The Impact Of Cognitive Style And Attention To The Level Of Error Of Stereotype-based Memory

False memory means that people report for events or words that never occurred. Althoughthe systematic study of perception and memory began almost simultaneously in the late 19thcentury, but the systematic research in false memory is later more than one century than forperceptual illusion. Ebbinghaus' quantitative research laid the foundation for false memory, butthe pioneering research in false memory began from Bartlett (1932). Stereotype means that weform fixed impression about certain type of people according to gender, race, age or occupation,and other social classifications, it was generally considered that it is linked with certaincharacteristics and behaviors. Stereotype-based false memory is a ubiquitous false memoryphenomenon, for considerable differences in processing, representing, retrieving stereotype-consistent, stereotype-inconsistent social information, people will have different false memoryfor the two types of information.With the accumulated results of the experiments, the researchers have put forward a fewtheories to explain the inherent psychological mechanisms of stereotype-based false memory, forexample, Schema Filter Model, Associative Network Model, Encoding Flexibility Model, andFuzzy Trace Theory, Constructive Memory Framework. These theories explained stereotype-based false memory from different perspectives, but sometimes appeared inconsistentinterpretations, it means that there are different viewpoints about its mechanisms.Existing studies showed that there were many factors influencing the stereotype-based falsememory. As far as cognitive style(field–dependence/independence, FDI) is concerned, because ithas reflected the difference that how individuals organize and represent information, individualsof different cognitive styles have different cognitive reorganization, as well as the habitualapproach of information processing. FI individuals' minds differentiate more deeply than FDindividuals'. The level of psychological differentiation affects the cognitive restructure, theattention monitor, and organizing and retrieving information. Furthermore, the performance of FIindividuals is more accurate and efficient when larger amounts of information must be analyzedor integrated. And, explaining stereotype-based false memory , coding information is moreemphasized , so , different tendencies to coding or processing may eventually lead to differentcognitive style individuals have different stereotype-based false memory. Therefore, FDIcognitive style might be one of the important factors that affect stereotype-based false memory.Under different levels of attention, individuals have differences in level of processing andoperational performance. Divided attention environment in which individual cognitive load areheavier, weaken the representation capacity of the details, divided attention during coding willpromote the use of categorical thinking(Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000), and make individualsrely more on categorical preconception to guide the processing of stereotype information, so ,individuals are prone to making more false memory.To explore the effect of FDI cognitive style and level of attention on stereotype-based falsememory, the present research employs recognize test presenting two kinds of pairs by computer.One typical male occupation, one typical female occupation, equivalent typical male names andfemale names, were selected beforehand, stereotype-consistent and stereotype-inconsistent pairsare learning stimulates presented by computer, The names or pairs in learning stimulate whichwere randomly mixed with interference stimulates (its composition is similar to learningstimulates), were presented by computer.Three experiments are reported to explore three questions. Experiment 1 focused that underundivided attention, whether there was stereotype-based false memory when different cognitivestyle individuals judged what occupation the new names recognized falsely had, which adopted a2(cognitive style: FD;FI)×2 (occupation judgement type: according to stereotype-consistence;according to stereotype-inconsistence;unknow its occupation) mixed factorial design. Cognitivestyle is between-subjects variable and judgement type is within-subject variable. Experiment 2explored that under undivided attention, whether there was stereotype-based false memory whendifferent cognitive style individuals recognized the new pairs, and whether the R/K judgementfor the new pairs recognized falsely is different, the design of experiment was a 2 (cognitivestyle: FD;FI)×2 (pair type: stereotype-consistence;stereotype-inconsistence )×2 (recognitiontype: R judgement;K judgement) mixed factorial design. Cognitive style is between-subjectsvariable and pair type and recognition type are within-subject variable. Experiment 3 focused onthe effect of cognitive style and level of attention on stereotype-based false memory, whichadopted a 2 (cognitive style: FD;FI)×2 (level of attention: undivided;divided )×2 (pair type:stereotype-consistence;stereotype-inconsistence) mixed factors that included between-subjectsvariable of FDI and level of attention, within-subject variables of pair type.The results indicated: (1) under undivided attention condition, people decided theoccupation of new names recognized falsely more according to stereotype-consistence. (2)Under undivided attention condition, false recognition for stereotype-consistent name-occupationpairs was worse, and more "know" but "remember"judgement;there was significant interactionbetween FDI cognitive style and item type, for FI, false recognition for stereotype-inconsistentpairs was better than for stereotype-inconsistent pairs, for FD, false recognition for two types ofpairs was the same. (3) There was significant interaction between FDI cognitive style and levelof attention, under divided attention condition, FI was better than FD at false recognition, butunder undivided attention condition, there was no significant difference between FI and FD. (4)False recognition under undivided attention was better than that under divided attention.These findings have important implications for theory research and practical appliance. Intheory, they widen the field of stereotype-based false memory and cognitive style research. Inpractice, they can help people improve the level of stereotype-based false memory.