Characteristics of Near-Death Experiences Memories as Compared to Real and Imagined Events Memories

in PLoS ONE (2013), 8(3),

Since the dawn of time, Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) have intrigued and, nowadays, are still not fully explained. Since reports of NDEs are proposed to be imagined events, and since memories of imagined ... [more ▼]

Since the dawn of time, Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) have intrigued and, nowadays, are still not fully explained. Since reports of NDEs are proposed to be imagined events, and since memories of imagined event have, on average, fewer phenomenological characteristics than real events memories, we here compared phenomenological characteristics of NDEs reports with memories of imagined and real events. We included three groups of coma survivors (8 patients with NDE as defined by the Greyson NDE scale, 6 patients without NDE but with memory of their coma, 7 patients without memories of their coma) and a group of 18 age-matched healthy volunteers. Five types of memories were assessed using Memory Characteristics Questionnaire (MCQ – Johnson et al., 1988): target memory (NDE for NDE memory group, coma memory for coma memory group, and first childhood memory for no memory and control groups), old and recent real event memories and old and recent imagined event memories. Since NDEs are known to have high emotional content, participants were requested to choose the most emotionally salient memories for both real and imagined recent and old event memories. Results showed that, in NDE memories group, NDE memories have more characteristics than memories of imagined and real events (p<0.02). NDE memories contain more self-referential and emotional information and have better clarity than memories of coma (all p<0.02). The present study showed that NDE memories contain more characteristics than real event memories and coma memories. Thus, this suggests that they cannot be considered as imagined event memories. On the contrary, their physiological origins could lead them to be really perceived although not lived in the reality. Further work is needed to better understand this phenomenon. [less ▲]

Memories of Near-Death experiences are they memories of imagined events?

Poster (2012, October 27)

Background: The phenomenon of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) has always intrigued but is still not fully explained despite numerous theories and studies. Since reports of NDEs are proposed to be imagined ... [more ▼]

Background: The phenomenon of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) has always intrigued but is still not fully explained despite numerous theories and studies. Since reports of NDEs are proposed to be imagined events (French, 2001), and since memories of imagined events have, on average, fewer phenomenological characteristics than real event memories (e.g. Johnson et al., 1988), we here compared phenomenological characteristics of NDEs reports with memories of imagined and real events. Methods: We included 3 groups of coma survivors (8 patients with NDE as defined by the Greyson NDE scale – the “NDE memory group”- , 6 patients without NDE but with memory of their coma – the “coma memory group” – and 7 patients without memories of their coma – the “no memory group”) and a group of 18 age-matched healthy volunteers. Five memories were assessed using Memory Characteristics Questionnaire (MCQ – Johnson et al., 1988): target memory (NDE for NDE memory group, coma memory for coma memory group, and first childhood memory for no memory and control groups), old and recent real event memories and old and recent imagined event memories. Results: In NDE group, NDE memories showd more characteristics than memories of imagined and real events (p<0.02). These memories contain more self-referential and emotional information and have better clarity than memories of coma (all p<0.02). Conclusion: The present study showed that NDE memories contain more characteristics than real event memories and coma memories. Thus, they cannot be considered as classic imagined event memories. On the contrary, their physiological origins could lead them to be really perceived although not lived in the reality. Further work is needed to better understand this phenomenon [less ▲]

Illusory recollection: The compelling subjective remembrance of things that never happened. Insights from the DRM paradigm.

in Psychologica Belgica (2012)

Illusory recollection is the subjective detailed feeling of remembering that sometimes accompanies false remembering of events that never happened (e.g., high confidence, “Remember” judgements, or even ... [more ▼]

Illusory recollection is the subjective detailed feeling of remembering that sometimes accompanies false remembering of events that never happened (e.g., high confidence, “Remember” judgements, or even remembrance of precise details supposedly associated with the false event). In this review, typical illusory recollection measures obtained from laboratory studies will be depicted, with a focus on the DRM paradigm (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995), one of the most largely used procedures to study memory distortion and its associated illusory recollection. The theoretical explanations of illusory recollection will be described and contrasted in light of factors affecting the phenomenon, in order to shown their strengths and limits. Although the focus on the origins of illusory recollection is relatively recent, overall, this review suggests that DRM false memories can be an excellent tool to study this phenomenon under controlled conditions and to gain insights on false memories occurring in everyday life. [less ▲]

Lateralized processing of false memories and pseudoneglect in aging.

in Cortex : A Journal Devoted to the Study of the Nervous System & Behavior (2012)

Aging is associated with higher propensity to false memories and decreased retrieval of previously studied items. When young adults perform on a lateralized version of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM ... [more ▼]

Aging is associated with higher propensity to false memories and decreased retrieval of previously studied items. When young adults perform on a lateralized version of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, the right cerebral hemisphere (RH) is more sensitive than the left (LH) to false memories, suggesting hemispheric imbalance in the cerebral mechanisms supporting semantic and episodic memory processes. Since cerebral asymmetries tend to be reduced with age, we surmised that behavioral asymmetries in the generation of false memories would be diminished with aging. To probe this hypothesis, a lateralized version of the DRM paradigm was administered to old (OA) and young (YA) healthy adults. During the encoding phase, lists of semantically associated words were memorized. During the retrieval session, targets (previously seen words), lures (never seen strongly semantically related words) and distracters (never seen, unrelated words) were briefly displayed either in the left or right visual fields, thus primarily stimulating the RH or LH, respectively. Participants had to decide whether the word was previously studied (Old/New), but also whether they had a strong episodic recollection (Remember) or a mere feeling of familiarity (Know) about Old words. In line with our predictions, false memories were globally higher in OA than YA, and vivid false recollections (i.e. Remember responses) were higher when lures were presented in the RH in YA, but not in OA. Additionally, we found significant correlations between YA participants’ familiarity scores and leftward attentional bias as previously evidenced using a visuospatial landmark task [Schmitz, R., and Peigneux, P. (2011). Age-related changes in visual pseudoneglect. Brain and Cognition, 76(3), 382-389], an effect not present in OA. This result is in line with the hypothesis of an interplay between attentional resources allocated to visuospatial and memory processes, suggesting a memory pseudoneglect phenomenon that would be altered with aging. [less ▲]

Evidence of a verbal overshadowing effect in children

Poster (2011, August 01)

The report of verbal descriptions of a culprit by adult witnesses may impair their later identification ability, a phenomenon known as the “verbal overshadowing effect (VO)” (Schooler & Englster-Schooler ... [more ▼]

The report of verbal descriptions of a culprit by adult witnesses may impair their later identification ability, a phenomenon known as the “verbal overshadowing effect (VO)” (Schooler & Englster-Schooler, 1990). In spite of a large body of literature on the suggestibility of children testimony, only one study has examined whether descriptions also impaired children’s identification abilities in a single group of children (8-9 years old) and no evidence of VO was found (Memon & Rose, 2002). However, some procedural details were not controlled in this experiment and the absence of a control adult group did not allow determining whether the procedure used was able to induce a VO effect. Hence, 2 experiments were conducted on several groups of children (7-8, 10-11, 13-14 years old) and adults to determine the influence of development on the VO effect. Overall, a VO effect on face identification was found in both experiments. The quality and influence of descriptors across the ages were also examined. [less ▲]

Does sleep promote false memories?

in Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2011), 23(1), 26-40

Divided attention and False memories: the effects are dependent on test format but presentation modality also matters!

Poster (2011)

The influence of encoding style on the production of false memories in the DRM paradigm: New insights on individual differences in false memory susceptibility?

in Personality & Individual Differences (2011), 50(5), 583-587

Recent research has shown that there are individual differences in how preexisting (internal) schemata (versus cues from the outside world) affect encoding processes, which can be reliably assessed with ... [more ▼]

Recent research has shown that there are individual differences in how preexisting (internal) schemata (versus cues from the outside world) affect encoding processes, which can be reliably assessed with the internal and external Encoding Style Questionnaire (ESQ, Lewicki, 2005). Since reliance on preexisting schemata at encoding has been found to increase the production of false memories in the DRM paradigm (Roediger & McDermott, 1995), while item-specific encoding has been shown to reduce it (see Gallo, 2006), it was examined whether individual differences in encoding style affects the production of such false memories. To this purpose, normal participants were asked to complete a French version of the ESQ questionnaire (Billieux et al., 2009) and were presented with a modified DRM procedure (Brédart, 2000) assessing false recall. The results showed a positive correlation between ESQ scores and false recall showing that internal encoders were more susceptible to false memories than external encoders. [less ▲]

Prospective Person Memory and Retrospective Person Memory for Age Progressed Images

Poster (2011)

Témoignage oculaire : exploration de la sensibilité aux aspects perceptifs et sémantiques dans le développement

Poster (2010, September 07)