Individual Differences Of Personality Traits And Cognitive Style In Imagination Inflation

In our daily life, we always believe that we have seen some events or context ever before. People may recall and recognize the events that never happened or totally different from the real situation incorrectly, which called false memory. Imagination inflation is a new field of false memory, which provides a new way and method. Researchers'studies on the autobiographical memory and simple action memory are based on the imagination inflation paradigm. Many Researchers tried to explain the false memory phenomenon with some theories, and the main theories are Source-Monitoring Framework(SMF) and Familiarity-Attribution Theory(FAT). There are seldom studies on the individual differences of imagination inflation, this exploratory study try to research the susceptibility of the imagination using the cognitive style and personality traits.This study based on the SMF & FAT theory , Eysenck's personality theory, and the cognitive style theory, using a opening questionnaire to get the experimental material and EPQ & EFT to select subjects. There are two experiments designed with three-stage paradigm of imagination inflation: Experiment 1 controlled different numbers of imaging; Experiment 2 controlled the sources of information. Both of the experiments have tested the individual differences of cognitive style and personality traits in imagination inflation. The conclusions as follow:First, with the increasing of the numbers, subjects were familiar with the material, and their confidence that believing once the simple actions really appeared were upgraded. As the numbers of imaging increased, the false recognition rate goes to higher, and the more obvious effects of imagination inflation appeared, which verified the SMF&FAT Theory.Second, by controlling the different sources of information, imagination inflation effects were triggered effectively. Because outside sources of information perceived more details and background information, and the inside information produced more cognitive operation, which verified the SMF Theory. But the false recognition rate of different sources of information has no remarkable difference.Third, from the cognitive style point to study individual differences of imagination inflation, because of the cognitive bias and the different level of psychological differentiation, the Field dependence subjects'false recognition rate remarkable higher than the Field independence subjects'.Forth, from the personality traits point to study individual differences of imagination inflation, because of the differences of the cortex's wake-up level and the coding of information, as well as other possibility factors, the introversion subjects'false recognition rate remarkable higher than the extraversion subjects'. And the neuroticism dimension is not the influencing factor of imagination inflation.Finally, personality traits and cognitive styles as two factors that independent but also linked with each other, they have interaction in imagination inflation.