The roles of encoding and retrieval processes in associative and categorical memory illusions

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Abstract

Four experiments investigated the origin of associative and categorical memory illusions by comparing the effects of study and test associations on Deese/Roediger–McDermott (DRM) and categorized lists. Experiments 1 and 2 found that levels of false recognition with both list types were increased by manipulations that facilitated the generation of associates at study (blocked presentation of study lists and explicit instructions to generate associates of studied items). Experiments 3 and 4 showed that manipulations designed to increase test associations (test-induced priming and part-set cuing) did not increase levels of false memory with either list type. These findings indicate that false memories produced by both DRM and categorized lists are influenced by associations activated at study but not by associations activated at test.

Section snippets

Experiment 1

Experiment 1 investigated the role of study associations by manipulating the organization of the study lists. Tussing and Greene (1997) found that levels of false recognition were higher when the lists were presented in blocked rather than random sequences. In contrast, Dewhurst and Anderson (1999) found no significant difference between blocked and random presentations in false recognition using categorized lists. These findings appear to support the views of Smith et al. (2002) regarding the

Experiment 2

Dewhurst et al. (2005) showed that false remember responses in the category repetition procedure increased when participants were explicitly instructed to generate associates of the words presented at study. Participants were shown a series of category labels, each followed by eight exemplars, and instructed to generate other members of the target categories during presentation. Participants showed increased levels of false remember responses to nonpresented exemplars, relative to a second

Experiment 3

Experiment 3 investigated the effects of test-induced priming on false recognition for DRM and categorized lists. As discussed in the Introduction, there is evidence from previous studies that the DRM effect is enhanced by test primes, particularly when testing occurs under conditions that inhibit monitoring strategies, such as requiring participants to respond before a 750 ms deadline. The aim of Experiment 3 was to compare the effects of test-induced priming on false recognition produced by

Experiment 4

Experiment 4 investigated the effects of part-set cuing on false recall with DRM and categorized lists. Reysen and Nairne (2002) found that part-set cues reduced false recall (but see Marsh, Dolan, Balota, & Roediger, 2004, who found no effect of part-set cues in false recall). In their second experiment, Reysen and Nairne tested the possibility that the part-set effect occurs because the retrieval cues disrupt participants’ preferred retrieval strategies (see Basden & Basden, 1995). They did

General discussion

The aim of the present study was to investigate the respective roles of encoding and retrieval processes in associative and categorical memory illusions. Previous research has shown that false memories produced by the DRM procedure are influenced by associations activated at study (Roediger et al., 1995, Roediger et al., 2001) and are only weakly influenced by processes occurring at test (Coane and McBride, 2006, Marsh and Dolan, 2007). Smith et al. (2002) suggested that false memories produced

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by grant R000221863 awarded by the Economic and Social Research Council of Great Britain. We thank the Council for its support.

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