Structure and strategy in the associative false memory paradigm

List-learning experiments can have several levels of structure: individual words, the gist (if any) of each list, and the task in which those lists ar e embedded. The usual presentation of the DRM associative paradigm (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995) strongly encourages a focus on gist and p roduces a high rate of false recall of key words (FRK). The experiments rep orted here were designed to invite the use of memory strategies based on st ructures other than the gist and thus reduce FRK. The crucial condition of Experiment 1, short lists followed by rehearsal, encouraged a focus on indi vidual words and produced a low rate of FRK. In Experiment 2, the lists wer e embedded in a guessing game, which virtually eliminated FRK. FRK was also low in Experiments 3a and 3b when participants engaged in a complex task i nvolving the first letters of list words. The relevance of these findings t o false memories in the DRM and the connection of false autobiographical me mories is discussed.