Emotional true and false memories in children with callous-unemotional traits

J. Thijssen*, H. Otgaar, M.L. Howe, C. de Ruiter

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Several studies have found that children with callous-unemotional (CU) traits have a deficit in processing emotionally negative material. The present study examined whether this deficit also affects emotional memory. Twenty-two children with low CU traits and 24 children with high CU traits between 8 and 12 years of age were selected from a community sample and presented with neutral and negative emotional words, using the DeeseRoedigerMcDermott paradigm. On true recall, there was no difference between the groups. Both groups had higher true recall rates for the neutral word lists than for the negative lists. However, on false recall, although there were no group differences for neutral word lists, the high CU group recalled significantly fewer critical lures on the negative word lists than the low CU group. Furthermore, the high CU group had significantly less false recall on the negative word lists compared to the neutral word lists, while the low CU group showed no difference in false recall between the word lists. These results indicate that children with high CU traits have no deficiencies in true memory performance, yet are less susceptible to developing false memories concerning emotionally negative material.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)761-768
Number of pages8
JournalCognition & Emotion
Volume27
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2013

Keywords

  • Callous-unemotional traits
  • Emotional memory
  • DRM paradigm
  • PROCESS SCREENING DEVICE
  • CONDUCT PROBLEMS
  • PSYCHOPATHIC TENDENCIES
  • DEVELOPMENTAL REVERSALS
  • CHILDHOOD
  • IMMEDIATE
  • ILLUSIONS
  • COMMUNITY
  • DISORDER
  • VALENCE

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