Cognitive Approach:

Laney et al.
(false memory)
Laney, C., Morris, E.K., Bernstein, D.M., Wakefield, B.M., and Loftus,
E.F. (2008), Asparagus, a Love Story. Healthier Eating Could Be Just a
False Memory Away. Experimental Psychology, 55(5): 291–300
Maha Mohsin
Background
● Human memory has been manipulated in experimental studies for
many years. “False memories” for events have been studies for
decades to see whether people believe them.
● Prior to this study, psychologists had focused on false beliefs and
memories for negative or neutral events and experiences. No one had
looked at whether false memories could be created or implanted for
positive events and experiences.
● Being able to demonstrate this could have far-reaching consequences.
For example, for people with disorders such as phobias it would mean
positive experiences could be implanted to help them overcome these
disorders.
The psychology being investigated
● The main area being tested here is false memories.
The researchers noted that people’s memories of
events in their own lives can be incorrect.
● False details about real events, and entirely false
events, can be added to a person’s memory
storage system.

● From all of the stored information, people can

reconstruct “memories” for events, for example by
“filling in the gaps” and using false information that
gets embedded in actual information.
Aim
1. To investigate whether positive false memories for loving asparagus
can be implanted into people and then change their childhood
memories of liking asparagus.
2. To investigate the consequences of implanting positive false memories
in terms of the effects it has on liking asparagus and choosing
asparagus.
 Experiment 1
To investigate whether positive false memories for loving asparagus
can be implanted into people and then change their childhood
memories of liking asparagus.
Participants/Sample
● A total of 128 undergraduates were
used in the study and they all received
course credits for participating. Of the
participants, 77% were female.
● The mean age of participants was 20.8
years.
● They were randomly assigned to the
“love” group (n = 63) or the control
group (n = 65).
Research Method/Procedure
● Once they had arrived at the
laboratory, participants were
told they would be completing a
series of questionnaires to help
study the relationship between
food preferences and
personality.
● To limit the influence of demand
characteristics, they were not
told anything about false
memories.
There were two main questionnaires:
● The first was the Food History Inventory (FHI) consisting of 24 items.
○ The 16th item was crucial: it read “Loved asparagus the first time you tried it”.
○ All statements were rated from the same scale from 1= definitely did not
happen, to 8 = definitely did happen before the age of 10.
● The second was a restaurant questionnaire (RQ) that assessed the desire to
eat 32 separate dishes.
○ Included in this was a critical item of “sautéed asparagus spears”. The
questionnaire was laid out like a menu with appetizers, soups, desserts
etc.
○ Participants had to rate how likely it was that they would order each
item, regardless of price. The scale was 1 = definitely no to 8 =
definitely yes.
Participants completed three other questionnaires as “fillers”, relating to
personality, eating habits and social desirability, to disguise the true aim of the
study.
● Approximately one week later all participants returned. They were given false feedback
about their responses to the original questionnaire.
● They were told (falsely) that their responses had been entered into a computer program
which had generated a profile of their early childhood experiences with food.
● Profiles were presented as if they had been individually tailored to each participant. A
section of the profile was exactly the same for everyone:
○ “As a young child you disliked spinach, enjoyed fried foods and liked it when fellow
classmates brought sweets into class.”
● For the love group another additional critical item was added:
○ “You loved to eat cooked asparagus.”
● To make sure that all participants had processed these statements, all had to respond to
brief questions about the sweets statement.
● Additionally, the love group also answered questions about asparagus. They were asked:
○ “Imagine the setting in which this experienced happened. Where were you? Who was with
you?”
● Then, using a scale of 1 = not at all to 9 = very much, participants rated how
much the experience had affected their adult personality. Following this, all
participants completed the FHI and RQ again.
● Then two new questionnaires were completed.
○ The first was a Food Preference Questionnaire (FPQ) on which they had to
rate 62 food items (including asparagus) on a scale of 1 = definitely don’t
like to eat it (for whatever reason) to 8 = definitely like to eat it.
○ The second was a Food Costs Questionnaire (FCQ) on which, for 21
different food items, participants had to indicate whether they would buy
each item and, if so, how much they would be willing to pay for it.
■ They had to choose one of seven statements ranging from “would
never buy it” to “would buy it at $5.70”. One of the food items was a
1lb (454 grams) of asparagus.
The final measure was taken via a
questionnaire called Memory or Belief
(MBQ). Participants had to respond to
three items from the FHI (including the
asparagus item) by choosing one of the
following:
1. had a specific memory of the
event;
2. had a belief that the event
occurred (but no specific
memory);
3. was positive that the event had
not occurred.
Results
The main results were as follows:

● Food History Inventory (FHI)

○ Excluded from the analysis were 31 participants (17 in the love group) as
they were reasonably sure that they did like asparagus before the
manipulation. The mean ratings in the love group increased 2.6 points
(participants in this group were more confident that they loved asparagus).
○ For those in the control group the increase was 0.2 points.
● Memory or Belief (MBQ)
○ For the love group, 22% of participants indicated a memory and 35%
indicated a belief, leaving 43 per cent reporting that they were positive that
the event had not occurred.
○ In the control group, 12% reported a memory, 28 per cent a belief and 61
per cent that the event had not occurred. This was in the predicted
direction but it did not reach significance (p = 0.09).
To be classified as a believer, participants had
to meet the following three criteria:
● given a low rating on the FHI when
initially asked if they loved asparagus
(week one)
● increased their rating on the FHI when
asked if they loved asparagus on week
two
● given positive ‘memory’ or ‘belief’
response on the MBQ
● 48% (22) of participants in the ‘love’ condition met
the criteria to be labelled believers and further
analysis compared their scores with the other
‘non-believers’ where the impact of the implanted
memory had a lesser effect.
○ The ratings of these 22 believers increased an
average of 4.5 points from week one to week
two on their FHI item.
● Nonbelievers increased an average of just 0.9 points.
Of the 22 participants classified as believers, 10
claimed to have an asparagus ‘memory’ and 12
claimed a ‘belief’ on the MBQ.
Consequences of false beliefs
● On the RQ, believers reported more desire to eat the critical asparagus
item than those in the control group.
● On the FPQ, in comparison to the control group (mean 3.84), believers
(mean 6.14) reported liking asparagus significantly more.
● Finally, on the FCQ, believers were willing to pay significantly more for
asparagus than those in the control group with over a quarter (14) of
those in the control group stating that they would never buy
asparagus.
● None of the believers selected the never buy response.
Conclusion
1. Participants can be led to develop
positively framed false beliefs and these
false beliefs can have a consequence on
behaviour and food preferences.
2. Participants who had the false belief
implanted increased their rating of their
love of asparagus and these beliefs had
further impacts on how much they would
be willing to spend on asparagus, greater
intention to eat asparagus in the future, and
a greater preference for it.
Discussion Questions
● The Restaurant Questionnaire measures the likelihood of eating certain foods.
Explain one reason why it may not measure this accurately.
● The Restaurant Questionnaire measures the likelihood of eating certain foods.
Explain one reason why it may not measure this accurately.
● Jaina is planning a study about false memories. She wants to compare false
memories about emotional events and false memories about non-emotional
events.
○ Suggest how Jaina could operationally define the IV in her study.
○ Suggest one possible ethical problem with Jaina’s study.
 Experiment 2
To investigate the consequences of implanting positive false memories in terms of the effects it has on
liking asparagus and choosing asparagus. There were two specific aims:

1. To replicate the findings of experiment 1.

2. To examine a possible underlying mechanism of false memories by looking at whether the sight
of asparagus is more appealing to people after the false manipulation about asparagus.
Participants
● This experiment is also an example of an
independent groups design as participants only
took part in one of the two conditions: the ‘love’
condition or the control group.

● Participants were 103 undergraduates from the

University of Washington; 62% were female and
the overall mean age was 19.9 years.

● They received course credits for participating.

They were assigned to either the love group (n =
58) or the control group (n = 45).
Research Design/Procedure
● Session 1:
○ On arriving at the laboratory, participants were told that their data would be
entered into a computer that would generate a profile of them. No cover story
was given.
○ They all completed the FHI, the FPQ and the RQ.
○ In a similar procedure to that used in experiment 1 to try to disguise the true
nature of the study, researchers gave participants two “filler” questionnaires to
complete.
■ In this experiment, these were the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability
Scale and a personality questionnaire.
● Session 2:
○ Similar to the first experiment,
approximately one week later participants
were invited back to the laboratory.
○ At this point participants were randomly
allocated to the ‘love’ asparagus condition or
the control group.
○ All participants were told that their
responses from the first week had been
processed by a computer which had
generated a profile of their expected early
childhood experiences with food.
● Participants in the ‘love’ condition were given a profile that contained the
critical phrase ‘you loved asparagus the first time you ate it’ in the third
position.
● After reading the profile, participants then completed an elaboration
exercise in which they were required to give details about their memory of
eating asparagus, or if they had no memory of it, what might have happened.
● Those allocated to the control group were told nothing about asparagus and
did not complete the elaboration exercise.
● All participants were then asked: “What is the most important childhood,
food-related event in your life that your food profile did not report?”
Participants then looked at 20 slides showing common
foods such as spinach, strawberries, pizza and (the
critical) asparagus. Each slide was shown for 30 seconds
and was rated on four criteria:

1. How appetizing participants found the food picture

2. How disgusting they found the food picture
3. Whether the photograph was taken by a novice,
amateur or professional photographer
4. Artistic quality of the picture

Points 1, 2 and 4 were rated on a scale of 1 = not at all to

8 = very much. All participants then completed the FPQ,
RQ and FHI. They also completed the MBQ as in
experiment 1. They were then debriefed.
Results
These were the main results:
● Food History Inventory (FHI)
○ Both groups appeared to rate the critical asparagus item similarly before any
manipulation, but differently afterwards. 30 were excluded from analyses (18 in the
love group and 12 in the control group) as they were reasonably sure that they loved
asparagus before any manipulation. This left 73 participants whose data was used.
○ For the love group, the mean confidence increased by 2.5 points (1.7 to 4.2) but it
increased by only 1.07 points for the control (1.45 to 2.52). This was a significance
difference (p = 0.006).
● Memories or Beliefs (MBQ):
○ Similar to the first experiment, the results from the MBQ suggested that
those participants who were told that they loved asparagus had a greater
chance of generating a false memory or belief to substantiate this false
memory.
○ However this was not a statistically significant difference.
Believers vs Non-believers

● Participants were separated into believers or non-believers based on the same

criteria as in the first experiment.
● 40 in the ‘love’ condition met the criteria to be labelled believers. The believers
were then compared with those participants in the control group.

Consequences of false beliefs

● On the RQ, neither the believers nor the control group reported an increased
desire to eat the critical asparagus item when comparing the two weeks.
● On the FPQ, in comparison to the control group, believers reported a
significantly greater desire to eat asparagus.
● Finally, on the photograph ratings, believers rated the asparagus photo as more
appetising than those in the control group (5.10 versus 4.00), and as less
disgusting (1.81 versus 3.24).
Conclusion
● Participants can be given positive false food beliefs and these beliefs have
consequences on behaviours and attitudes towards foods. Those participants
who believed the false feedback were more likely than those in the control
group to rate a photograph of asparagus as more appetising and less disgusting.
● The photograph measure provides a step towards understanding the cognitive
mechanisms associated with false memories as the false memory primed the
participant to process the images of asparagus more positively. This positive
response is interpreted as familiarity and the participants misattribute it to a
childhood experiences (I did love asparagus the first time I tried it) and
consequently, an adult preference (I love asparagus).
Evaluation
● Quantitative data: the study collected a lot of quantitative data which
made comparisons between the groups easier.
○ Statistical analyses were conducted to show significant differences
between the groups.
○ The ratings regarding asparagus could easily be compared.
● Use of self-reports: a lot of data were collected using questionnaires.
○ These rely on the memory of the participants being correct but also
on them telling the truth about their eating habits, etc.
○ People may not want to reveal the full truth about certain issues so
some of the findings may have questionable validity as a result.
Also, the ratings for asparagus are subjective, making comparisons
quite difficult.
● Generalizability: the sample for both studies consisted of students who
had volunteered to take part in the study.
○ In terms of false memory production, the way that these students’
memory systems work may be qualitatively different from the way
memory systems work in other students of the population.
○ Therefore, generalizability may be low as the sample may not be
representative of a wider population in terms of false memory
production.
Ethics

● Deception: the participants were told they would be completing a

series of questionnaires to help study the relationship between food
preferences and personality. However, the study was about implanting
false memories of the love of asparagus, so the participants were
deceived.
● Informed consent: it is the same argument as above; participants did
not know the true aim of the study so could not give specific permission
to take part in it.
Discussion Questions
● Evaluate the study by Laney et al. (false memory) in
terms of two strengths and two weaknesses. At least
one of your evaluation points must be about the use of
self-reports.
● Explain why Laney et al. concluded that false beliefs
could affect behaviour.
● Patients who receive chemotherapy in hospital are
often very sick and this makes them lose their appetite.
Using the study by Laney et al., suggest how a procedure
to help patients to believe foods taste nice could be
developed.