Kamil Michalik
Malwina Szpitalak
Studia Psychologiczne. t. 53 (2015), z. 2, s. 29-42
PL ISSN 0081-685X
DOI: 10.2478/V1067-010-0130-4
Institute of Psychology,
Jagiellonian University
[email protected]
THE MISINFORMATION EFFECT
IN THE CONTEXT OF THE FUZZY-TRACE THEORY
INTRODUCTION
participants exposed to the misinformation are more
the witness’s memory report of a situation some
information that is incongruent with the situation.
Moreover, the source of the information is not the
from the area of juridical psychology and are aprecent 40 years many basic studies of an exploration
experiment procedure was thought to help to verify
new hypothesis concerning the misinformation and
those came up through the academical discussion
as new potential explanations of the misinforma-
have been done (Chan, Thomas & Bulevich, 2009;
There are many paradigms of exploring the
is a memory material presented to the study participants, e.g. a slideshow (original material). Afterwards,
there is a post-event material exposed which, in the
experimental group, contains the misinformation.
Usually, the post-event material has a form of a text
to be read. The participants are told that the text is
a summery or some kind of a reminder of the original
material. In the last stage of the experiment, a memory
test is presented. The memory test takes form of open
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The classic experiment procedure of Loftus et al.
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Psychological Studies, volume 53, issue 2
sion consists of explanations based on the memory
mechanisms and other including all the non-memory
mechanisms. The division seems to be reasonable
taking into account the investigation history development which will be described below.
The discussion was started by a statement of
distortion. The memory distortion were explained
either by the replacement of the original memory
trace by the misinformation memory trace, or by the
simultaneous coexistence and competition of both.
cording to them some part of the participants in the
experimental group of the investigations of Loftus
30
Kamil Michalik.BMXJOB4[QJUBMBL
information but they did remember the misinformation, hence, in the memory test they chose the
misinformation more often than in the control group
where the participants were not exposed to the misinout that it is possible that some of the participants
during the memory test might remember both, the
original information and the misinformation, but for
some reasons not based on the memory mechanisms,
they decide to answer according to the misinformais not able to detect such cases, hence, it is ineligible
to claim that only memory based mechanisms can
procedure based on the one designed by Loftus et
between the control group and the experimental
read in the post-event material was included also into
the original material. The results, though, showed
the source of the information. At the same time, the
in the studies with the procedure without source
main drawback of this procedure is that in fact it does
importance of the correct source monitoring ability
is so important that many researchers consider it the
main reason of the memory based mechanisms of
Brainerd, 1995; Zaragoza & Lane, 1994). Indeed,
in many studies the relationship between the two
phenomena is directly proportional; a person that is
not able to determine the source of the information
On the other hand, if someone correctly determine
the source of the information, they are somehow
impossible to conclude that the misinformation negaColton & Williamson, 2014; Leding, 2012). One of
discussion on the memory based and non-memory
describe a new experiment procedure that includes
a source monitoring test instead of a normal memory
test. In the source monitoring test the participants were
asked if a detail came from 1) the original material, 2)
the post-event material, 3) both post-event and original
material, 4) neither post-event nor original material.
The main objective of the source monitoring test was
to determine if a participant was conscious in which
part of the experiment (original or post-event material)
encountered the detail. In other words, if a participant
can determine (monitor) the source of the information.
Using this procedure it was possible to determine if
the participants believed that the information that they
event material. The same, it informs the participants
about the lack of credibility of the source of the inHirst & Hussy, 2005; Szpitalak & Polczyk; 2012;
Wright, 1993). Thus, the basis of the misinformation
not always a high ability to source monitor results in
higher performance in memory tests. Krix, Sauerland,
Merckelbach, Gabbert & Hope (2015) conducted an
experiment that led to the conclusion that the participants who get lower scores in source monitoring
test get better results in a free recall memory tests.
However, it is not possible to draw any conclusions
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rather was the beginning.
Another publications that were very important in
this discussion were those of Lindsay and Johnson
participants to monitor the source of the information
and at the same time to reduce the misinformation
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The misinformation effect in the context of the fuzzy-trace theory
31
meaning of the memory and can be interpreted in
the procedure not include the exposition of any misinformation (Krix et al., 2015).
Furthermore, it is to keep in mind that the longer
the time between the memory material exposition
of the correct information source monitoring there
are (Horry et al., 2014; Mori & Kishikawa, 2014).
As a consequence it leads to a stronger misinforbasis this mechanisms is similar to the fuzzy trace
theory. The very authors of the theory pointed it
out (Brainerd & Reina, 2002).
There were several other theories explaining the
a love letter which consists only of a phrase „I miss
traces. First, the gist trace (the author cannot wait
to see the recipient) and the other, verbatim trace,
that contains the following information: the letter
contains three words, written in English in a hurry
on a red piece of paper with a pencil.
According to the fuzzy-trace theory (Reyna &
Brainerd, 1995) both traces work parallel but independently. That means that the extraction of the
information out of the memory may be supported
by two traces: the gist trace and the verbatim trace.
Importantly, depending on which trace we will use
to get a given detail out of the memory system, the
CHARM theory (Composite Holographic Associain the study carried out by Reyna and Kiernan (1994)
be described in this work as they are not relevant to
the main topic of this article. Still, the importance
of the non memory based theories for the misinfor-
presented to the participants. Then, after a break, they
presented to the participants a list of phrases. Some of
the phrases were the same as those from the beginning
of the experiment, some of them were new and other
that were using the source monitoring paradigm as
It turned out that the participants had problems with
indicating which of the last phrases came from the
original list. According to the authors it is probable
that the participants use the verbatim trace and not the
gist trace while recognizing the phrases. It is possible
because of the fact that according to the fuzzy-trace
memory (Reyna & Brainerd, 1995) the gist trace lasts
longer than the verbatim trace. The verbatim trace
disappears faster and so it makes us to use only the
gist trace memories. From the point of view of the
studies presented in this article, the main conclusion
of the authors of the fuzzy-trace theory would be
the fact that it is the verbatim trace which is directly
connected to the source monitoring. It happens because it is the verbatim trace that contains the context
information which help to determine the information
source. Thus, by using the verbatim trace, one can be
trace which includes the context of the information.
The verbatim trace is described by the authors of the
theory as a memory trace of certain facts or experiences that are objective and can be easily remembered
and retrieved from the memory. The other is the gist
trace and contains the information about a deeper
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(2011) continued their work.
Fuzzy-trace memory (Reyna & Brainerd, 1995) is
the last of the theories to be mentioned and described
but its importance for the article is crucial. According
to this theory there are two parallel memory storages
that work in our minds. One of the storages works for
surface form of a memory (verbatim trace) memory
traces and the other refers to the meaning of the information (gist trace). In other words, every piece of
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Psychological Studies, volume 53, issue 2
Brainerd, 1995). Nevertheless, it is only by the correct
understanding of the memory material that can lead
32
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to a creation of the gist trace. If it was not so, the only
memory trace that will be created will be the verbatim
trace. The mechanism is well supported by a study
of Mih (2009) in which they compared two groups
the level of a text understanding skills. The group
of people with better text understanding skills more
often based their memories on cognitive reconstructed
representations of the information content that led to
a higher number of false recognitions.
The results of Reyna and Brainerd studies (1995)
are contrary to the intuition because they assume
that the better the memory material processing
happens because the more we cognitively process
some information, the stronger the gist trace bea study of LaTour, LaTour and Brainerd (2014).
The authors explain why false memories in this case
should not be considered as a fault of the cognitive system. They even claim the contrary, that it
information source. The memories of an event may
be based both on the cognitive verbatim representation or on the cognitive gist representation. Nonetheless, the memories of the information source
can be based only on the verbatim representation.
In this work the verbatim representation will be
understood as follow: all the formal characteristics of a given memory material that, according to
the fuzzy-trace theory (Brainerd & Reyna, 1995),
can be remembered as objective information. The
verbatim representation, contrary to the gist representation, does not cover the deeper meaning of
the material. The deeper meaning of a memory
material seems to be equivalent to the concept of
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calling it „smart false memories”.
Brainerd and Reyna (2002) explain the mecha-
Brainerd and Reyna (2002) conclude that the
that a person does not remember what they saw or
because, despite of the fact that the correct memory
trace exists, they cannot assign a piece of information
to the correct information source. According to the
source monitoring process may be the amount of time
that passes between the presentation of the original
information and the memory test. The amount of
time is too large when it causes the disappearance of
the verbatim memory trace, since it is the verbatim
trace that helps to monitor the information source.
Finally, Reyna and Brainerd (1995) concluded that
the longer the time interval between the original
information and the memory test is, the greater the
of the time interval between the misinformation inIn those cases with the decrease of the time interval
between the original material and the memory test, the
verbatim trace of the original information becomes
weaker and so does the source monitoring capacity. At the same time, the smaller the time interval
between the misinformation and the memory test is,
the stronger and more accessible the verbatim trace
of the misinformation becomes. These conclusions
are supported by the results of some empiric studies
(Reyna & Brainerd, 1995; Smith & Kimball, 2012).
The authors proofed that while using a considerably
short exposition time of the original material (200
ms), the number of the false memories is lower when
a direct rather than a postponed memory test is used.
With the development of the fuzzy-trace theory,
new assumptions of its mechanisms arose. For example, to explain the results of McDermott and Watson’s
study (2001), Brainerd and Reyna (2005) concluded
ms) is needed to create a verbatim trace than to create a gist trace. The longer the exposition time is,
the more probable becomes the consolidation of the
-
his followers. In other words, it is a general sense
of a piece of information that linguistically can be
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Psychological Studies, volume 53, issue 2
The misinformation effect in the context of the fuzzy-trace theory
verbatim trace which is necessary to the correct source
monitoring. However, the study of Smith and Kimball
(2012), stays in contradiction to these conclusions.
memories between the groups of 33 milliseconds
tion with a delayed memory test applied.
ASSUMPTIONS AND HYPOTHESES
According to the fuzzy-trace theory (Reyna
& Brainerd, 1995), if the verbatim memory trace
stays intact and the form of the memory material is
occur then or it should be smaller in comparison to
the group where the participants do not have access
to the verbatim trace. If it is the verbatim trace indeed
that is responsible for the correct source monitoring,
then an increase of its distinctiveness (making the
A procedure based on the fuzzy-trace theory
(Reyna & Brainerd, 1995) and the source monitorposed in this study. The procedure is supposed to
improve the participants ability to source monitoring
and by making the verbatim trace more distinctive
To achieve this, the original material designed to
be written in a foreign language, but well known by
the participants. The post-event material consisted
of the same text (in the experimental group with
33
a language is a formal characteristic of a text and taking into consideration the previously presented form
There are many studies that support the thesis of
a strong relationship between the source monitoring
and formal characteristics of a piece of information
(Geraci & Franklin, 2004; Roediger & McDermott,
1995; LaTour et al., 2014). On the other hand, there
are others showing that relying on the form and not
the content of the material leads to false memory and
The previously suggested experiment scheme
would help to verify the fuzzy-trace theory. In
practice, the awareness of such mechanisms might
help protect witnesses against the misinformation
In conclusion, the following hypotheses will be
1. Number of answers consistent with misinformation will be higher in the group with misinformation than in the group without misinformation
2. Number of answers consistent with misinformation will be higher in the group with misinpost-event material will be lower than in the group
with misinformation but the same language in the
original and the post-event material.
METHOD
Participants
94 trilingual participants took part in the experi3
change) and at the same time the content will be no
2
). The authors assume that
2
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foreign language. In this way a following scheme will
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Psychological Studies, volume 53, issue 2
= 22,44,
University whose mother tongue was polish. The
Spanish language level was determined by the
3
character of the philology studies in which the experiment was
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year of studies (II and III grade – C1 level, IV and
V grade – C2 level). English language level was
ciency (all the participants were at a level between
B2 and C1). The experiment took place in groups
that consisted of several participants. In every group
all the experimental conditions were tested. The
subjects did not receive any payment.
Materials
The study instruction alike all four parts of the
experiment were written in 12 size letters, Times
New Roman style on A4 size sheets. Every stage
was presented on a single sheet or, in the case of
The instruction was written in polish – native
participants’ language – and encouraged the participants to read the text that followed the instruction
carefully and to answer the questions regarding the
text. It also stated that the text was written in Spanish4.
The participants were asked to keep silence and to
call the experimenter in case of any doubt. The text
that followed the instruction (the original material)
consisted of approximately 300 words. The level of
ensured its understanding by a person who knows
Spanish at B1 level or higher (it was so clear then to
all the participants of the experiment). The respondents
were asked to write their nickname, age and gender.
Below the text there were three questions regarding
the story’s potential author characteristics. The ques4
the second (English) story should be equal to minimize poten-
-
using the same language in instructions / questions and in the
story (memory material) would be attracting more attention
either to the original material or to the post-event material.
was from the perspective of a foreign language use.
The answer was measured on a Likert scale, from 1
did not understand the text correctly because of the
foreign language level (none of the participants was
excluded from the results calculations.
The second part of the experiment was presented
on another sheet with another short instruction in
polish language. The instruction encouraged the
participants to read the following story carefully.
Depending on the group (experimental vs control),
text was an English translation of the story from the
The English text also had two subgroups (with
or without misinformation), consisted of approximately 300 words and was easy to understand for
a person with B1 English language level (all of the
participants). Beneath the text there also were some
potential author of the text, question about results
English skills scale. The Spanish version of text in
words to simulate a summary of the original text.
Apart from that, in the misinformation group it
contained misinformation details.
The third A4 sheet consisted of a polish instruction
and 12 open questions regarding the original text. The
instruction encouraged the participants to concentrate
on the original Spanish text and try to recall all the
details necessary to answer the 12 questions accurately.
PROCEDURE
The experiment was conducted during university
classes at the Spanish Filology Department. Number
of the participants in every group oscillated between
-
have problems with recalling information that was encoded
-
the texts. Hence, it is best to write both, the instructions and the
questions of all experiment stages (except the stories that are
the memory material) in a neutral language for a participant,
e.g. native language. This suggestion is supported by research
tions were not relevant for the purpose of verifying
the hypotheses of the study and their only objective
was to motivate the participants to carefully read the
story. On the bottom of the paper there were also
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Psychological Studies, volume 53, issue 2
The misinformation effect in the context of the fuzzy-trace theory
experiment several times. During the experiment,
apart from the participants, the experimenter and
the teacher were present in the classroom.
The experiment was started by the university
teacher by introducing the experimenter and announcing that a part of the class will be dedicated
to the experiment. Next, the experimenter asked
the participants for their consent to participate
in the study, explained that the study was about
memory in the context of foreign languages and
announced that all the instruction they would found
classroom was demanded. Then, the experimenter
handed out one sheet of A4 paper to each person
35
English text with misinformation and another was
exposed to the English text without misinformation.
The third group was exposed to the text in Spanish
with misinformation and the last, fourth group was
exposed to the Spanish text without misinformation.
Participants in every row of desks were handed
out materials from the same experimental group
to reduce the possibility of noting that every other
The second part took the participants approx. four
was handed out with the sheet of the third stage of
the experiment. The third stage lasted about four
with the fourth part was handed out5.
on respondents could start to work. There was no
part approximately in the same amount of time;
after 5 minutes.
After collecting all the sheets, the experimenter
of the study and announced that after 20 minutes
there would be another part of the study. During
the 20 minutes the university teacher taught their
subject (in spanish).
After 20 minutes left the experimenter handed
out another sheet of paper with the second stage
of the study. In the experiment there had been four
all four groups concerned only the second stage
of the study. All other stages were the same for
every group.
2 x 2 experimental plan was used (misinformation: present / none; number of languages used:
one/two). Therefore, one group was exposed to an
fourth stage, the experimenter thanked the participants for their participation in the study. Moreover,
the participants were informed about the possibility
of receiving the results from the study and a special
e-mail address was given to them.
RESULTS
The main dependent variable analyzed in this
study was the mean number of answers consistent
with misinformation Descriptive statistics for this
variable are presented in Table 1.
5
used. The fourth stage was supposed to report information
about source monitoring capacity of the participants. Nevertheless, due to the fact that the sample was too small, these
results were inconclusive and so they will not be presented
in this work.
Table 1.
One language
Language change
One language
Language change
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Psychological Studies, volume 53, issue 2
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Mean
Standard deviation
Sample size
0,25
0,04
0,44
0,20
20
25
24
25
1,00
Mean response number consistent with the misinformation for the critical questions.
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Conditions
No misinformation
No misinformation
Misinformation
Misinformation
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Distribution of the results was normal and variances were homogenous. Two-factor ANOVA (mis< 0,001; 2 = 0,19). As stated in hypothesis one,
misled persons (
compared
to non-misled ones ( = 0,13;
0,34) were
( (1,90) = 0,55;
0,459; 2 = 0,01). Moreover,
the interaction between misinformation and number
(1,90)
2
= 0,05). This interaction is
presented in Figure 1.
Fig. 1. Mean response consistent with the misinformation number depending on the number of languages used.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
between non-misled persons from the one- and
two-language groups
( (1,90) = 1,09;
0,300; 2 = 0,01). However,
misled persons from the group with two languages
more frequently yielded to misinformation compared to misled persons from the group with one
language (
= 0,032; 2 = 0,05). This
outcome is opposite to one expected in hypothesis 2.
the group (with misinformation) were more prone
group (without misinformation). The results are
that used the procedure with open questions (e.g
On the other hand, a methodological change
was used in this study. Such a change had never
been used in experiments concerning the misin-
-
-
interesting results. The comparison of misled
and non-misled persons in the group with one
(1,90)
= 0,104; 2 = 0,03). However, in case
of group with two languages misinformation
sistent with misinformation (
0,001; 2 = 0,22).
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the original material and then misinformation and
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Psychological Studies, volume 53, issue 2
The misinformation effect in the context of the fuzzy-trace theory
37
both contribute in some way to the content of the
Even more important results of this research
According to the second hypothesis in the group
the misinformation in a way that it became more
distinct; (4) the fuzzy-trace theory is incorrect or it
does not work in every case (the verbatim trace does
not improve the capacity of the source monitoring);
(5) improvement of the source monitoring capacity
use in the original and post-event material the
than in the group with misinformation but without
language change. This hypothesis was not conContrary to the expectations, the misinformation
in the post-event material, was higher than in the
group with misinformation but without language
change. This result cannot be explained directly
by the fuzzy trace theory of Reyna and Brainerd
(1995) that was used as a theoretical basis to design
the hypotheses. The basic premise of the study was
that the language change between the information
sources (original material and post-event material)
is such a distinct change in form of the information
that, according to the fuzzy-trace theory, it would
improve the source monitoring capacity and then
work „protectively” on the subjects against the misthe participants from the group with the language
change should be less prone to the misinformation
causes of such results may lie in the theoretical
premises of the research hypothesis. The following
explanations are possible: (1) the language change
between the original material and misinformation
does not constitute a strong enough change of the
information form (it does not lead to strengthening
the verbatim trace of both information sources); (2)
the language change, next to the change of the form,
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change. However, it turned out that the language
change not only did not limit the misinformation
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Psychological Studies, volume 53, issue 2
the source monitoring capacity against the misinforwill be of operation to monitor sources of information relative to docility to the misinformation, the
will be considered unlikely.
Thus, we should consider other possible causes
of the results: the language change between the experiment stages was not an enough distinct change
of the information form to lead to the verbatim
trace consolidation, or, next to the change of the
information form concerned the material as a whole
(the original material; story in Spanish and the
post-event material; story in English) and not the
critical details themselves. Hence, the form of the
Consequently, the verbatim trace might have not
improve the source monitoring capacity as the form
of the content was all the same for every information source. Results consistent with such conclusion was presented by Roediger et al. (Roediger,
Watson, McDermott & Gallo, 2001). In their study,
they presented to participants a list of words. The
task was to remember the words. The memory
test consisted of another list of words. A part of
the words came from the original list, others were
others were semantically similar and the rest of the
words were not either phonologically nor semantically similar. It turned out that the participants
did worst with the words phonologically similar
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validity of the fuzzy-trace theory assumption about
the link between the source monitoring and formal
characteristics of a memory material. At the same
time, it proves that a phonological similarity (and
such a similarity occurs when using the same phonological system within a given language), may
a deep processing, although it demands more soprocess of creation and consolidation of the gist
trace. Consequently, it may lead to strengthen the
gist trace might have been in advantage in the recall
from the language of encoding, the participants were
forced in some way to use the gist trace (because the
it was the original material or the misinformation).
Other study that might help to explain these
results was designed and conducted by Geraci
and Franklin (2004). Their experiment concerned
occurred only after removing the context of a story
leaving only those parts that were necessary to
distinguish the meaning of the words. This study
shows that when trying to determine the information
source, we do not always relay on the same hints.
Using terms of the fuzzy-trace theory (Reyna &
Brainerd, 1995) we might say that when trying to
recall the content of a material it is only when no
semantical hints are available that make us refer
to the verbatim trace.
to them, if the language of encoding and recalling
it worse than if the language was the same. The
authors explain it using the well-known encoding
fect”. This mechanism consists of encoding information bearing in mind that soon one will be asked
to express this information in a certain language.
If someone knows that soon will be asked to relate
what they have remembered, one will try to create
a memory trace making associations between the
information and certain words in a given language.
However, if the person is asked about the relationship in a language other than the language coding
and in addition has not been prejudiced about it, the
strategy of
its function, which interferes with the process of
remembering and as a result can lead to worsening
the process of reminding. Probably, a situation like
that could take place in the present experiment.
ticipants in the trial were presented a list of words
consisted of signals in three languages (number of
words in each language was the same, but the words
themselves were on the list randomly mixed). It
turned out that the subjects remember fewer words,
when they are presented in three languages familiar
to them, rather than in one language. These authors
came to a conclusion, that most likely encoding each
language is mostly independent of each other and
that the arrangement of the information encoded
in two or more languages in one unit is harder than
the material has been encoded in one language.
All the above cited test results indicate that the
use of several languages in the same memory test
In each experiment, participants recalled a smaller
amount of content, stronger economies succumbed
to misinformation or worse monitored source of
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source monitoring. The results show that the more
similar original material and misinformation are
the worse we remember the information source. It
turned out that the participants more often confused
the information source of synonyms (e.g. gate and
door) than words that represent object that look
similar, but are not connected semantically (e.g.
donut and roll). Interestingly, initially there was
Another simple explanation of the results of
this study might be the conclusions drawn from an
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Psychological Studies, volume 53, issue 2
The misinformation effect in the context of the fuzzy-trace theory
information than in trials without manipulation
number of languages. The results of the experiment
which languages are provided. For two reasons it is
representations of the words in every of the known
languages. In other words, it is assumed that a person
words (Spelke & Tsivkin, 2001). This mechanism
is based on the theory of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis,
which says that in every written language is a way
were native-speakers of the Polish language, and
thus, probably operated primarily mental representations of translated words and phrases in Polish.
In addition, this mechanism does not explain
which of the stages of the process could have disrupted memory (encoding, storage or recall), and
why. According to the theories discussed above,
the change content should have no impact on the
result of misinformation, because this change in
the form of communication is relationally linked
with it, unless the alleged change of the text content
phenomena such as this, that Inuit has a dozen different names for snow, depending on its physical
properties, but there is one general word „snow”,
It is also conceivable that the material in Spanish was not for those studying Spanish philology
world images, so called because this phenomenon
such results as those of the research conducted by
of the language use. In Poland, because of the climate, there is no need to use so many names for
snow as in Greenland, where the weather conditions
and the type of snow for the day has an impact on
the functioning of a large part of the population.
To describe it accurately, a Polish researcher of the
study the material was characterized by emotionally
tion neutral and the researchers concluded that the
stronger the emotions associated with this language,
language recalling, the remembering process can
of reality. Possible for this is that the respondents
interpreted the story presented to them in a slightly
in English, what disturbed the memory process. On
the other hand, the linguist Luque Duran (2004),
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language, even within one country, for example.
Psychological Studies, volume 53, issue 2
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term in the two languages is established when there
A second possible explanation for the results of the
experiment is that the language change material
presented was not only a form of communication
ing the process of experiment in an uncontrolled
manner. One of the mechanisms that might work
e.g. The word „umbrella” than the English word
„umbrella” which for encoding information is not
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at all took place. Firstly, both English and Spanish
are the European languages and countries which
use them at the level of everyday life very similarly
(e.g. in comparison with life in Asian countries). The
of the content. As a result, it could lead to a better
recall of misinformation in Spanish, although it
should be stipulated that the study Otgaar et al.
tion is very expressive, rising to her submission. It
is possible that a change in the language between
the original material and the material subsequent
disinformation made more distinct, and thus nota-
40
,BNJM.JDIBMJL.BMXJOB4[QJUBMBL
ble easier, encoded faster in memory, and through
it – perhaps – often used during the testing phase
memory of the original material. On the other hand,
if the mechanism behind the obtained results was
a changing image in the world including the usage of the second text another foreign language,
languages. It means that some details in English
would be more distinctive than in Spanish, but
other in Spanish are more distinctive than those in
words were more distinctive, and thus, it is better
remembered by the subjects rather than in Spanish. Rather, part of a word would be remembered
better and some worse. As a consequence of the
explanation, it may be possible, is put in doubt by
the authors.
Generally, the most likely explanation for
the above experiment results is that the use of
multiple languages in the same job memory
worsens the memory processes, as described
information. This phenomenon does not explain,
however, why this is happening. This experiment, therefore, forms a part of series of studies
next two proposed explanation in part overlap
are as following. If you change the language of
or at least the results are not conclusive (Powers,
It would be dangerous, however, if only because of
the fact that only takers were students generalize
the results to the entire population group.
It would be useful also if the replication studies use a fourth stage according to the scheme it
an insight not only into submission disinformation, but also whether the person – or succumbing to remain resilient – disposed memory trace
information both original and misinformation. As
mentioned, such a procedure has been used in the
present study, however, due to low abundance of
the results, it was not suitable for analysis. A study
experiment).
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