Sammendrag
The current study investigated pupillary responses to false memories in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Despite the extensive research on the neural and behavioral components involved in the false memory phenomenon, no known studies have utilized pupillometry in conjunction with this task. Pupillary responses have been shown to
correlate with activity in the locus coeruleus of the brain. Given this nucleus’ central importance for neuroadrenergic modulation of cortical activity, pupillometry provides a window on attention processes and memory. Therefore, 30 participants were tested on a
recognition version of the DRM with pupillary responses recorded during the testing phase. This study revealed four key findings: 1) pupil responses differ depending on word type presented in the DRM paradigm; 2) seen words were found to elicit a greater pupillary
dilation than unseen words (seen > unseen); 3) lures were also found to elicit a larger pupil response compared to the unseen words (lure > unseen); 4) pupil dilation to lure words was greater than those of the seen words, however not significantly different (lure ≥ seen). These findings indicate that the pupil does reveal a memory component and that it is sensitive to attentional processes and cognitive demand. This research helps in understanding the intricate
components of memory, the ways in which they can be measured, and how they can be applied to clinical settings.