Presentation modality affects false memory

Roediger and McDermott (1995) rejuvenated interest in Deese's (1959) paradi gm for producing reliable intrusions and false alarms. Using this paradigm in three experiments, we demonstrated that visual study presentation dramat ically reduces the rate of false memories. Only auditory study presentation resulted in equal production of studied and critical items. Correct recall and recognition were unaffected. The suggestion that visual presentation p rovides a means for discriminating between false and true memories was supp orted by Experiment 3: Pleasantness rating of study items significantly red uced the creation of false memories regardless of modality.