Social Science

False Memory and Birth Order
Susan D. Nixon
Dr. Karen Vittengl, Faculty Mentor

This study examined the relationship between birth order and false memory. Participants were first surveyed about their number of siblings and birth order. They were then presented with lists of words, which they were later asked to free recall. They were also given a recognition test of select words. One half of the 50 participants received high level word lists in which the listed words had strong semantic associations to an unlisted word. As predicted, the high list level contributed to more false memories (of the related unlisted word) than the low level lists. A significant interaction between birth order and condition level for the false recall procedure was also found: firt born participants had more false recall for high level lists than second borns, and less recall for low level lists than second borns. Similar trends were found for the false recognition procedure, but did not reach statistical significance.

Keywords: birth order, false memory, false recognition

Topic(s):Psychology

Presentation Type: Oral Paper

Session: 12-1
Location: OP 2111
Time: 8:30

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