ASSOCIATIVE PROCESSES IN FALSE RECALL AND FALSE RECOGNITION

Studying a list of words associated to a critical nonpresented word re sults in high rates of false recall and false recognition for that non presented item (Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Two experiments examined the effect of manipulating the number of associates presented on false recall and later false recognition of a nonpresented item: In Experim ent 1, associate lists of varying lengths were studied; in Experiment 2, list length was held constant and the number of associates within t he list was manipulated. In both experiments, the rate of critical int rusions in recall increased steadily with increasing number of associa tes studied. Most notably, the filler words used in Experiment 2 to eq uate the list lengths did not affect the rate of critical intrusions, although they did depress recall of studied words. False recall and fa lse recognition appear to be tied to the total, not the mean associati ve strength of items in the list.