MONITORING SOURCE IN AN UNCONSCIOUS PLAGIARISM PARADIGM

Current laboratory paradigms used to assess unconscious plagiarism con sist of three tasks. first, participants generate solutions to a puzzl e task with a partner (initial generation task); second, they recall t heir individual contribution (recall-own task); and third, they attemp t to create new solutions that were not offered previously (generate-n ew task). An analysis of these tasks indicated that they differ in ter ms of the source monitoring they require. The two generative tasks req uire less differentiated information (e.g., familiarity) and relativel y lax decision criteria. The recall-own task, however, demands more di fferentiated information and more extended decision criteria. In two e xperiments, factors known to influence source monitoring were manipula ted. Consistent with the analysis, no effects were associated with the generative tasks. Recall-own plagiarisms increased when self- and oth er-generated solutions were difficult to distinguish (Experiment 1) an d decreased when the two sources were easier to distinguish (Experimen t 2).