False recognition, a type of memory distortion where one claims to remember something that never happened, can occur in response to items that are similar but not identical to previously seen items (i.e., related false recognition) or in response to novel items (i.e., unrelated false recognition). It is unknown whether these 2 types of memory errors arise from the same or distinct neural substr...

Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) have been found to exhibit lower levels of false recognition of semantic associates compared with healthy older adults. Because these patients may show impaired performance of episodic and semantic memory tasks, this finding could be explained by deficits in episodic memory, semantic memory, or both. The authors adapted a paradigm for comparison of semanti...

Memory is sometimes a troublemaker. Schacter has classified memory's transgressions into seven fundamental 'sins': transience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias and persistence. This paper focuses on one memory sin, misattribution, that is implicated in false or illusory recognition of episodes that never occurred. We present data from cognitive, neuropsychologic...

studied in Schacter et al.'s well designed and controlled experiment and the type of behaviors often referred to National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke as " recovered memories ". The latter, usually discussed National Institutes of Health in clinical or legal settings, are often descriptions of Bethesda, Maryland 20892 events that are recently remembered but are purported to ha...

Retrieving false information can have serious consequences. Sleep is important for memory, but voluntary sleep curtailment is becoming more rampant. Here, the misinformation paradigm was used to investigate false memory formation after 1 night of total sleep deprivation in healthy young adults (N = 58, mean age ± SD = 22.10 ± 1.60 years; 29 males), and 7 nights of partial sleep deprivation (5 h...

The review describes the heated dispute on the present state of recovered traumatic memories. There are two main schools concerning the status of recovered memories of child abuse. One school believes in their authenticity unconditionally. Those who oppose the authenticity claim False Memory Syndrome's existence. They describe it as "a serious form of psychopathology characterized by strongly b...

Memories can be unreliable. We created a false memory in mice by optogenetically manipulating memory engram-bearing cells in the hippocampus. Dentate gyrus (DG) or CA1 neurons activated by exposure to a particular context were labeled with channelrhodopsin-2. These neurons were later optically reactivated during fear conditioning in a different context. The DG experimental group showed increase...

Recognition of pictures is typically extremely accurate, and it is thus unclear whether the reconstructive nature of memory can yield substantial false recognition of highly individuated stimuli. A procedure for the rapid induction of false memories for distinctive colour photographs is proposed. Participants studied a set of object pictures followed by a list of words naming those objects, but...

The effect of mindfulness meditation on false-memory susceptibility was examined in three experiments. Because mindfulness meditation encourages judgment-free thoughts and feelings, we predicted that participants in the mindfulness condition would be especially likely to form false memories. In two experiments, participants were randomly assigned to either a mindfulness induction, in which they...

Two experiments are described in which the P300 component of the Event-Related Potential was recorded in a modification of the Roediger & McDermott (1995) paradigm. P300 amplitudes and topographies were evaluated in both true recognition of previously presented (Old) words and in false recognition of associatively related, never presented (Lure) words. In the first experiment, P300 topographies...