Future Planning May Promote Prospective False Memories

• Published in: Journal of applied research in memory and cognition 2020-06, Vol.9 (2), p.242-253
• Main Authors: Cohen, Anna-Lisa, Silverstein, Michael J., Derksen, Daniel G., Hamzagic, Zachariah I., Bernstein, Daniel M., Stephen Lindsay, D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: False Memory; Female; Future; Human; Intention; Male; Prospective Memory
• ISSN: 2211-3681; 2211-369X
• DOI: 10.1037/h0101847

Prospective memory (PM) involves remembering to execute future intentions. Pairs played a word game (Taboo) with an embedded PM task. In Taboo, one player (clue giver) must get their partner (clue guesser) to say aloud a target word (e.g., ROOF) by offering clues such as "home" without saying certain taboo words (e.g., fiddler, house). The PM task required clue givers to remember to say specific clue words if any predesignated PM targets appeared during the game (e.g., "If ROOF is a target, use 'home' as a clue"). Before playing Taboo, participants learned that half the PM targets did not have to be executed (cancelled intention) and half did (active intention). One day after playing, participants rated how clearly they remembered executing PM task and targets that had never appeared in the Taboo game. Memory ratings were higher for words from active intentions relative to cancelled intentions, evidencing false prospective memory. General Audience Summary Remembering to execute a future action (e.g., remembering to take medication) is known as prospective memory (PM). We hypothesized that forming an intent to execute a future task increases thoughts about that action, which makes one more likely to later misattribute memories of thoughts of that action as confirmation that the task had been performed. Participants played a charades-like word game known as Taboo with an additional prospective memory task that required them to remember to execute a future action. In Taboo, a player (the clue giver) must try to get their partner (the clue guesser) to say aloud a target word (e.g., TREE) by offering clues such as "found in a forest" without saying certain taboo words (e.g., green, branch, bark). The embedded PM task required clue givers to remember to say a specific clue word (e.g., tall) if the predesignated Taboo target (TREE) appeared during the game. Each participant took turns being the clue giver and clue guesser. Participants learned 10 of these PM intentions to a criterion; they then learned that a portion of the PM intentions had to be executed (active intention), while the rest did not have to be executed (cancelled intention). One day later, participants returned to complete a post-experiment questionnaire. Clue givers rated how clearly they remembered successfully executing their PM intention for PM targets that never appeared in the Taboo game the day before (see video of procedure: https://osf.io/8mfp3/). Results showed participants were more lik