendix B). GAD7 has seven rating scale questions, and the participant’s anxiety was calculated by assigning scores of zero (not at all), one (several days), two (more than half the days), and three (nearly every day). Samples questions include “worrying too much about different things?” and “becoming easily annoyed or irritable?”. For scores ten and above, GAD-7 has a specificity of 82% and sensitivity of 89% (Kroenke et al., 2007). Cut-off points for the scores are a score of five for mild anxiety, ten for moderate anxiety, and 15 for severe anxiety. For the present study, participants who scored nine and below were grouped under “low” anxiety, and participants who scored ten and above were grouped under “high” anxiety.
The stimulus set developed by Okado and Start (2005) were used for this study. Two neutral stimuli were obtained, and each stimulus consisted of 50 coloured digital images. These were compiled into a short video, with each image displayed for 300ms, and the whole video lasting 150s. Out of the 50 slides, 12 of them were critical, meaning these slides consisted of an item that would later be altered in the text description of the event, hence providing the misinformation. The two stimuli are summarized below.
Stimulus One is about a female named Rachel who was doing her work at home, then feels hungry and checks her refrigerator for food, sees that there is not much at hand, and so goes grocery shopping. She was seen viewing different aisles for grocery and sees a friend in there as well. She then pays the bill and takes the elevator back home and stores the food away. (See Appendix C for the critical images)
Stimulus Two is about a male student named Nicholas who was just seen leaving his classroom to go sit on a bench in the hallway, studying between classes and runs into three friends: a male (Henry) who displays his new shirt, another male (Frank) who wanted to know when an exam was scheduled, and a female (Stephanie) whose conversation was interrupted by a phone call. (See Appendix F for the critical images)
Text descriptions derived from Okado and Stark’s (2005) stimulus set were used for the present study. For both Stimulus One and Stimulus Two, 12 critical details from the original event were altered in the text description, with every other detail remaining true to the original event. To give an example of a critical detail, in stimulus One’s original event a woman was seen picking up two bananas, whereas in the text description it was written, “She started with the healthy items and picked up five bananas.” (See Appendix D and G).
Recognition test involving three choice options derived from Okado and Stark (2005) were used for the present study. The test was composed of 18 detailed questions concerning the video presented at the beginning (the original event phase). Out of the 18 questions, 12 were critical questions (i.e., regarding the events that were changed in the text description), and six were control questions (i.e., regarding events that were consistent throughout the video and text description). After each question participants reported their confidence in their response on a scale of 0-100, where zero indicated not at all confident and 100 indicated extremely confident.
A sample critical question was, “In the fruits section, how many bananas did Rachel pick up?” Participants were required to choose one answer out of the three: (1) one banana (filler option), (2) two bananas (as seen from the original event’s video), and (3) five bananas (altered detail presented in the text description). Control questions were also akin to critical questions, e.g., “Where does Rachel put her shopping bags in the kitchen?” For answers: (1) on the counter (as seen from the original event’s video), (2) on the floor (filler option), (3) on the table (filler option). (See Appendix E and H).
The current research was designed as a 2x2x2 mixed factorial study. All participants had to complete all aspects of the experiment; henceforth, the memory accuracy for control and critical items were within-subject factors. The levels of anxiety (high and low) and stimulus (one and two), were between-subject factors.
Participants were tested individually online and were informed they are partaking in a study concerning memory and mood. The experiment was created online in Qualtrics, and upon viewing, participants are first required to consent. The consent sheet had also explained that the study is completely voluntary and participants can withdraw at any point. Subsequently, participants were to either watch stimulus One or Two (the two videos were set to view randomly), and a timer was set to ensure no skipping was allowed. Immediately afterwards, participants had to fill in few demographic questions pertaining to their age, education, and employment (see Appendix A). Afterwards, they were required to complete the GAD-7. These two questionnaires served as a filler task to ensure sufficient time to allow some memory decay between watching the video of the event and reading the text description of the event.
Next, participants read the altered text descriptions of the original event shown in the video. Participants were unaware of the changes brought and were told to read the text descriptions which had described the events from the original video. Akin to the video, a two-minute timer was set to ensure participants do not skip the text descriptions. Thereupon, participants were diverted to a game of sudoku, where they would spend at least five minutes playing it. They were instructed that we were interested in knowing how individuals play games and so were not aware of the true nature of the game, which was to serve as a second filler task. Lastly, participants completed the recognition memory test, where they had to choose the correct answer out of the three response options and to indicate their confidence for each answer to assess the C-A relationship. CAC layout is relatively simple by computing the accuracy for each level of confidence. When perfect calibration occurs, it is a straight line with the decisions being made at each level of confidence are all correct.
Once completed, participants were thanked for their time spent on the experiment and presented with the debrief sheet explaining the true nature of the study The debrief sheet was provided with international and local numbers for people from different continents should they need to seek immediate assistance. Participants spent around an estimate of 15-45 minutes to complete the experiment.

Lancaster University

Excel/csv

Muneer2021

Ellen Dimeck, Cati Oates

Open

Open

English

Data

LA1 4YZ

MSc

Clinical

A total of 100 participants were recruited and provided with an online link through social media sites, ages ranging from 18-50. Out of the recruited participants, 66 identified as females, 31 as males, two as non-binary and, one preferred not to say.

ANOVA
Confidence-accuracy Calibration