Fuzzy-Trace Theory and False Memory

“Fuzzy Trace Theory Fuzzy Trace Theory (FTT) is a theory on an intermediate level of abstraction (e.g., Brainerd & Reyna, 2002, 2004).”

“For example, fuzzy-trace theory proposes that memory performance is based on the parallel encoding of both verbatim and gist representations of an event; verbatim traces are memory traces for experienced items, whereas gist traces are memory traces for interpretations of items (which can include semantic relations, su…”

“This can be contrasted with theories suggesting differences in the type of information on which false and true memories are based (gist vs. verbatim traces; Brainerd & Reyna, 2002) or processes by which they are recovered (familiarity versus recollection; Jacoby & Whitehouse, 1989).”

“This is consistent with multiple theoretical accounts [7,8,10,12] that propose semanticised or gist-like representations, likely supported by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) [13,49,50], are more robust to forgetting than contextually rich and detailed HPC-based memories.”

“For instance, forgetting occurs at a higher rate for more detailed, low-level (verbatim) information about a stimulus, whereas more abstract high-level (gist) information is retained over a longer time (e.g., Brainerd & Reyna, 2002).”

“In terms of fuzzy-trace theory (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002), listeners could be said to have good gist memory for melodies but poor or non-existent verbatim memory.”

“For example, in the relatedness paradigms it is suggested that false memories arise from gist that is built up across many trials (see Brainerd and Reyna, 2002), and so activity on any given trial may only partially contribute to a false memory.”

“Recently, there has been an emerging interest in the mechanisms by which people edit false information from memory (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002; Brainerd, Reyna, Wright, & Mojardin, 2003b; Brédart, 2000; Gallo, 2004; Lampinen, Odegard, & Neuschatz, 2004; Odegard & Lampinen, 2005; Odegard, Lampinen, &…”

“As a result, gist and verbatim traces may be available and prone to situational influences to different degrees (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002).”

“30 False recognition should be greater in the distraction than in the no-distraction conditions; true recognition might be lower in the distraction conditions than when no distracting event occurs.”

“The powerful DRM effect emerges because themeaning of the nonpresented CI is similar to several gist representations stored during encoding of the list (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002).”

“Activation theories would also be hard pressed to account for higher recognition rates for nonpresented related items than presented items (as has been found by Brainerd & Reyna, 1998), because activation dissipates from presented items to related nodes.”

“Episodic long-term memories integrate across several levels 208 of storing both gist and detailed item information and trading them off 34 .”

“We pause to mention one other theory of DRM false memories: fuzzy trace theory (e.g., Brainerd & Reyna, 2002; Reyna & Brainerd, 1995).”

“Fuzzy-trace theory (FTT; Brainerd 122 & Reyna, 2002) would also predict such results.”

“A common element among many models of memory is that subjects easily and quickly store the general characteristics of an event, and rely on that gist during retrieval to infer the details of an event (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002; Hintzman, 1988; Hunt & Einstein, 1981).”

“…false memories derive from retrieval-monitoring errors, in the fuzzy-trace theory, false memories are attributed to the gist extraction that occurs during encoding phase while true memory is attributed to the item-specific trace (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002; Brainerd, Wright, Reyna, & Mojardin, 2001).”

“This supports fuzzy-trace theory’s proposal that visual detail is encoded in specific memory traces that confer robustness to later true recognition (Brainerd and Reyna, 2002).”

“Similar to children, adults’ organisation and retrieval of instances of repeated events are not organised around separate memory traces as predicted by fuzzy trace theory (Brainerd & Reyna, 1990, 2002, 2004; Reyna et al., 2016).”

“Perceptual details that can be considered peripheral to the meaning of an autobiographical experience will only be accessed if specifically prompted with an appropriate cue (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002).”

“Individuals may recall the meaning or ‘gist’ of past experience rather than many or any episodic details (Brainerd and Reyna, 2002).”

“…Sakatani, 2013), acute exercise may enhance an individual’s ability to encode contextually specific information (reactivate verbatim memory traces and minimize the reactivation/overreliance of gist traces (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002)), and thus, potentially help to minimize false recognition of words.”

“These variables may contribute to false memories by simply leading to a faint memory trace, in agreement with the Fuzzy Trace Theory [15, 95].”

“…would be retained more robustly over time (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002; Heuer & Reisberg, 1990; Koutstaal, 2006) than details or secondary (peripheral) information, which is generally forgotten more rapidly (Bartlett, 1932; Brainerd & Reyna, 2002; Sachs, 1967; Sekeres et al., 2016; Tulving, 1972).”

“Also, although control participants of Experiment 2 recalled and recognized fewer hits than control participants in Experiment 1, the two control groups did not differ with regard to false recall and recognition, a pattern that runs counter to what FTT would predict.”

“According to Brainerd and Reyna (2002), retrieval of gist information relies on familiarity, whereas retrieval of detailed verbatim information relies on recollection.”

“This also supports previous false memories studies that conclude that the reliance on familiarity and relatedness traces are fundamental to supporting false memories (Brainerd and Reyna, 2002; Dennis et al., 2008; Dennis et al., 2008b; Kout-staal and Schacter, 1997).”

“…these word lists theorized due to the activation of semantic associations (e.g., Roediger et al., 2001) and similarity and gist-based errors (e.g., Brainerd & Reyna, 2002), resulting in the recall of certain nonstudied words known as critical lures (e.g., sleep , for this study list) (Gallo,…”

“…(Hege & Dodson, 2004; Hockley & Cristi, 1996), distinctive processing operates at study by either disrupting the thematic consistency of the list (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002), or by reducing the implicit associations shared between list items and the critical lure (Roediger, Balota, & Watson, 2001).”

“, 1995; Roediger and McDermott, 1995; Schacter, 1999, 2008), aging increases the use of gist, resulting in poor memory in older adults when recollection requires remembering specific details (Brainerd and Reyna, 2002; Tun et al., 1998).”

“In terms of fuzzytrace theory (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002), it is possible that future thinking facilitates the formation of gist traces, which give rise to false memories, but has no effect on verbatim traces, which support correct memories.”

“See Brainerd & Reyna (2002) for further discussion of the relationship between FTT and false memories.”

“…for the dissociation between typically developing children’s ability to remember the specifics of information presented to them and their ability to reason or make inferences from the context of the information (see Brainerd & Reyna, 2002, for an extensive review).”

“Instead, we often skip over intermediate elements to complete reasoning more efficiently [42, 43, 44].”

“False memory and the fuzzy-trace theory FTT, developed by Brainerd, Reyna, and their coworkers, is one of the most prominent approaches in memory research (e.g. Brainerd et al., 1999; Brainerd & Reyna, 2002; Brainerd, Reyna, & Kneer, 1995).”

“This emphasis likely increased activation (Roediger et al., 2001) and/or led to the encoding of more gist-based information (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002) associated with the CIs during study relative to reading, as evidenced by the higher memory information index following relational processing found in…”

“That is, according to the fuzzy-trace theory, memory can be based on both item-specific (verbatim) and gist traces (Brainerd and Reyna, 2002).”

“Second, according to fuzzy-trace theory (eg, Brainerd & Reyna, 1998 , 2002 ), false memories can be attributed to the processing and retrieval of verbatim and gist information.”

“Specifically, verbatim retrieval should suppress false memory because it de-emphasises the meaning of items, whereas gist retrieval should enhance false memory because it emphasises the meaning of an item (see Brainerd & Reyna, 2002, for a review).”

“Alternatively, as the verbatim memory trace fades, dependence on gist memory traces increases (fuzzy-trace theory; Brainerd and Reyna, 2002).”

“54) and a word type by recall interaction (F(9,495)=182.”

“One particularly important reason reflects the need to rely on gist-based schemas instead of verbatim details when encoding new experiences and recollecting the past (Bartlett, 1932; Brainerd & Reyna, 2002).”

“, 2001) and the Fuzzy Trace Theory (FTT, Brainerd and Reyna, 2002) explain why DRM word lists induce false memories. The AMT posits that, during encoding, the studied words (either consciously or unconsciously) activate the semantically associated critical lure. During subsequent memory tests, participants generate wo…”

“…our results suggest that despite elevated false alarm rates often found in the aging literature, a strong schematic context can have an equally detrimental effect on both true and false memory across the lifespan (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002; Koutstaal & Schacter, 1997; Reyna & Brainerd, 1995).”

“Speculatively, and via its influence on the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex [40,93,94], acute exercise may subserve the encoding of contextually specific information (reactivate verbatim memory traces and attenuate the reactivation of gist traces [95]), and in turn, minimize false memory recall.”

“Each category was defined by a set of images sharing the general thematic information (gist) while differing in the details characterizing the individual items (verbatim) (Koutstaal and Schacter, 1997; Brainerd and Reyna, 2002).”

“A similar idea was expressed by Brainerd and Reyna (2002); see also Reyna and Mills (2007) in their fuzzy-trace framework.”

“Theoretical explanations are provided by the activation–monitoring account (Roediger & McDermott, 1995, 2000) and fuzzy-trace theory (e.g., Brainerd & Reyna, 1998, 2002).”

“However, those authors made no reference to ''surprise " in their analysis, instead attributing the reduction to a shift from a gist-based strategy to a verbatim-based strategy following generation (cf. Brainerd & Reyna, 2002).”

“According to the fuzzy-trace theory (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002), the verbatim process allows one to retrieve a memory as a whole with all its associated details, whereas the gist process refers to more generic and less detailed features.”

“The observation that OA made more confabulations in the modified fairy tale condition than in the two other types of stories is consistent with the Fuzzy Trace Theory ( Brainerd & Reyna, 2002 ; Reyna & Brainerd, 1995 ) which postulates that memory is based on both a ‘gist’ trace and a ‘verbatim’ trace.”

“Verbatim traces help to reject critical distractors more effectively thanks to a process called recollection rejection (i.e., “No, I did not study window as I clearly remember studying door instead) (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002).”

“The two main theoretical explanations of the false memory effect in the DRM paradigm are the fuzzy-trace theory (FFT; Reyna and Brainerd, 1995; Brainerd and Reyna, 2002) and the activation-monitoring framework (AMF; Roediger et al.”

“Mnemonic discrimination errors are observed for a wide range of materials including pictures, words, and narratives (Brainerd & Reyna, 2002).”

“…studies that similarly report that episodic details of an event memory are especially susceptible to being forgotten over time, while the nonepisodic or more schematic elements of the memory are preferentially retained over time (Conway et al., 1991; Brainerd and Reyna, 2002; Sekeres et al., 2016).”