Name: use of a psychophysiological script-driven imagery experiment to study trauma-related dissociation in borderline personality disorder
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Description: Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Use of a Psychophysiological Script-driven Imagery Experiment to Study Trauma-related Dissociation in Borderline Personality Disorder at JoVE.com

We particularly thank Dr. Stefan Tsch&#246;ke and Luisa Steib for scientific advice and assistance with the recruitment of clinical participants, as well as all participants who enabled us to conduct the study and learn from them.

Our study was approved by the Ethical Committee at the Ulm University. All investigation proceedings were non-invasive and conducted in accordance with the guidelines for good clinical practice and the Declaration of Helsinki.
1. General procedures for the preparation of the psychophysiological experiment
<ol>
	<li>Obtain ethical approval for the protocol and written informed consent from all participants after giving them detailed information (including information about the possibility of ...

The present protocol describes an integrated assessment of peripheral physiological responding, self-reports, and clinical assessments for the study of trauma-related dissociation in BPD. For the realization of this procedure, it is important to control for confounders of physiological activity, to ensure functional recordings of physiological data before measurements, and to collect clinical data by expert investigators.
Limits of such integrated assessments protocols may concern the sensitiv...

In perceiving danger, humans experience anxiety and the body reacts rapidly within the defense cascade to minimize injury and ensure survival. Defense reactions include initial stages of increasing arousal and sympathetic activation and, in event of inescapable threats (e.g., child abuse, rape, torture), parasympathetically modulated &#34;shut-down&#34; dissociative reactions (e.g., bradycardia, vasodilatation, sensory deafferentation, alterations of consciousness and speech1,2) become predominant. According to the theories of reactivation of trauma-related associative memory networks3,4, the prevalent type of the peritraumatic psychophysiological reactions (arousal vs. dissociation) would result in one of the two major subtypes of clinical profiles and reaction patterns to trauma-related stimuli2. Considering the heterogeneity of responses to activation of trauma-related memory across various neuroimaging PTSD studies, Lanius et al. (2006)5 argued that &#34;grouping all PTSD subjects, regardless of their different symptom patterns, in the same diagnostic category may interfere with our understanding of posttrauma psychopathology&#34;. The influence of dissociative responding on the psychopathology and psychophysiology of traumatized persons has been studied in the area of PTSD. For example, Schalinski, Elbert &#38; Schauer (2011)6 showed that shut-down dissociation predicts PTSD and other comorbid disorders. The use of psychophysiological assessments pointed to modifications of the defense cascade allowing for a rapid flight in response to threat7,8. Schalinski et al. (2013)8 revealed that the type of traumatic events seems to influence the cardiac startle response. Another study9 indicated a pattern of &#34;blunted&#34; reactivity &#8212; an arousal-dissociation mix characterized by simultaneous activation of both autonomous nervous system branches &#8212; in more severely traumatized individuals. So far, no studies in this regard have been conducted on other clinical populations often affected by psychological trauma and dissociative symptoms (e.g., BPD).
In the research of human emotion and behavior, it is of particular importance to examine and integrate information from several levels: subjective (verbal expression, prosody), behavioral (motor, facial expression, etc.), physiological (trembling, sweating, heart rate, etc.). By arguing that assessments that omit one or more of these three modes of emotional expression can be highly misleading, Lang (1998)10 emphasized the relevance of multimodal assessment that involves procedures of observation of behavior, self-report/clinical measures, and psychophysiological measurement.
Extreme states of anxiety and pronounced physiological arousal are characteristic of anxiety, trauma-, and stressor-related disorders. According to the psychophysiological concept, these disorders may be conceived as an outcome of the modified autonomic reactivity (generally higher) to negative stimuli. These measurable psychophysiological response indices as part of the diagnostic criteria made them obvious targets for psychophysiological research. Particularly PTSD, as a psychological disorder with a definite event criterion (i.e., life-threatening experiences, such as accidents, physical/sexual assaults, natural disasters, incarceration, military combat, and torture), offered a valuable opportunity for psychophysiological assessments.
Various assessment designs using different paradigms, stimuli, and physiological parameters have been used for the study of PTSD. Monitoring peripheral physiological parameters provide reliable measures of changes in autonomic activity, related to emotional and cognitive states. Among these, skin conductance is a common measure with a long history in psychophysiological research and is regarded as a highly sensitive index11. Its monitoring is often combined with the recording of heart rate, a further autonomically dependent variable.
For the measurement of peripheral physiological parameters, the use of script-driven imagery experiments was a major paradigm for the investigation of emotional and physiological reactions to the activation of trauma-related memory. Within the script-driven imagery paradigm12, participants are asked to vividly imagine aversive situations triggered by short verbal scripts13,14,15,16. The subject is solicited to imagine a situation as if he/she was reliving the real course of events, including actions, persons, and emotions present during the real situation (see Figure 1 for an example of a traumatic script). The traumatic situation imagined is usually compared with other kinds of not-traumatic scenes.
Script-driven imagery was mainly employed in various populations affected by PTSD, e.g. Vietnam veterans15,17, victims of accidents18, and former political prisoners19. An enhanced reactivity to traumatic cues was usually found, but there are also several findings of absence of such a higher reactivity to trauma-related stimuli (e.g., Orr &#38; Roth, 2000; Davis et al., 1996)15,20. Growing knowledge on the psychophysiology of PTSD was followed by an increased bulk of psychophysiological research in the area of trauma-related and other psychological disorders. Meanwhile, however, script-driven imagery paradigms have been successfully applied to study dissociative processes in BPD 21,22.
This paper presents a protocol to investigate whether persons with BPD reporting high levels of PD predominantly exhibit dissociative reactions with suppression of autonomic responses during the script-driven trauma-related imagery23,24. Additionally, our study aimed at proving whether there are clinically different BPD subgroups, as tested by structured clinical interviews and symptom scales. The present protocol combines extensive, standardized clinical assessments with measuring physiological (HR and SC) and subjective responses within a script-driven imagery paradigm. Reactions to trauma-related personalized scripts compared to scripts portraying everyday events were analyzed. The protocol provides a model for the investigation of dissociative processes and their impact on psychopathological and psychophysiological features of BPD.

<table>
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<td>Experimental Runtime System (ERTS) Version 3.32</td>
			<td>BeriSoft Cooperation, Frankfurt/Main, Germany</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>We used a scripting language based computer programme wich sends simultanously auditory stimuli to a headphone and marker signals to a psychophysiological recording device at millisecond accuracy.</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Biopac MP150 system</td>
			<td>Biopac Systems, Inc., Goleta, CA</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>We recorded the physiological data by using this hardware .</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>AcqKnowledge software</td>
			<td>Biopac Systems, Inc.</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>We recorded the physiological data by using this software.</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>VOC</td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Format for the auditory files for instructions and script, compatibele with the stimulus presentation software.</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

use of a psychophysiological script-driven imagery experiment to study trauma-related dissociation in borderline personality disorder

This protocol offers a detailed description of a psychophysiological experiment using script-driven trauma-related imagery and standardized clinical instruments within a comparative design assessing physiological and psychopathological features of individuals with BPD. This method aims at studying the psychological and physiological effects of trauma-related dissociation. Since the psychodiagnostic classification of trauma-related disorders relies on the observation of evolutionarily determined responses to life-threat, an integrated assessment paradigm for the study of reactions to traumatic memories proposes a very appropriate methodological approach.
The employed script-driven imagery paradigm uses individual recall instructions to activate trauma-related memory networks and prompt associated emotional and physiological responses. These responses are measured by means of self-rating scales and physiological assessments. During the individual recall, participants are asked to vividly imagine traumatic and everyday experiences and other situations triggered by short personalized verbal scripts they authored beforehand together with the experimenters. A wide range of affective reactions and different physiological parameters can be measured. We used this paradigm to investigate dissociative states in BPD and to find physiological and affective correlates of dissociative states. Some of the participants were having severe traumatic antecedents.
To investigate different reaction patterns within the same diagnostic group, participants with different levels of traumatic histories, symptom severities, and co-morbidities should be included. By using short verbal scripts, the level of stress induced to participants is held as low as possible without affecting the validity of the object of investigation.

There are many behaviors reflected in emotional and physiological reactions that can be studied by script-driven imagery paradigms. For instance, the design is suitable to investigate patterns of emotional and physiological response to trauma-related memory. We were particularly interested in verifying whether there is a distinct BPD subgroup mainly characterized by a dissociative reaction pattern.
In our study...

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Use of a Psychophysiological Script-driven Imagery Experiment to Study Trauma-related Dissociation in Borderline Personality Disorder at JoVE.com

Use of a Psychophysiological Script-driven Imagery Experiment to Study Trauma-related Dissociation in Borderline Personality Disorder

We present a protocol of personalized script-driven trauma-related imagery and clinical assessments within a comparison design for investigating peritraumatic dissociation (PD), psychophysiological reactions, i.e. heart rate (HR) and skin conductance (SC), and psychological features of often severely traumatized individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD).

This protocol offers a detailed description of a psychophysiological experiment using script-driven trauma-related imagery and standardized clinical ...

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Use of the Operant Orofacial Pain Assessment Device (OPAD) to Measure Changes in Nociceptive Behavior

We present an operant system for the detection of pain in awake, conscious rodents. The Orofacial Pain Assessment Device (OPAD) assesses pain behaviors in a more clinically relevant way by not relying on reflex-based measures of nociception. Food fasted, hairless (or shaved) rodents are placed into a Plexiglas chamber which has two Peltier-based thermodes that can be programmed to any temperature between 7 &deg;C and 60 &deg;C. The rodent is trained to make contact with these in order to access a reward bottle. During a session, a number of behavioral pain outcomes are automatically recorded and saved. These measures include the number of reward bottle activations (licks) and facial contact stimuli (face contacts), but custom measures like the lick/face ratio (total number of licks per session/total number of contacts) can also be created. The stimulus temperature can be set to a single temperature or multiple temperatures within a session. The OPAD is a high-throughput, easy to use operant assay which will lead to better translation of pain research in the future as it includes cortical input instead of relying on spinal reflex-based nociceptive assays.

Use of the Operant Orofacial Pain Assessment Device OPAD to Measure Changes in Nociceptive Behavior

We present a user-friendly, high-throughput operant system for the evaluation of pain behaviors in awake, conscious rodents. The Orofacial Pain Assessment Device (OPAD) can assess pain through a reward/conflict paradigm thus providing a more humane way of testing. This protocol will yield more clinically relevant and translational data from rodents.

We present an operant  system for the detection of pain in awake, conscious rodents. The Orofacial  Pain Assessment Device (OPAD) assesses pain behaviors ...

A Procedure to Study the Effect of Prolonged Food Restriction on Heroin Seeking in Abstinent Rats

In human drug addicts, exposure to drug-associated cues or environments that were previously associated with drug taking can trigger relapse during abstinence. Moreover, various environmental challenges can exacerbate this effect, as well as increase ongoing drug intake.
The procedure we describe here highlights the impact of a common environmental challenge, food restriction, on drug craving that is expressed as an augmentation of drug seeking in abstinent rats.
Rats are implanted with chronic intravenous i.v. catheters, and then trained to press a lever for i.v. heroin over a period of 10-12 days. Following the heroin self-administration phase the rats are removed from the operant conditioning chambers and housed in the animal care facility for a period of at least 14 days. While one group is maintained under unrestricted access to food (sated group), a second group (FDR group) is exposed to a mild food restriction regimen that results in their body weights maintained at 90% of their nonrestricted body weight. On day 14 of food restriction the rats are transferred back to the drug-training environment, and a drug-seeking test is run under extinction conditions (i.e.&#160;lever presses do not result in heroin delivery).
The procedure presented here results in a highly robust augmentation of heroin seeking on test day in the food restricted rats. In addition, compared to the acute food deprivation manipulations we have used before, the current procedure is a more clinically relevant model for the impact of caloric restriction on drug seeking. Moreover, it might be closer to the human condition as the rats are not required to go through an extinction-training phase before the drug-seeking test, which is an integral component of the popular reinstatement procedure.

A procedure that allows a demonstration of robust augmentation of drug seeking in food-restricted rats is described. Following heroin self-administration training, rats go through an abstinence period, in a drug-free environment, during which they are mildly food restricted. Drug seeking is then tested in the drug-associated environment.

In human drug addicts, exposure to drug-associated cues or environments that were previously associated with drug taking can trigger relapse during ...

Signal Attenuation as a Rat Model of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

In the signal attenuation rat model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), lever-pressing for food is followed by the presentation of a compound stimulus which serves as a feedback cue. This feedback is later attenuated by repeated presentations of the stimulus without food (without the rat emitting the lever-press response). In the next stage, lever-pressing is assessed under extinction conditions (i.e., no food is delivered). At this stage rats display two types of lever-presses, those that are followed by an attempt to collect a reward, and those that are not. The latter are the measure of compulsive-like behavior in the model. A control procedure in which rats do not experience the attenuation of the feedback cue serves to distinguish between the effects of signal attenuation and of extinction. The signal attenuation model is a highly validated model of OCD and differentiates between compulsive-like behaviors and behaviors that are repetitive but not compulsive. In addition the measures collected during the procedure eliminate alternative explanations for differences between the groups being tested, and are quantitative, unbiased and unaffected by inter-experimenter variability. The major disadvantages of this model are the costly equipment, the fact that it requires some technical know-how and the fact that it is time-consuming compared to other models of OCD (11 days). The model may be used for detecting the anti- or pro-compulsive effects of pharmacological and non-pharmacological manipulations and for studying the neural substrate of compulsive behavior.

The goal of the protocol described in this paper is to induce compulsive-like behavior in rats for the study of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This behavior is precipitated by attenuating a signal indicating that a lever-press response was effective in producing food.

In the signal attenuation rat model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), lever-pressing for food is followed by the presentation of a compound stimulus ...

Testing Sensory and Multisensory Function in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

In addition to impairments in social communication and the presence of restricted interests and repetitive behaviors, deficits in sensory processing are now recognized as a core symptom in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Our ability to perceive and interact with the external world is rooted in sensory processing. For example, listening to a conversation entails processing the auditory cues coming from the speaker (speech content, prosody, syntax) as well as the associated visual information (facial expressions, gestures). Collectively, the &#8220;integration&#8221; of these multisensory (i.e., combined audiovisual) pieces of information results in better comprehension. Such multisensory integration has been shown to be strongly dependent upon the temporal relationship of the paired stimuli. Thus, stimuli that occur in close temporal proximity are highly likely to result in behavioral and perceptual benefits &#8211; gains believed to be reflective of the perceptual system&#39;s judgment of the likelihood that these two stimuli came from the same source. Changes in this temporal integration are expected to strongly alter perceptual processes, and are likely to diminish the ability to accurately perceive and interact with our world. Here, a battery of tasks designed to characterize various aspects of sensory and multisensory temporal processing in children with ASD is described. In addition to its utility in autism, this battery has great potential for characterizing changes in sensory function in other clinical populations, as well as being used to examine changes in these processes across the lifespan.

We describe how to implement a battery of behavioral tasks to examine the processing and integration of sensory stimuli in children with ASD. The goal is to characterize individual differences in temporal processing of simple auditory and visual stimuli and relate these to higher order perceptual skills like speech perception.

In addition to impairments in social communication and the presence of restricted interests and repetitive behaviors, deficits in sensory processing are ...

Event-related Potentials During Target-response Tasks to Study Cognitive Processes of Upper Limb Use in Children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy

Unilateral Cerebral Palsy (CP) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is a very common cause of disability in childhood. It is characterized by unilateral motor impairments that are frequently dominated in the upper limb. In addition to a reduced movement capacity of the affected upper limb, several children with unilateral CP show a reduced awareness of the remaining movement capacity of that limb. This phenomenon of disregarding the preserved capacity of the affected upper limb is regularly referred to as Developmental Disregard (DD). Different theories have been postulated to explain DD, each suggesting slightly different guidelines for therapy. Still, cognitive processes that might additionally contribute to DD in children with unilateral CP have never been directly studied. The current protocol was developed to study cognitive aspects involved in upper limb control in children with unilateral CP with and without DD. This was done by recording event-related potentials (ERPs) extracted from the ongoing EEG during target-response tasks asking for a hand-movement response. ERPs consist of several components, each of them associated with a well-defined cognitive process (e.g., the N1 with early attention processes, the N2 with cognitive control and the P3 with cognitive load and mental effort). Due to its excellent temporal resolution, the ERP technique enables to study several covert cognitive processes preceding overt motor responses and thus allows insight into the cognitive processes that might contribute to the phenomenon of DD. Using this protocol adds a new level of explanation to existing behavioral studies and opens new avenues to the broader implementation of research on cognitive aspects of developmental movement restrictions in children.

Several children with unilateral Cerebral Palsy seem to disregard the preserved capacity of their affected upper limb. This Developmental Disregard is extensively described in the literature but the involved cognitive processes have not been studied. To study underlying cognitive factors of upper limb control, an event-related potential protocol was developed.

Unilateral Cerebral Palsy (CP) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is a very common cause of disability in childhood. It is characterized by unilateral ...

Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood

Effective regulation of emotion is one of the most important skills that develops in childhood. Research interest in this area is expanding, but empirical work has been limited by predominantly correlational investigations of children's skills. Relatedly, a key conceptual challenge for emotion scientists is to distinguish between emotion responding and emotion regulatory processes. This paper presents a novel method to address these conceptual and methodological issues in child samples. An experimental paradigm that assesses the effectiveness with which children regulate emotion is described. Children are randomly assigned to use specific emotion regulation strategies, negative emotions are elicited with film clips, and changes in subsequent psychophysiology index the extent to which emotion regulation is effective. Children are instructed to simply watch the emotion-eliciting film (control), distract themselves from negative emotions (cognitive distraction), or reframe the situation in a way that downplays the importance of the emotional event (cognitive reappraisal). Cardiac physiology, continuously acquired before and during the emotional task, serves as an objective measure of children's unfolding emotional responding while viewing evocative films. Key comparisons in patterns of obtained physiological reactivity are between the control and emotion regulation strategy conditions. Representative results from this approach are described, and discussion focuses on the contribution of this methodological approach to developmental science.

A detailed protocol for an experimental paradigm to assess the effectiveness with which children regulate emotion is described. Children are randomly assigned to use specific emotion regulation strategies, negative emotions are elicited with film clips, and changes in subsequent psychophysiology index the extent to which emotion regulation is effective.

Effective regulation of emotion is one of the most important skills that develops in childhood. Research interest in this area is expanding, but empirical ...

Reversible Cooling-induced Deactivations to Study Cortical Contributions to Obstacle Memory in the Walking Cat

On complex, naturalistic terrain, sensory information about an environmental obstacle can be used to rapidly adjust locomotor movements for avoidance. For example, in the cat, visual information about an impending obstacle can modulate stepping for avoidance. Locomotor adaptation can also occur independent of vision, as sudden tactile inputs to the leg by an expected obstacle can modify the stepping of all four legs for avoidance. Such complex locomotor coordination involves supraspinal structures, such as the parietal cortex. This protocol describes the use of reversible, cooling-induced cortical deactivation to assess parietal cortex contributions to memory-guided obstacle locomotion in the cat. Small cooling loops, known as cryoloops, are specially shaped to deactivate discrete regions of interest to assess their contributions to an overt behavior. Such methods have been used to elucidate the role of parietal area 5 in memory-guided obstacle avoidance in the cat.

Complex locomotion in naturalistic environments requiring careful coordination of the limbs involves regions of the parietal cortex. The following protocol describes the use of reversible cooling-induced deactivation to demonstrate the role of parietal area 5 in memory-guided obstacle avoidance in the walking cat.

On complex, naturalistic terrain, sensory information about an environmental obstacle can be used to rapidly adjust locomotor movements for avoidance. For ...

A Semantic Priming Event-related Potential (ERP) Task to Study Lexico-semantic and Visuo-semantic Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have characteristic deficits in understanding the meaning of language, or semantic processing. However, some evidence indicates that semantic processing of non-linguistic stimuli is intact, suggesting that semantic deficits may be language-specific. To appropriately characterize semantic processing deficits in individuals with ASD, comparison of within-modality linguistic (e.g., written words) and non-linguistic (e.g., pictures) stimuli is required. This paper describes such a methodology that makes use of a semantic priming paradigm during concurrent recording of electroencephalographic (EEG) data. EEG provides a dynamic measure of brain activity that is well-suited to characterize subtle differences in semantic processing that may not be observable at the behavioral level. The semantic priming paradigm presents a prime picture or word (e.g., dog) followed by a target picture or word that is either related (e.g., cat) or unrelated (e.g., pencil) to the prime. This paradigm can thus be used to evaluate semantic processing across different modalities, and to compare lexico-semantic and visuo-semantic processing abilities in individuals with ASD and how they might differ from TD individuals. The specific steps involved in creating the stimuli, performing the EEG testing, and analyzing the EEG data are discussed. Representative results illustrate how the N400 component of the event-related potential (ERP) is reduced following semantically-related prime-target pairs compared to unrelated pairs. Comparisons of the N400 between conditions, modalities, and groups can provide estimates of the success of semantic processing, and can thereby be used to characterize semantic deficits in individuals with ASD or other clinical populations.

A Semantic Priming Event-related Potential ERP Task to Study Lexico-semantic and Visuo-semantic Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder

This paper describes a semantic priming ERP task using within-modality pairs of pictures and words to investigate semantic processing in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have characteristic deficits in understanding the meaning of language, or semantic processing. However, ...

Stress-Enhanced Fear Learning, a Robust Rodent Model of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Fear behaviors are important for survival, but disproportionately high levels of fear can increase the vulnerability for developing psychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To understand the biological mechanisms of fear dysregulation in PTSD, it is important to start with a valid animal model of the disorder. This protocol describes the methodology required to conduct stress-enhanced fear learning (SEFL) experiments, a preclinical model of PTSD, in both rats and mice. SEFL was developed to recapitulate critical aspects of PTSD, including long-term sensitization of fear learning caused by an acute stressor. SEFL uses aspects of Pavlovian fear conditioning but produces a distinct and robust sensitized fear response far greater than normal conditional fear responses. The trauma procedure involves placing a rodent in a conditioning chamber and administering 15 unsignaled shocks randomly distributed over 90 minutes (for rat experiments; for mouse experiments, 10 unsignaled shocks randomly distributed over 60 minutes are used). On day 2, rodents are placed in a novel conditioning context where they receive a single shock; then, on day 3 they are placed back in the same context as on day 2 and tested for changes in freezing levels. Rodents that previously received the trauma display enhanced levels of freezing on the test day compared to those that received no shocks on the first day. Thus, with this model, a single highly stressful experience (the trauma) produces extreme fear of the stimuli associated with the traumatic event.

Here we describe the detailed methodology required to conduct stress-enhanced fear learning (SEFL) experiments, a preclinical model of post-traumatic stress disorder, in both rats and mice. The model utilizes aspects of Pavlovian fear conditioning and freezing as an index of enhanced fear in rodents.

Fear behaviors are important for survival, but disproportionately high levels of fear can increase the vulnerability for developing psychiatric disorders ...

Using a Classroom-Based Deese Roediger McDermott Paradigm to Assess the Effects of Imagery on False Memories

Associated word list procedures can elicit false memories in predictable ways by inducing associative processing, thus making it harder to monitor the accuracy of memories. The purpose of the method presented here was to induce false memories using lists of either semantically or phonologically related words and to assess the effects of imagery instructions on the recall and recognition of those false memories. To do this, we used a modified version of the Deese Roediger McDermott (DRM) paradigm. We adapted word lists from previous DRM studies to suit imagery procedures and created an automated presentation to present the word lists in classroom settings. We then recruited undergraduate classes and instructed some of the classes to create mental images of the list words as they were being presented, while instructing the other classes to simply remember the words. The automated presentation presented word lists to participants, one word at a time, alternating between phonologically and semantically related lists. Participants used paper-pencil recall packets to immediately recall list items, complete a distractor activity, and take a subsequent final recognition test. Often, participants immediately recalled and later recognized words that were related to the list items but were not actually presented; these are known as critical lures and indicate a false memory. The protocol detailed here describes a four-step procedure - list presentation, immediate recall, distractor phase, and final recognition - that can assess the effects of list type and imagery instruction within the DRM paradigm on memory. The automated nature of the list presentation provides the ability to systematically vary variables of interest, and the paper and pencil method of data collection affords an easily accessible method for collecting data in classroom settings. The protocol also offers options to modify the procedure to a more traditional DRM paradigm without imagery and/or list type manipulations. The use of this protocol can provide results relevant to both classroom learning and cognitive science principles.

The method presented here induced false memories using lists of related words and also assessed the effects of imagery instructions on the recall and recognition of those false memories. This protocol details a modified version of the Deese Roediger McDermott (DRM) paradigm.

Associated word list procedures can elicit false memories in predictable ways by inducing associative processing, thus making it harder to monitor the ...