PSCH 352, Cognition and Memory, Summer 2005: Reading Worksheet Template

This is due at the beginning of class.  Please type your answers.  Answers should be no more than
3 sentences long (with the exception of the special question, which can be longer).

Name: KEY
Date: 6/23/05
Article: Lewandowsky, S., Strizke, W.G.K., Oberauer, K., & Morales, M. (2005). Memory
for fact, fiction, and misinformation: The Iraq war 2003. Psychological Science, 16(3), 190-195.

1. What was the purpose of this research?
Explore how people resisted false memories and discounted misinformation about the Iraq war. 

2. What did the researchers do? (Summarize method, including groups, manipulation(s), and
dependent variable(s))
872 members of university communities in Germany, Australia, and the United States answered questionnaires
about their memories for events related to the Iraq war in early spring 2003.  IVs/predictors: type of event
(true, false retracted, fiction); country (Germany, Australia, United States); memory ratings; retraction ratings;
agreement with reasons for war.  DVs: retraction ratings; belief that WMDs had been found.

3. What were the main results?
For true items, memory ratings were a better predictor of truth ratings than retraction ratings for all 3 groups,
but for false retracted items, retraction ratings were a better predictor of truth ratings only in the German and
Australian groups (for Americans, memory predicted truth ratings, although Americans did remember the
corrections of false items).  Retraction ratings were only related to truth ratings if people were suspicious
about reasons for the war.  In general people resisted false memories for the findings of WMDs (no group
higher than chance), but greatest proportion of false memory in Americans.

4. What is the take-home message (conclusion)?
Repetition of false news stories can lead to formation of false memories.  If false information is corrected,
people will only believe the correction if they were suspicious about the reasons behind the original news item. 
People will ignore corrections even if they are aware that misinformation has been discounted.

5. Are there any problems with the research or do you have any criticisms?  Is there anything you
would do differently?
This is a pretty tight study, so any reasonable criticism is ok.

6. Special question: Will be assigned separately for each article/reading.
Based on Lewandowsky et al.'s (2005) results, why might people still believe that no one could have predicted
the events of September 11, 2001?
Students should have only used the results/conclusions from this paper to answer the question.