FALSE MEMORIES AND MOOD 2
The Impact of Mood on the Susceptibility of False Memories
False memories occur when an individual remembers something that did not happen or
incorrectly remembers something that did happen. Eyewitness accounts of crimes have been
subject to scrutiny due to the understanding of false memories (Knott & Thorley, 2013). The
Innocence Project (2010) reported a sample of 250 individuals who had their convictions
overturned by the presentation of DNA evidence; seventy-six percent of these individuals were
wrongly convicted as a result of eyewitness error. Given this high rate of error, research has been
conducted to determine factors that increase the likelihood of the production of false memories.
Researchers found that maltreated children were statistically more likely to produce spontaneous
false memories while non-maltreated children were more likely to experience suggestion-based
false memories (Otgaar et al., 2017). Wright et al. (2005) found that when an individual is asked
to recall a troubling memory, this will place them in a negative affective state and their
likelihood of errantly recalling events increases. Storbeck and Clore (2005) hypothesized that
this is due to item-specific processing at encoding rather than during retrieval.
Thesis statement: Positive and negative affective cues have been shown to influence the
encoding and recall of false memories.
Key Points
1. Negative mood state increases false memories in both immediate and delayed testing (Knott
& Thorley, 2013).
2. Maltreatment increases production of spontaneous false memories but not suggestion-based
false memories (Otgaar et al., 2017).
FALSE MEMORIES AND MOOD 3
3. Negative affective state increases likelihood of incorrect recall (Wright et al., 2005).
4. Item-specific processing at encoding is responsible for false memories (Storbeck & Clore,
2005).
Body of Paper
1. While much research has been conducted on the production of false memories during
immediate recognition tasks, results show that negative mood states increase false memories
after a one-week delay (Knott & Thorley, 2013).
a. Negative moods impair relational processing and foster item-specific processing. Fuzzy-trace
theory (FTT) and associative-activation theory (AAT) (Zhang et al., 2017).
b. Spreading activation theories responsible for the findings of this study can shed light on the
production of spontaneous false memories in maltreated children.
2. Children can be susceptible to false memories due to suggestive interviewing techniques but
spontaneous false memories, to which maltreated children are more susceptible, occur through
internal memory mechanisms.
a. Repeated exposure to negative emotional stimuli in the form of abuse deteriorates general
memory and can increase monitoring errors in the difference between negative true and false
information during retrieval (Otgaar et al., 2017).
b. Children are more likely to experience spontaneous false memories due to maltreatment, but
specific task demands have been found to increase this likelihood in adults.
FALSE MEMORIES AND MOOD 4
3. Researchers found that mood was related to the production of false memories but found this
was contingent upon the specific task demands (Wright et al., 2005).
a. Mood as input hypothesis
b. While the majority of research has found that negative mood is associated with increased
susceptibility to the formation of false memories, one study concluded that negative moods can
inhibit false memories through item specific processing at encoding (Storbeck & Clore, 2005).
4. Individuals in a positive affective state were shown to have increased relational processing
during encoding which enhanced the effects of false memory production (Storbeck & Clore,
2005).
a. Affect-as-information hypothesis
References
FALSE MEMORIES AND MOOD 5
Innocence Project. (2010).?250 Exonerated, too many wrongfully convicted. Retrieved
from?http://www.innocenceproject.org/docs/InnocenceProject_250.pdf
Knott, L. M., & Thorley, C. (2013). Mood-congruent false memories persist over time.
Cognition & Emotion, 28(5), 903–912. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2013.860016
Otgaar, H., Howe, M. L., & Muris, P. (2017). Maltreatment increases spontaneous false
memories but decreases suggestion-induced false memories in children. British Journal of
Development Psychology, 35(3), 376–391. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12177
Simpson, S., & Sheldon, S. (2020). Testing the impact of emotional mood and cue characteristics
on detailed autobiographical memory retrieval. Emotion, 20(6), 965–979.
https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000603
Storbeck, J., & Clore, G. L. (2005). With sadness comes accuracy; with happiness, false
memory. Psychological Science, 16(10), 785–791. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-
9280.2005.01615.x
Wright, D. B., Startup, H., & Mathews, S. A. (2005). Mood, dissociation and false memories
using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott procedure. British Journal of Psychology, 96(3),
283–293. https://doi.org/10.1348/000712605x49916
Zhang, W., Gross, J., & Hayne, H. (2017). If you’re happy and you know it: positive moods
reduce Age‐Related differences in false memory. Child Development, 89(4).
https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12890
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