Memory Strength and Criterion Shift in the False Memory Paradigm: A Learning Case

Abstract

The attempt has been made to investigate the criterion shift hypothesis once again by re-evaluating the confi-dence measurement, which will possibly clarify the role that criterion shifts play in the false memory phenome-non (recollection of an event, or the details of an event, that did not occur). Literature review shows that this hypothesis still needs research upon the same topic. The study was experimental in which students of Hamdard University were selected as subjects - 40 students from BBA and MBA programs. Both male/female and left/right handed subjects participated. All the subjects were not native English speakers. The experiment was conducted using a computer program to collect the data. The experiment had two parts, firstly a study/recall phase and secondly a test/recognition phase. The scale we introduced to allow participants to assess their own certainty about the classification of recognition items is more detailed than that used in the Roediger and McDermott study. Our hypothesis was that a shift in decision criterion would become evident by means of a lower certainty measure for lure words as compared to target words from the lists. This difference was found in our data. The mean certainty measure we found for the critical lures is significantly lower than the mean cer-tainty for the targets.