Expectancies and memory for an emotional film fragment: a placebo study.

Full Abstract

This study investigated whether positive ("memory-enhancing") and negative ("memory-impairing") placebos may enhance and undermine, respectively, memory of a film fragment. After watching an emotional film fragment, participants were assigned to a "memory-enhancing" placebo group (n = 30), control group (n = 30), or "memory-impairing" placebo group (n = 30). Only participants who believed in the placebo effect were included in the analyses. In the positive placebo group, memory for the film fragment was better than that of participants who received negative placebos or control participants. Participants in the negative placebo group made more distortion errors than participants in the positive placebo or control group. Our findings show that people's expectancies about their memory may affect their memory performance. These results may have implications for both clinical practice and the legal domain.

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Author information

Author/s: Van Oorsouw, Kim (K); Merckelbach, Harald (H);

Affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, Maastricht University, Masstricht, The Netherlands. k.vanoorsouw(-atsign-)psychology.unimaas.nl

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: The American journal of psychology (Am J Psychol), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-; vol 120 (issue 2) : pp 287-301

Dates: Created 2007/07/26; Completed 2007/08/30; Revised 2007/11/15;

PMID: 17650922, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adolescent
Adult
Affect
Attitude
Blood Pressure - physiology
Female

Female
Humans
Male
Memory
Mental Recall
Motion Pictures as Topic

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