True And False Memory Essay

Once the experiment was terminated, it was evident that the two groups did not contrast with each other on the DRM tasks regarding the group given the placebo capsules (Ballard et al., 2011). Additionally, AMP enhanced true memory more than THC and more than the placebo group (Ballard et al., 2011). On the other hand, THC disabled true memory in both doses of 7.5 and 15mg (Ballard et al., 2011). AMP boosted false memory more than THC, but both drugs did not differ significantly from their placebo conditions (Ballard et al., 2011). The final result was that the more a drug affects true memory, the more it will affect false memory because both these memories have a strong positive correlation (Ballard et al., 2011). Besides affecting true and false memory, AMP increased systolic and diastolic blood pressure and heart rate while THC generally did not influence these areas (Ballard et al., 2011).

The idea that the positive or negative effects each drug has on true memory has a parallel effect on false memory is a concept that has been seen throughout previous experiments with a consistent measure (Ballard et al., 2011). Also, since the experiment focused on drug effects within the encoding phase, it was concluded that the activation process of critical lures could be manipulated by changes in this phase as opposed to the retrieval phase. Although the experiment strengthened the hypothesis that memory-enhancing drugs (AMP) increase false memory while memory-impairing drugs (THC) reduce it, the study neglected to find a significant effect on false memory of a drug relative to its placebo (as cited in Ballard et al., 2011, p. 22). Ballard, Gallo, and de Wit (2011) suggest that further studies should be conducted in order to understand the reason as to why drug effects on participants differ from each other and how this could be applied to other drugs and their effects on false