False Memories Essay

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Sleep Deprivation can Lead to False Memories

Alyssa N. Hernandez
California State University, Fullerton Sleep Deprivation Can Lead to False Memories
False memories are memories of something that did not happen (Radvansky, 2010). Steven J.Frendal and colleagues researched the effect of sleep deprivation on false memories. In this study researchers examined the relationship between self-reported sleep and false memories. Researchers suggest that under certain conditions, sleep deprivation can increase the risk of developing false memories (Frendal et al., 2014). To test this hypothesis, researchers provided participants with a misinformation task when participants were sleep deprived during event encoding. Frendal and …show more content…

Participants reported an average of 6.8 hr of sleep (SD = 2.0). 28 participants (15%) reported 5 or fewer hours of sleep. Researchers coded the participants as having restricted sleep. The remaining 165 participants (85%) were used as a reference group (Frendal et al., 2014). The news event was rated first , participants in the restricted-sleep group were significantly more likely than participants in the reference group to report that they had seen the video (54% vs. 33%), χ2(1, N = 193) = 4.2, p = .04, ϕc = .15. However, the results indicated that the groups did not differ when questioned in the follow-up interview. 21% of the restricted sleep group and 20% of the reference group claimed that they had seen the video, χ2(1, N = 193) = 0.03, p = .86. Therefore, restricted sleep was associated with initial false reports on the questionnaire, but not with false reports in the follow-up interview. Researchers compared the two group’s correct answers in the surveys as well as the amount of misinformation. There were no significant findings. Between the two groups there was only a 10% difference in incorporating the misinforming narratives as something they saw, making it an insignificant finding (Frendal et al.,

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