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From a passing thought to a false memory in 2 minutes: Confusing real and illusory events

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Abstract

The frequency with which subjects erroneously included a nonpresented word in their recall of a study list was explored in two experiments. The intrusion error was recalled by as many as 80% of the subjects, and when it was perceived to have been presented early in the study list, it was assigned confidence ratings and phenomenological retrieval characteristics equivalent to those for presented words. As a result, subjects were often unable to discriminate memories of real study words from their memories of a related but nonpresented word. Manipulations of encoding, but not of retrieval, conditions altered both the frequencies of illusory memories and their metamemorial characteristics. The results and paradigm are discussed in terms of their relevance to the “memory-recovery” debate.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Lethbridge, T1K 3M4, Lethbridge, AB, Canada

    J. Don Read

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  1. J. Don Read
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Correspondence to J. Don Read.

Additional information

Funding from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Alberta Law Foundation supported this research. The author thanks Eileen McFadzen and Tonia Nicholls for assistance in data analysis and Professors G. Prusky, L. Chew, and L. Delude for access to their classes. Constructive comments from John Vokey, Steve Lindsay, and Henry L. Roediger III greatly improved an earlier draft of this paper.

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Read, J.D. From a passing thought to a false memory in 2 minutes: Confusing real and illusory events. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 3, 105–111 (1996). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03210749

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03210749

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