Heightened false memory: a long-term sequela of severe closed head injury.

Full Abstract

Declarative memory impairment is a common long-term sequela of severe closed head injury (CHI). Although veridical memory performance following severe CHI has received attention in the literature, little is known about false memory production in this population. Within the present study, both long-term survivors of severe CHI and matched control participants studied and were tested on six 12-items word lists from the Deese Roediger McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Word lists from the DRM are composed of words that are strongly semantically associated to a non-presented word (i.e., the critical lure). Prior studies have shown that healthy young adults show a high level of false recall and recognition memory for the critical lures, and it was hypothesized individuals with severe CHI would show heightened susceptibility to false memory compared to control participants due to difficulty with monitoring of memory. It was further hypothesized that severe CHI participants would show high confidence in their false memories. Consistent with hypotheses, results indicated that although severe CHI participants remembered fewer actual list items, they made more semantically related intrusion errors (recall) and false-positive responses (recognition) than the control participants. Severe CHI participants also showed greater confidence in their false memories than did control participants. The results are interpreted in the context of theoretical accounts of false memory, and possible structural and functional brain changes that might account for the Severe CHI group's memory performance are discussed.

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Author information

Author/s: Ries, Michele (M); Marks, William (W);

Affiliation: The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA. mlr(-atsign-)medicine.wisc.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Neuropsychologia (Neuropsychologia), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-; vol 44 (issue 12) : pp 2233-40

Dates: Created 2006/07/24; Completed 2006/09/26; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 16814819, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adolescent
Adult
Analysis of Variance
Association Learning - physiology
Case-Control Studies
Female
Head Injuries, Closed - physiopathology; psychology
Humans
Knowledge of Results (Psychology)

Male
Mental Recall - physiology
Middle Aged
Probability
Psychometrics - methods
Reaction Time - physiology
Recognition (Psychology) - physiology
Verbal Learning - physiology
Word Association Tests - statistics & numerical data

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