An Experimental Research On The Effect Of Self-esteem On False Memory

People think that false memory or memory illusion comes from that the memories of experience and the truth are different from the truth. Researching false memory is the same as true memory, it is very significant to reveal the nature of memory and explore the course of memory.The main aim of the present research is to investigate the impact of the high and low self-esteem on the relatedness false memory under the different experiment condition. On the basic of literature review of the research paradigm and factors of false memory, as well as the relation between self-esteem and memory, three problems that intended to resolve in this research are put forward.(1)how is the sensitivity to false memory of self-esteem if the part of speech of lures is different?(2)Is there some difference in false recognition between high self-esteem and low self-esteem under different emotion states?(3) Is there some difference in false recognition between high self-esteem and low self-esteem when giving forewarning?Therefore, three experiments based on The Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm are designed for university students to investigate the impact of the high and low self-esteem on the relatedness false memory under the different experiment condition. Experiment 1 investigate the impact of the self-esteem on false memory if the part of speech of lures is different; Experiment 2 investigate the impact the self-esteem on false memory under the different emotion states; Experiment 3 investigate the impact of the self-esteem on false memory if given forewarning. In these three experiments, self-esteem, emotion and forewarning are between-subject variable, the part of speech of lures is within-subject variable.By statistical analysis, the main findings of this research are as follows:1,In semantic association conditions, positive words, negative words and neural words can produce significant false recognition of lures. The impact of the self-esteem on false memory is different if the part of speech of lures is different. The false recognition rate of positive words of high self-esteem is significant lower than that of low self-esteem; the false recognition rate of negative words is lower than that of positive words and neural words in low self-esteem.2,The impact of the self-esteem on false memory is different under the different emotion states. The false recognition rate of low self-esteem is significant lower than that of high self-esteem. There is no significant difference in the false recognition rate between high self-esteem and low self-esteem.3,There is no significant difference between the high and low self-esteem in the false recognition rate of lures. But it is effective to reduce the false recognition rate of lures before the stage of learning for forewarning prompt.