Rosa, N.M., & Gutchess, A.H. (2013). False memory in aging resulting from self-referential processing. Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 68(6), 882–892,
doi:10.1093/geronb/gbt018. Advance Access publication April 10, 2013
False Memory in Aging Resulting From Self-Referential
Processing
Nicole M. Rosa and Angela H. Gutchess
Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts.
Method. In 2 studies, older and younger adults rated adjectives for self-descriptiveness and later completed a surprise
recognition test comprised of words rated previously for self-descriptiveness and novel lure words. Lure words were
subsequently rated for self-descriptiveness in order to assess the impact of self-relevance on false memory. Study 2 introduced commonness judgments as a control condition, such that participants completed a recognition test on adjectives
rated for commonness in addition to adjectives in the self-descriptiveness condition.
Results. Across both studies, findings indicate an increased response bias to self-referencing that increased hit rates
for both older and younger adults but also increased false alarms as information became more self-descriptive, particularly for older adults.
Discussion. Although the present study supports previous literature showing a boost in memory for self-referenced
information, the increase in false alarms, especially in older adults, highlights the potential for memory errors, particularly for information that is strongly related to the self.
Key Words: Aging—False memory—Self-reference.
F
alse memories occur when a remembered event either
never occurred or the memory differs substantially from
reality. Events rich in meaning are typically remembered
through a reconstructive process prone to memory errors. In
efforts to reconstruct life events (Johnson, 2006; Schacter,
1999), one attempts to fill gaps with appropriate information, but this information may be inaccurate (Roediger &
McDermott, 1995). False memories are particularly problematic when mistaken information informs real-world
decision making, such as inaccurate eyewitness testimony
(Johnson, 2006). Older adults are especially at risk because
they not only experience lower rates of accurate memory
but an increase in false memory (Schacter, Koutstaal, &
Norman, 1997).
One strategy that improves memory is relating information to oneself or self-referencing (Symons & Johnson,
1997). Although self-referencing has been shown to
increase memory, it also could contribute to memory errors
under some circumstances. The self enables us to organize information (Symons & Johnson, 1997) enabling deeper
processing (Craik & Lockhart, 1972; Hartlep & Forsyth,
2000) and thus better memory for self-related information.
For example, we are more likely to retrieve words that we
judged for self-descriptiveness rather than for the descriptiveness of another person (Glisky & Marquine, 2009;
Gutchess, Kensinger, & Schacter, 2007, 2010; Gutchess,
Kensinger, Yoon, & Schacter, 2007). Self-reference also
benefits memory because the self-schema is a highly
882
organized and elaborate construct that makes self-referencing an efficient means of processing information related to
the self (Greenwald & Banaji, 1989; Klein & Loftus, 1988;
Kuiper & Rogers, 1979; Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker, 1977;
Symons & Johnson, 1997). The factors that allow self-reference to benefit memory, however, may also impair memory
performance. The deeper processing associated with selfreference may trigger the retrieval of additional associations, which have been shown to increase false memories
(Roediger & McDermott, 1995). When participants encode
a word, related words are triggered, known as the implicit
associative response. As a result, one can experience intrusions of associated words and may report having previously studied them. The more associations are activated,
the stronger the associations become and the greater the
likelihood that intrusions will occur. As a result, items connected to the self may trigger associations with other selfrelated items and lead to greater false remembering. As a
result of activation of these associations, self-referencing
could contribute to false memory by altering response bias
(Nieznanski, 2009). Participants may be more likely to say
that self-related information is “old” than information that is
not self-related, resulting in higher hit and false alarm rates.
Information with a strong connection to the self is likely
to be frequently accessed and may have increased fluency.
Fluency of processing should increase the familiarity of
information such that an individual may falsely believe
she has previously studied a new word, especially if it is
© The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.
All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
Received September 25, 2012; Accepted February 18, 2013
Decision Editor: Robert West, PhD
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Objectives. Referencing the self is known to enhance accurate memory, but less is known about how the strategy
affects false memory, particularly for highly self-relevant information. Because older adults are more prone to false
memories, we tested whether self-referencing increased false memories with age.
883
FALSE MEMORY AND SELF-REFERENCE
highly self-relevant (Jacoby & Whitehouse, 1989; Thapar
& Westerman, 2009). Based on this, we predict that the
increased familiarity as a result of fluency associated with
the self may lead to greater false memory. Although young
and older adults may be equally susceptible to fluencybased intrusions (Thapar & Westerman, 2009), young adults
seem to experience fewer false memories because they are
better at distinguishing between information that has been
internally generated versus externally perceived (Dehon &
Brédart, 2004). It is also possible that greater familiarity
works in conjunction with implicit associative responses,
such that frequent access and deep reflection on highly selfdescriptive information increases both its familiarity and its
connection to other information in memory.
Although feelings of familiarity may increase false
memory with age, source memory may contribute as well.
Older adults have difficulty distinguishing between similar
sources, resulting in memory errors (Ferguson, Hashtroudi,
& Johnson, 1992; Henkel, Johnson, & DeLeonardis, 1998).
Self-referencing, however, improves source memory (Dulas,
Newsome, & Duarte, 2011; Hamami, Serbun, & Gutchess,
2011; Leshikar & Duarte, 2011; Rosa & Gutchess, 2011;
Serbun, Shih, & Gutchess, 2011). However, when the self is
the source of both items (e.g., “I thought of this word” or “I
read this word”), the relationship to the self may be the most
important feature of the memory, thereby increasing the difficulty of determining the source. If older adults experience
difficulty distinguishing between sources of self-related
information, self-referencing could actually lead to greater
false memory.
The present study examined whether the degree of selfreference contributes to false memory with age, such that
highly self-descriptive information induces memory errors.
Few studies examine the link between false memory and
self-reference or invoke contexts in which self-referencing
increases vulnerability to memory errors. Rogers, Rogers,
and Kuiper (1979) found that young adults’ false memory
for adjectives increased as the degree of self-reference
increased. We extended this work into the study of aging
based on findings that older adults are more prone to false
recognition than younger adults. Although the mechanisms
that contribute to greater false memories for self-referenced
information may be similar across the age groups, such as
the fact that the self is a well-known entity (Greenwald &
Banaji, 1989; Kuiper & Rogers, 1979; Rogers et al., 1977;
Symons & Johnson, 1997) that enables deeper processing
(Craik & Lockhart, 1972; Hartlep & Forsyth, 2000) and
increased associations, other processes may differ with age,
making older adults more prone to false memories due to
self-referencing. Older adults may be more likely to accept
easily accessed information, such as that related to the self,
as true (Jacoby & Rhodes, 2006; McDaniel, Einstein, &
Jacoby, 2008). It is also possible that older adults’ increased
vulnerability to intrusions caused by familiar or well-known
information (Jacoby & Rhodes, 2006) in combination with
difficulty correctly identifying the source of these intrusions
as internal or external (Dehon & Brédart, 2004) puts older
adults at a greater risk of false memory. Thus, we hypothesized that both young and older adults would not only have
greater hit rates for highly self-descriptive words compared
with those rated as less descriptive but that younger and
older adults would exhibit greater rates of false alarms for
highly self-descriptive items than less descriptive items.
However, due to vulnerability to increased intrusions and
difficulties in determining the source of information as
external (i.e., seen) or internal (i.e., self-generated), false
alarms for self-descriptive words would be greater for older
than younger adults. The increase in false memory could
mitigate any potential benefits in memory for highly selfrelevant words, at least for older adults.
Experiment 1
In Experiment 1, we explore whether false alarms
increase as information becomes more self-relevant (Rogers
et al., 1979). We expected to see a greater increase in false
alarms for highly self-relevant information for older compared with younger adults.
Method
Participants.—Data from 62 participants (31 young and
31 older) were included in analyses. Seven additional participants (four young and three older) were excluded due to
missing data or failure to follow instructions (e.g., incomplete trials). Older adult participants were recruited from
the community. Young adults were recruited from Brandeis
departmental study pools. All participants provided written
informed consent for a protocol approved by the Brandeis
University Institutional Review Board.
Older adults demonstrated significantly higher
vocabulary scores (Shipley, 1940) than younger adults,
t(57) = 3.61, p = .001 (data missing from two young and
one older adults), and a higher average level of education,
t(37.65) = 6.56, p < .001 (equal variances not assumed;
see Table 1). Younger adults demonstrated significantly
faster processing speed on a digit comparison task (Hedden
Table 1. Study 1 Participant Demographics, Including Means and
Standard Deviations
Study 1
Young adults
Older adults
Age
Range
N
Gender
Years of education**
Digit comparison**
Shipley vocabulary*
19.28 (1.06)
18–22
31
13 M, 18 F
12.82 (.99)
76.15 (17.50)
32.66 (3.30)
75.10 (6.00)
64–84
31
12 M, 19 F
16.26 (2.74)
58.26 (9.74)
35.97 (3.72)
Notes. *Significant difference between young and older adults, p < .01.
**Significant difference between young and older adults, p < .001.
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ROSA AND GUTCHESS
Table 2. Means (SD) in Each Condition for Study 1
Young adults
Study 1
Proportion of items in category
Hit
Miss
FA
CR
Hit-FA
Response bias
C values
Low
Middle
.30 (.09)
.76 (.18)
.24 (.18)
.15 (.08)
.85 (.08)
.61 (.18)
.35 (.13)
.81 (.17)
.19 (.17)
.17 (.08)
.83 (.09)
.64 (.16)
.17 (.45)
.05 (.55)
Older adults
High
Low
Middle
High
.33 (.07)
.81 (.17)
.19 (.17)
.22 (.12)
.78 (.12)
.59 (.19)
.34 (.07)
.68 (.18)
.32 (.18)
.23 (.15)
.77 (.15)
.44 (.15)
.26 (.14)
.67 (.19)
.33 (.19)
.26 (.17)
.74 (.17)
.41 (.17)
.34 (.10)
.79 (.16)
.21 (.16)
.40 (.20)
.60 (.20)
.39 (.21)
−.08 (.49)
.15 (.55)
.12 (.52)
−.36 (.55)
Notes. Bolded proportions correspond to analyses presented in text; CR = corrected recognition; FA = false alarms.
et al., 2002), t(47.02) = 5.09, p < .001 (equal variances
not assumed). These findings suggest that our samples are
representative of previous ones in the literature.
Materials.—To control for effects that were word specific,
3 lists of 120 adjectives (e.g., “cultured,” “sensible”) were created with an equal number of positive and negative words and
equated for likeability (Anderson, 1968). Words contained an
average of 8.9 letters and the mean frequency scores ranged
from 14.63 to 34.22 across the three lists (ratings available
for 80% of words; Kucera & Francis, 1967). Lists were counterbalanced so that each appeared equally often at encoding
and as lure words not presented at encoding.
Procedure.—During encoding, participants rated 120
adjectives for self-descriptiveness on a 9-point scale
(1 = never describes me; 9 = always describes me). To ensure
an equal amount of time was spent encoding each item, adjectives were presented for 5 s and responses were made with a
keypress. Following a 15-min retention interval, participants
completed a surprise, self-paced recognition test consisting
of the previously seen 120 adjectives plus 120 new adjectives. Recognition was self-paced to ensure that a recognition
response was recorded for each item. Participants indicated
with a keypress whether each adjective was “old” or “new.”
Participants then rated the 120 “new” adjectives for selfdescriptiveness on the same 9-point scale in a self-paced task.
Scoring.—Ratings were collapsed into three rating levels.
Words rated as 1–3 were considered “low,” 4–6 were “middle,” and 7–9 were “high.” This prevented loss of participants due to missing data, as not all participants used every
number on the scale. See Table 2 for proportion of items in
each category.
Results
Hits.—Hit rates were calculated as a proportion of correctly recognized old items from each level of rating. Using
a factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) with age (young/
older) as the between-subject variable and rating (low/middle/high) as the within-subject variable, the main effect
of age was marginal, F(1, 60) = 3.79, p = .06, ηp2 = .06,
with younger adults’ hit rates (M = .80) higher than older
adults’ (M = .71). The main effect of rating was significant,
F(2, 120) = 18.06, p < .001, ηp2 = .23. Follow-up contrasts
showed that hit rates for the entire sample were higher for
highly self-descriptive words (M = .80) than low (M = .72;
F(1, 60) = 27.49, p < .001, ηp2 = .31) or middle self-descriptive words (M = .74; F(1, 60) = 23.34, p < .001, ηp2 = .28).
The interaction between rating and age was also significant,
F(2, 120) = 9.34, p < .001, ηp2 = .14. Contrasts revealed
that young adults had significantly higher hit rates for high
(M = .81; F(1, 30) = 6.67, p = .02, ηp2 = .18) and middle
(M = .81; F(1, 30) = 9.73, p = .004, ηp2 = .25) than low
(M = .76) self-descriptive words. In contrast, older adults
had significantly higher hit rates for words rated as highly
self-descriptive (M = .79) than words at low (M = .68; F(1,
30) = 21.58, p < .001, ηp2 = .42) or middle levels (M = .67;
F(1, 29) = 33.17, p < .001, ηp2 = .53; see Figure 1a). Note
that all significant effects are reported throughout.
False alarms.—False alarms were calculated as a proportion of falsely recognized new items. The effect of
self-reference on false alarms was tested with a factorial
ANOVA with age (young/older) as the between-subject factor and rating (low/middle/high) as the within-subject factor.
The main effect of age on false alarm rate was significant,
F(1, 60) = 13.23, p = .001, ηp2 = .18, such that older adults
(M = .30) committed more false alarms than younger adults
(M = .18). The main effect of rating, F(2, 120) = 41.96,
p < .001, ηp2 = .41, was significant, with contrasts revealing
that highly descriptive words (M = .31) led to more errors
than words in the low (M = .19; F(1, 60) = 69.68, p < .001,
ηp2 = .54) or middle (M = .21; F(1, 60) = 37.84, p < .001,
ηp2 = .39) rating levels. The interaction between age and rating, F(2, 120) = 6.33, p = .002, ηp2 = .10, was also significant.
Follow-up contrasts revealed significant interactions with age
between the high and low rating levels, (F(1, 60) = 9.26, p =
.003, ηp2 = .13), and the high and middle rating levels, (F(1,
60) = 7.55, p = .008, ηp2 = .11. There was no significant difference between the middle and low rating levels, p > .10. As
shown in Figure 1b, older adults exhibited higher false alarm
rates than younger adults, particularly for the high condition.
FALSE MEMORY AND SELF-REFERENCE
885
Figure 1. (a) Hit rates show that young adults exhibit higher hit rates than older adults for previously studied words rated at low and middle rating levels of selfdescriptiveness. However, hit rates are similar across the age groups for highly self-descriptive words. (b) False alarm data show that highly self-descriptive words
lead to disproportionate amounts of memory errors for older adults. (c) Corrected recognition scores are similar for low, middle, and high self-descriptive ratings,
for both younger and older adults.
Corrected recognition.—We examined the corrected
recognition scores by subtracting false alarm rates from
hit rates for each individual. A factorial ANOVA with age
(young/older) as the between-subject variable and rating
level (high/middle/low) as the within-subject variable
showed that the main effect of rating was marginally
significant, F(2, 120) = 2.63, p = .08, ηp2 = .04, with contrasts
showing trends for higher correct recognition scores in the
low (M = .53; F(1, 60) = 4.14, p = .05, ηp2 = .06) and middle
(M = .53; F(1, 60) = 3.52, p = .07, ηp2 = .06) rating levels
886
ROSA AND GUTCHESS
than in the high rating level (M = .49). The main effect of
age was significant, F(1, 60) = 25.38, p < .001, ηp2 = .30,
with younger adults (M = .62) performing better than older
adults (M = .42).
Response bias.—C values were used in a 2 × 3 ANOVA
with age (young/older) as the between-subject variable and
rating level (high/middle/low) as the within-subject variable to assess response bias (Stanislaw & Todorov, 1999).
There was a main effect of rating, F(2, 120) = 34.17, p <
.001, ηp2 = .36, and an interaction between age and rating,
F(2, 120) = 6.97, p = .001, ηp2 = .10. For older adults, contrasts indicated that words rated as highly self-descriptive
(M = −.36) had a more negative bias (i.e., greater use of
“old”) than those in both the low (M = .15; F(1, 30) = 62.62,
p < .001, ηp2 = .68) and middle (M = .12; F(1, 30) = 72.95,
p < .001, ηp2 = .71) rating levels. Although young adults’
response bias also was more negative for words rated as
highly self-descriptive (M = −.08) than those in the low rating level (M = .17; F(1, 30) = 8.13, p = .008, ηp2 = .21), there
was no significant difference for the middle level (M = .05;
p > .10). Participants were more likely to say that words
rated as highly self-descriptive were previously seen and
this was particularly true for older adults, who showed a
larger difference between the high and medium levels, compared with younger adults (see Table 2).
Discussion
Findings from Experiment 1 indicate that as information
becomes more self-descriptive, hit rates increase for both
young and older adults. This finding converges with other
studies in demonstrating that self-referencing can improve
recognition memory for young and older adults (Glisky &
Marquine, 2009; Gutchess et al., 2007, 2010; Gutchess,
Kensinger, Yoon, et al., 2007). However, our results suggest that older adults may be less sensitive than younger
adults to information that is moderately self-descriptive.
Older adults exhibited a reduced self-reference effect for
the low and middle level of ratings, but performance was
similar to younger adults for words in the high self condition. This appears to indicate that for both older and
younger adults, the self-reference effect similarly affected
hit rates when information was highly self-relevant. The
self-reference effect likely facilitated memory for information that was highly associated with the self-schema, which
influences what we attend to and how we process information (Markus, 1977).
In previous studies (e.g., Glisky & Marquine, 2009;
Gutchess, Kensinger, Yoon, et al., 2007), self-reference
effects were driven by hit rates because there was only a
single pool of new lure items that contributed to a single
false alarm rate. Collecting self-relevance ratings for lure
words allowed us to assess the effect of self-referencing
on false alarms across levels of self-relevance. The present
study demonstrates that although self-referencing increased
hit rates, it also contributed to false memory. Older adults
seemed to be particularly affected by the highest level of
self-descriptiveness, such that their false alarm rates were
disproportionately higher at this level compared with young
adults, whose rates rose more gradually across the three
levels of self-descriptiveness. This study extends previous
findings in young adults (Rogers et al., 1979) into aging,
indicating a particularly robust false memory effect for
older adults (>40% of the trials, on average) for highly selfrelevant information.
Although both hit and false alarm rates tended to increase
with self-descriptiveness, there was no net benefit on memory accuracy, according to corrected recognition scores.
If anything, both young and older adults tended to exhibit
higher corrected recognition scores for information that was
less self-descriptive. High levels of self-descriptiveness did
not improve the accuracy of memory and may have actually led to poorer discrimination of old from new words
compared with items that were less self-descriptive. This
is similar to findings from a previous study that utilized a
measure of corrected recognition and found that an apparent benefit shown through hit rates can be decreased or
eliminated when false alarms are considered (Koutstaal
& Schacter, 1997). Rather than improving the accuracy of
memory, self-referencing seems to influence the response
bias such that people are more willing to endorse items
that are self-descriptive as having been previously studied
(Nieznanski, 2009).
Experiment 2
Without a control condition, it is difficult to tell if the
findings from Experiment 1 are a result of self-referencing
per se. Experiment 2 introduced a commonness judgment
as a control condition to assess whether the increase in
hit and false alarm rates in Experiment 1 was due to the
connection of the information to the self or simply reflected
endorsement of information. Commonness allows for a
subjective rating of the words without explicitly referencing
the self and should lead to a pattern of memory performance
distinct from self-referencing (see Symons & Johnson,
1997). In a recognition task, the frequency mirror effect
indicates that low frequency words are more distinctive
and produce higher hit rates and lower false alarm rates
compared with high frequency words, which produce lower
hit rates and higher false alarm rates (Glanzer & Adams,
1985; Reder, Angstadt, Cary, Erickson & Ayers, 2002). In
the present experiment, words judged to be less common
should have higher hit rates and lower false alarm rates. In
contrast, higher hit and false alarm rates should occur for
words rated as highly self-descriptive than for words rated
as less self-descriptive, as shown in Study 1 and previous
work (Rogers et al., 1979). Furthermore, by comparing
performance across the self and common conditions, we
FALSE MEMORY AND SELF-REFERENCE
predicted that memory for self-related information would
be associated with better memory, as reflected in higher
corrected recognition scores, as suggested by previous selfreferencing studies (Symons & Johnson, 1997).
Method
Participants.—Data from a new sample of 69 participants
(30 young and 39 older) were included in all analyses. Two
additional older adult participants were excluded due to
below normal performance on neuropsychological measures. Participants were drawn from the same participant
pools and completed the same consent process as described
in Study 1.
As shown in Table 3, our samples performed similarly to
those in Study 1. Older adults demonstrated higher vocabulary scores (M = 35.23) than younger adults (M = 32.20)
but this difference was only marginally significant,
t(67) = 1.94, p = .06, and a higher average level of education, t(58.33) = 2.28, p = .03 (equal variances not assumed).
Younger adults again demonstrated significantly faster processing speed, t(66) = 7.69, p < .001.
Materials.—Two lists of 120 adjectives rated for likeability (Anderson, 1968) were counterbalanced so that
each list appeared equally often in the self and common
conditions.
Procedure.—The methods in Study 2 replicated those
from Study 1 with the following exceptions. During study,
participants rated 60 adjectives for self-descriptiveness (“I
am”) and 60 adjectives for commonness (“How common is
the word”) on a 6-point scale (1 = never; 6 = always). Each
adjective was presented for 6 s, followed by a blank screen
for 1 s. Conditions alternated, with blocks of 7–8 words
per condition. Words were randomly presented within each
condition. A fixation cross appeared between each block to
indicate a change in condition. Following a surprise, selfpaced recognition test, participants rated the 120 “new”
adjectives (60 for self-descriptiveness and 60 for commonness) on the same 6-point scale used during encoding, in a
self-paced task.
Table 3. Study 2 Participant Demographics, Including Means and
Standard Deviations
Study 2
Young Adults
Older Adults
Age
Range
N
Gender
Years of education*
Digit comparison**
Shipley vocabulary
20.73 (1.62)
18–25
30
9 M, 21 F
14.15 (1.45)
77.53 (13.24)
32.20 (6.72)
75.62 (7.70)
62–94
39
14 M, 25 F
15.47 (2.92)
53.50 (12.43)
35.23 (6.21)
Notes. *Significant difference between young and older adults, p = .03.
**Significant difference between young and older adults, p < .001.
887
Scoring.—Ratings were collapsed in order to minimize
missing data in the event that some participants did not use
all values on the scale. Words rated 1–2 were collapsed into
the “low” category, 3–4 comprised the “middle” category,
and 5–6 constituted the “high” category. See Table 4 for
proportion of items in each category.
Results
Hits.—Using a factorial ANOVA with age (young/older)
as the between-subject variable and rating (low/middle/
high) and reference condition (self/common) as the withinsubject variables, younger adults (M = .80) exhibited higher
hit rates than older adults (M = .69; F(1, 61) = 13.67,
p < .001, ηp2 = .18), and the main effect of reference condition
was significant, F(1, 61) = 18.62, p < .001, ηp2 = .23, with
self-referenced words leading to higher hit rates (M = .78)
than words in the common condition (M = .71). There was a
significant interaction between age and reference condition,
F(1, 61) = 5.61, p = .02, ηp2 = .08. As shown in Figure 2a,
there was a smaller difference in hit rates between older and
younger adults in the self condition than in the common
condition. The main effect of rating across both age
groups was significant as well, F(2, 122) = 9.79, p < .001,
ηp2 = .14, with contrasts indicating that words rated as high
(M = .79) led to higher hit rates than those rated as low
(M = .72; F(1, 61) = 15.63, p < .001, ηp2 = .97) or middle
levels (M = .73; F(1, 61) = 12.82, p = .001, ηp2 = .94). The
interaction between rating and age was also significant, F(2,
122) = 3.22, p = .04, ηp2 = .05. Older adults had significantly
higher hit rates for words rated as high (M = .76) than
those rated at low (M = .65; F(1, 33) = 15.75, p < .001,
ηp2 = .32) and middle (M = .67; F(1, 33) = 11.73, p = .002,
ηp2 = .26) levels. For younger adults, the rating levels did
not significantly differ (ps > .10). To test whether selfreference uniquely benefitted memory beyond the effects of
item endorsement, we found the critical interaction between
reference and rating reached significance, F(2, 122) = 5.10,
p = .01, ηp2 = .08. When this was further broken down using
contrasts to examine performance across ratings for self and
common separately, each of the ratings levels significantly
differed in the self condition, such that high (M = .84) led
to higher hit rates than middle (M = .78), which was higher
than low (M = .73, ps < .02). However, in the common
condition, only the high (M = .74) and middle (M = .68)
rating levels significantly differed, F(1, 62) = 8.04, p = .01,
ηp2 = .12. See Figure 2a.
False alarms.—The role of self-referencing on false
alarms was tested with a factorial ANOVA with age (young/
older) as the between-subject factor and rating (low/middle/high) and reference (self/common) as the within-subject
factors. The main effect of age on false alarm rate was significant, F(1, 50) = 4.53, p = .04, ηp2 = .08, with older adults
888
ROSA AND GUTCHESS
Table 4. Means (SD) in Each Condition for Study 2
Young adults
Study 2
Self
Proportion of items in category
Hit
Miss
FA
CR
Hit-FA
Response bias
C values
Common
Proportion of items in category
Hit
Miss
FA
CR
Hit-FA
Response bias
C values
Older adults
Low
Middle
High
Low
Middle
High
.34 (.06)
.77 (.16)
.23 (.16)
.20 (.16)
.80 (.16)
.58 (.27)
.34 (.12)
.82 (.14)
.18 (.14)
.23 (.18)
.77 (.18)
.60 (.21)
.31 (.10)
.86 (.14)
.14 (.14)
.29 (.15)
.71 (.15)
.60 (.21)
.36 (.10)
.68 (.13)
.31 (.13)
.25 (.15)
.75 (.15)
.44 (.15)
.30 (.15)
.75 (.15)
.25 (.15)
.26 (.19)
.74 (.19)
.49 (.25)
.32 (.12)
.82 (.13)
.18 (.13)
.47 (.19)
.53 (.19)
.36 (.22)
.02 (.45)
−.09 (.43)
−.41 (.45)
.08 (.40)
−.09 (.57)
−.57 (.47)
.19 (.11)
.82 (.16)
.18 (.16)
.18 (.19)
.82 (.19)
.65 (.20)
.38 (.15)
.75 (.13)
.25 (.13)
.27 (.18)
.73 (.18)
.48 (.18)
.42 (.16)
.78 (.15)
.22 (.15)
.28 (.15)
.72 (.15)
.51 (.23)
.15 (.13)
.61 (.28)
.39 (.28)
.33 (.29)
.67 (.29)
.27 (.33)
.35 (.19)
.60 (.21)
.40 (.21)
.27 (.16)
.73 (.16)
.32 (.24)
.49 (.26)
.69 (.20)
.31 (.20)
.38 (.21)
.62 (.21)
.31 (.19)
−.02 (.76)
.04 (.46)
−.11 (.41)
.17 (.89)
.20 (.41)
−.13 (.69)
Notes. Bolded proportions correspond to analyses presented in text; CR = corrected recognition; FA = false alarms.
(M = .33) committing more false alarms than younger
adults (M = .24). The main effect of rating was significant,
F(2, 100) = 22.05, p < .001, ηp2 = .31, with words in the
high condition leading to more errors (M = .35) than words
in the low (M = .24; F(1, 46) = 49.43, p < .001, ηp2 = .52) or
middle (M = .26; F(1, 46) = 32.25, p < .001, ηp2 = .44) rating levels. The interaction between age and rating was also
significant, F(2, 100) = 5.85, p = .004, ηp2 = .11. For older
adults, the high rating level (M = .42) significantly differed
from low (M = .29; F(1, 24) = 17.73, p < .001, ηp2 = .43)
and middle (M = .27; F(1, 24) = 30.28, p < .001, ηp2 = .56)
levels. For younger adults, low (M = .19) significantly differs from both the high (M = .29; F(1, 26) = 14.26, p = .001,
ηp2 = .35) and middle (M = .25; F(1, 26) = 10.67, p = .003,
ηp2 = .29) rating groups. The interaction between reference
and rating was marginally significant, F(2, 100) = 2.84,
p = .06, ηp2 = .05. However, there was a significant threeway interaction between age, reference, and rating, F(2,
100) = 3.08, p = .05, ηp2 = .06. As shown in Figure 2b,
older adults had more false alarms in the high self condition (M = .47) compared with the high common condition
(M = .38; F(1, 24) = 9.95, p = .004, ηp2 = .29), whereas this
was not true for younger adults, p > .10.
Corrected recognition.—A factorial ANOVA with age
(young/older) as the between-subject variable and rating
level (high/middle/low) and reference (self/common) as the
within-subject variables revealed a main effect of reference,
F(1, 49) = 14.22, p < .001, ηp2 = .23, and a main effect of age,
F(1, 58) = 19.51, p < .001, ηp2 = .29. Higher memory scores
occurred for self (M = .51) relative to common (M = .42)
and younger (M = .57) relative to older adults (M = .37).
The interaction between age and reference was only marginally significant, F(1, 49) = 3.44, p = .07, ηp2 = .07, and
showed a pattern similar to that found in hits. Rating interacted with age, F(2, 98) = 5.24, p = .007, ηp2 = .10. Younger
adults displayed better corrected memory scores for the
low condition (M = .62) than for the middle (M = .54; F(1,
25) = 13.61, p = .001, ηp2 = .35) and high (M = .55; F(1,
25) = 5.67, p = .03, ηp2 = .19) conditions, whereas older
adults’ corrected recognition scores vary little across the
rating levels, ps > .05. Finally, there was a significant threeway interaction between age, rating, and reference, F(2,
98) = 3.80, p = .03, ηp2 = .07. A contrast of self versus common shows that although older adults receive a greater benefit from self than common across all three rating levels,
F(1, 24) = 10.84, p = .003, ηp2 = .31, the high (M = .37) self
condition leads to worse overall memory compared with the
low (M = .45) and middle levels (M = .49; F(1, 24) = 8.94,
p = .006, ηp2 = .27). Contrasts show that there is no significant difference for older adults across the three ratings in
the common condition, ps > .10.
Response bias.—To assess response bias, C values were
used in a factorial ANOVA with age (young/older) as the
between-subject variable and rating level (high/middle/low)
and reference (self/common) as the within-subject variables. There was a main effect of rating, F(2, 96) = 19.49,
p < .001, ηp2 = .29, such that words rated in the high
condition had a more negative bias (i.e., tendency to
respond “old”; M = −.31) than the middle (M = .01) and
low (M = .07) conditions. There was also a main effect
FALSE MEMORY AND SELF-REFERENCE
889
Figure 2. (a) Hit rates show a similar pattern for both older and younger adults in the self condition compared with the common condition. (b) False alarms are
significantly higher for older adults in the self high condition compared with both younger adult performance in the self high condition and older adult performance
in the common high condition. (c) Corrected recognition scores show that although memory performance is better for self-referenced information relative to the common condition for older adults, the high self-reference condition is prone to poorer memory performance.
of reference, F(1, 48) = 10.87, p = .002, ηp2 = .19, with
words in the self condition leading to a more negative bias
(M = −.17) than those in the common condition (M = .03).
The interaction between reference and rating was significant
as well, F(2, 96) = 4.33, p = .02, ηp2 = .08. Within the self
condition, contrasts indicated a stronger negative bias in
the high condition (M = −.49) than in the low (M = .05;
F(1, 48) = 118.80, p < .001, ηp2 = .71) and middle conditions
890
ROSA AND GUTCHESS
(M = −.09; F(1, 48) = 31.23, p < .001, ηp2 = .39). However,
in the common condition, the only significant difference
was between the more positive bias for middle (M = .12)
than high conditions (M = −.12; F(1, 48) = 13.26, p = .001,
ηp2 = .22). Furthermore, there was a significant difference
between self and common in the high, F(1, 48) = 24.08,
p < .001, ηp2 = .35, and middle conditions, F(1, 48) = 7.04,
p = .01, ηp2 = .13.
Discussion
Experiment 2 succeeded in distinguishing self-reference
effects from overall effects of ratings on memory.
Self-referencing led to higher hit rates compared with
commonness judgments, and elevated hit rates for older
adults such that they performed more like younger adults
than in the common condition. This finding is consistent
with previous research demonstrating that older adults
benefit from self-referencing (Glisky & Marquine, 2009;
Gutchess et al., 2007; Gutchess, Kensinger, Yoon, et al.,
2007). Hit rates were elevated for highly self-descriptive
words, relative to less self-descriptive words; this pattern
was unique to self-referencing and did not characterize
the common condition. Therefore, it appears as though the
elevated hit rates seen in the self condition are not simply the
result of endorsement but rather are due to the connection
with the self. Although we expected to see higher hit rates
for words in the low common condition (Glanzer & Adams,
1985; Reder et al., 2002), these did not differ from the high
common conditions.
As in Experiment 1, older adults continued to experience
higher rates of false alarms compared with younger adults;
this was particularly true for highly self-descriptive words.
In the critical comparison against the high common condition, older adults committed more false alarms for highly
self-descriptive words. Self-reference selectively increased
false alarms, especially for older adults when information
was highly self-relevant. It is possible that the increased
fluency-based familiarity (Jacoby & Whitehouse, 1989;
Thapar & Westerman, 2009) and association (Roediger &
McDermott, 1995) with the self led to the higher false alarm
rates in the high self condition compared with the high common condition.
In terms of corrected recognition scores, overall memory
for self-referenced words was better than common words
for both younger and older adults, consistent with previous
studies of self-reference compared with control conditions
(Symons & Johnson, 1997). However, memory is poorer for
highly self-descriptive words, particularly for older adults.
Although there was more of a response bias to endorse
highly self-descriptive words as “old,” unlike Experiment 1,
this was true for both younger and older adults. Therefore,
although the response bias may have contributed to higher
false alarm rates, the bias was similar for younger and older
adults so that this alone does not account for age differences in false memories. It appears as though older adults
simply commit more false alarms for highly self-relevant
information.
General Discussion
These studies demonstrate that although self-referencing
can benefit memory, by elevating hit rates as words are rated
as more self-descriptive (Experiments 1 & 2) and corrected
recognition scores when judging self-relevance rather than
for commonness (Experiment 2). Our findings also demonstrate that false memory increased as the level of self-reference increased. Although this is consistent with previous
studies (Rogers et al., 1979), we also find that older adults
commit disproportionately more of these memory errors
than younger adults. Older adults are particularly vulnerable to the increase in familiarity associated with information that is highly self-relevant. A response bias to endorse
highly self-relevant items as studied seems to contribute
to both the elevated hit and false alarm rates (Nieznanski,
2009), such that there is no net benefit for memory accuracy when information is rated as highly self-descriptive,
compared with less self-descriptive. The strong connection
to the self may lead to fluent processing and feelings of
familiarity that both help and hurt memory performance.
By contrasting self-referencing against commonness judgments (Experiment 2), the results indicate that it is the connection to the self, and not simply endorsement of a word,
that leads to heightened memory errors.
As explained by the implicit associative model of
memory (Roediger & McDermott, 1995), the deeper processing caused by self-referencing may have triggered
greater associations for self-referenced information that
can lead to greater false memory of these associated items.
Alternatively, because the self-reference effect increases
the level of familiarity, this could also elevate intrusions
(Jacoby & Whitehouse, 1989; Thapar & Westerman, 2009).
Older adults could experience more difficulty determining
the basis of the fluency (e.g., internally generated or externally presented; Dehon & Brédart, 2004; Ferguson et al.,
1992; Henkel et al., 1998). Older adults experienced more
false memories than younger adults and this difference was
magnified as self-relevance increased. Based on the present
study, it appears as though self-reference does provide a
benefit in memory relative to other conditions; but under
some conditions, this benefit may begin to diminish as
information becomes increasingly self-relevant.
Although the present study links the self-referencing and
false memory literatures in the study of memory in aging, it
is limited in that the design may not be readily applicable to
real-world situations. It is important to assess the relevance
of these findings in richer everyday contexts (e.g., Rosa
& Gutchess, 2011) because older adults’ susceptibility to
false memory makes them vulnerable to scams. Despite
establishing a link between the self and false memory in
the present study, future efforts should be aimed at the
identification of techniques to reduce the incidence of false
FALSE MEMORY AND SELF-REFERENCE
memory from self-referencing, such as strategies that help
in differentiating external sources from internal intrusions.
Overall, the results of this study suggest that although
self-reference improves memory for young and older adults
(Glisky & Marquine, 2009; Gutchess et al., 2007; Hamami
et al., 2011), it affects response bias, which also increases
false memory. This is especially true for older adults. The
findings indicate that false memory is an important factor
to consider for self-referencing. Although older adults are
likely to receive a benefit for information related to the self,
they are also likely to experience increased false memory,
and our results indicate that this can occur at strikingly
high levels.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Institute on Aging (R21
AG032382 to A. H. Gutchess) and the Lifespan Initiative on Healthy Aging
(LIHA) at Brandeis University (to N. M. Rosa). Portions of this research
were conducted while A. H. Gutchess was a fellow of the American
Federation for Aging Research.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Liat Zabludovsky, Pete Millar, and Shanny Shmuel
for their research assistance and acknowledge the helpful comments and
suggestions made by Dr. Leslie Zebrowitz, Dr. Elizabeth Kensinger,
Dr. Eric Leshikar, and Margeaux Auslander.
Correspondence
Correspondence should be addressed to Nicole M. Rosa, MA, MSW,
Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, 415 South Street, MS 062,
Waltham, MA 02454-9110. E-mail: nrosa@brandeis.edu.
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