Welcome back to Week 5! This week, I read several papers to get a better understanding of the theory behind true and false memories. This is relevant to my current project as it relates to how the presentation of information affects people’s health decisions as false memories can lead to the spread of misinformation and a hesitance to get vaccinated. This is especially of interest for COVID-19 where there is already a lot of reluctance to get vaccinated, despite the benefits. The papers offered interesting context to the study, and I learned a lot about the memory retrieval process and the factors that contribute to incorrectly recalling information that wasn’t presented initially. The readings were also especially important in determining how to best score and later analyze certain items, and I was able to build on the existing literature to apply it to this project. This enabled me to hone my research reading skills, and also work on direct application of these readings, which was new for me! Following that, I was able to begin more data analysis by running correlations. While I have not delved too deeply into the analysis yet, I am looking forward to observing patterns within the data and seeing whether they affirm our predictions based on the current theories surrounding memory, risk taking, and medical decision making. See you next week with new updates!