REMEMBERING WORDS NOT RESENTED IN LISTS - CAN WE AVOID CREATING FALSEMEMORIES

Can subjects avoid creating false memories as outlined in Roediger and McDermott's (1995) false recognition paradigm if they are forewarned about this memory illusion? We presented subjects with semantically re lated word lists, followed by a recognition test. The test was compose d of studied words, semantically related nonstudied words (critical lu res), and unrelated nonstudied words. One group of subjects was uninfo rmed about the false recognition effect, a second group was urged to m inimize all false alarms, and a third group was forewarned about false ly recognizing critical lures. Compared with the uninformed and cautio us subjects, the forewarned subjects reduced their false alarm rate fo r critical lures, and they made remember and know judgments equally of ten for recognized studied words and critical lures. But forewarning d id not eliminate the false recognition effect, as these subjects and t hose in the other groups made numerous false recognitions in this task .