Dg. Payne et al., MEMORY ILLUSIONS - RECALLING, RECOGNIZING, AND RECOLLECTING EVENTS THAT NEVER OCCURRED, Journal of memory and language, 35(2), 1996, pp. 261-285
Three experiments that document a powerful false memory effect in reca
ll and recognition are reported. Subjects studied Lists of items relat
ed to critical nonpresented themes (e.g., sleep, needle) and then comp
leted recognition and/or recall tests, as well as various metamemory t
asks (e.g., remember/know, source monitoring). Results showed that the
critical nonpresented items were recalled and recognized nearly as of
ten as studied items. False recognition of critical nonpresented items
did not decrease over a 24-h retention interval, whereas the recognit
ion rate for studied items did decrease significantly. The false memor
y effect also increased across successive recall tests. Subjects' resp
onses on the metamemory tasks indicated that they experienced the crit
ical nonpresented items as being very similar to the presented items t
hat were recalled and/or recognized. Subjects were even willing to ind
icate which of two persons speaking the study items had spoken the cri
tical nonpresented items that were recalled. Results are discussed in
terms of fuzzy trace theory and it is argued that these false memory e
ffects represent memory illusions that may yield important insights in
to normal human memory processes. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.