Emotion Shapes False Memory: Experimental Evidences From Recall and Recognition Tests

Abstract

In everyday situations, individuals encounter emotionally demanding or challenging situations that are remembered and subsequently retrieved in similar emotional contexts. Consequently, although emotion is unavoidable in everyday life, specific situations can enhance its impact, leading to serious consequences. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the false memories produced by two types of tests (recall and recognition) utilizing Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) lists of emotional valences (negative, positive, or neutral). Sixty-six healthy participants were presented with four lists of emotional valences (positive, negative, or neutral), each containing ten words, and were instructed to retrieve them through recall and recognition tests. The percentage proportion of false memories to true memories was assessed by the number of critical lures and true target words recalled and recognized. A mixed factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed to examine the differences in emotional valence between recall and recognition for studied and critical lure words. The main effect of test type [F <inf>(1,63)</inf> = 6.49, p = .013, η2 = .09] and emotional valence [F <inf>(2, 63)</inf> = 3.32, p = .04, η2 = .09] was found to be significant for critical lure words. However, the interaction between test types and emotional valence was non-significant [F <inf>(2, 63)</inf> = 1.38, p = .25, η2 = .04] for critical lure words. The current study concludes that recognition tests may reveal greater susceptibility to emotional false memories than recall tests. Moreover, emotional valence independently affects false memory performance, particularly for negative content. There was no significant interaction between test type and valence, indicating that test type and emotional valence may independently contribute to the formation of false memories rather than affecting each other. © The Author(s) 2026