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Abstract:
False memories arise when we believe we remember events that
did not actually occur. Though the experience of these memory
errors is often indistinguishable from veridical memory, the
accompanying brain activity may be different. Specifically, when
subjects study lists of words associated to critical, nonpresented
lures, on a later recognition test they make false alarms to
critical lures at approximately the same rate they make hits to
items actually presented. However, if the lists are presented to
the right or left hemisphere at study, event-related brain
potentials (ERPs) elicited by centrally-presented words at test may
be lateralized accordingly for studied items but not for associated
lures. For each of 6 study phases, the items for 4 lists were
randomly organized, with items from a given list presented to the
left or right of fixation. A recognition test, in which all words
were presented centrally, immediately followed each study phase.
ERPs were recorded for the recognition judgments of 11 subjects.
Behavioral results indicate substantial false recognition rates for
critical lures, but not for other items. Preliminary ERP analyses
suggest the presence of differential brain activity for false and
veridical items at recognition, in terms of both amplitude and
their respective lateralizations. These results suggest that a
lateralized-presentation paradigm may be useful to examine the
brain activity associated with veridical and false memory.
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