Essay On False Memory

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INTRODUCTION

False memory is the psychological phenomenon in which a person recalls a memory that did not actually occur. It is a fabricated or distorted recollection of an event that did not actually happen. It is a memory which is a confabulation of an imagined situation or a distortion of an actual experience. It is a mental experience that is mistakenly taken to be a veridical representation of an event from one’s recent or distant past. False memory is also known as pseudomemory or pseudomnesia. There has been considerable recent interest in the phenomenon of false memory and its implications in clinical, legal and laboratory settings. This interest has prompted several researchers to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying illusory …show more content…

Fixation (+) was first presented for 1500 milliseconds, followed by stimulus 1 (proverb1) and stimulus 2 (proverb 2) for 4000 milliseconds each, which was then followed by a "Response" screen was displayed for 3000 milliseconds where the subject had to indicate whether the set of 2 proverbs was semantically similar/dissimilar. An Inter-stimulus interval of 500 milliseconds was included.

Electroencephalogram Paradigm

Continuous electroencephalogram recordings were collected during the experiment from 20 scalp sites using Ag/AgCl (saline based) electrodes embedded in an elastic cap at locations conforming to the international 10-20 system. These electrodes were referenced to the left mastoid during recording. Participants were seated comfortably in an electrically shielded, dimly lit chamber. They were instructed to relax their muscles, to clink as little as possible and to minimize body and eye movements.
First, subject 's baseline of 10 minutes was recorded on an EEG instrument, then they were presented with 10 trials of the practice session while continuously recording EEG, A 5-minute break was given after which, the main session of 60 trials was