11:00 - 12:30
Tue—HZ_9—Talks5—45
Tue-Talks5
Room:
Room: HZ_9
Chair/s:
Nikoletta Symeonidou, Désirée Nadine Schönung
Is Truth Important by Default? Enhanced Joint Retrieval Memory for “True” and “Important” Feedback
Tue—HZ_9—Talks5—4503
Presented by: Daria Ford
Daria Ford 1*Marek Nieznański 2
1 University of Mannheim, 2 Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw
Memory research often shows better feedback memory for true information than false (the effect of truth). We can find analogical effects for important compared with unimportant information on item and source/feedback memory (the effect of value). A recently found interaction between information veracity and importance indicates that people effectively prioritize encoding true feedback but not false. However, no study to date has simultaneously provided feedback on both statements' veracity and importance. Therefore, whether the veracity and importance feedback is integrated into joint memory representation remains unclear. We answered this question using a multidimensional source memory multinomial model in the following experiment. Students (N = 82) memorized trivia statements along with their veracity and importance status which resulted in four different combinations of feedback types (true and important, true and unimportant, false and important, false and unimportant). The analysis revealed that the joint retrieval of “true” and “important” feedback as compound information is better than for all other combinations. Moreover, the veracity dimension was memorized better than the importance dimension, showing that we remember whether information is true or false better than whether it is important or unimportant. These results strengthen and expand previous findings on the interaction between veracity and importance, showing that true and important information creates a joint memory representation. This suggests that truth may be perceived as important by default.
Keywords: source memory, memory for truth and falsity, value-directed remembering, binding contextual information