Recall of false memories in individuals scoring high in schizotypy: Memory distortions are scale specific
Highlights
► False memories were associated with UE and CD. ► Recall of weak items found with UE and CD. ► Poor recall of study items found with UE and CD. ► No change in memory performance was associated with IA or INC. ► The findings suggest abnormal semantic activation associated with schizotypy.
Section snippets
Participants
Forty undergraduate students from Swansea University (16 male, 24 female), with a mean age of 21.3 (SD = 3.50) years (range18–31), were employed. The participants received course credit, and reported no previous history of psychosis or depression during consent.
Schizotypy
The 43-item version of the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences (OLIFE-B; Mason, Linney, & Claridge, 2005) contains four subscales. Hallucination-proneness is measured through the Unusual Experiences (UE) subscale. The
Results
The means and standard deviations for each of the OLIFE-B subscales, the BDI and STAI-T, and the correlations between them are shown in Table 1. Strong correlations were found between the subscales, the BDI and the STAI-T, and these results are similar to others (e.g., Mason et al., 2005, Reed et al., 2008).
Participants were divided into high and low scorers for each of the subscales of the OLIFE-B based on a mean split of the scores. This method has previously been used by Randell,
General discussion
The Unusual Experiences and Cognitive Disorganization subscales of the OLIFE-B were found to be associated with increased recall of critical false items, increased recall of weakly related items, and reduced recall of studied items. In contrast, the Introvertive Anhedonia, and Impulsive Nonconformity, scales were not related to these changes in memory performance. Thus, in sum, the current findings are consistent with abnormal semantic activation, but only in some subtypes of schizotypy.
Declaration of interest
The authors have no conflict of interest.
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