The rise and fall of false recall: The impact of presentation duration

The effect of presentation duration on false recall induced by presentation of semantically associated and phonologically associated word lists was ex amined. When 16-word lists comprised of semantically related words (e.g.. b ed, yawn) were presented at short durations (i.e.. 20 or 250 ms/word), fals e recall of related but non-presented words (e.g.. sleep) increased with in creasing duration. However, at longer presentation durations (i.e.. 1000. 3 000. or 5000 ms/word), false recall declined with increasing presentation d uration. This pattern resolves discrepancies among previous experiments inv estigating the effects of presentation duration on associatively induced fa lse recall. Further. these data constrain theoretical accounts of false rec all in that single-process models cannot readily account for these effects. We propose a dual-process model that appears to account for these findings and much of the extant literature. Phonologically related lists (e.g., swe ep. sleet) exhibited a very different pattern of results at the short prese ntation durations: specifically, false recall was exceedingly high at the f astest duration and declined as duration lengthened. Similarities and diffe rences between the mechanisms underlying Semantically and phonologically in duced false recall are considered. (C) 2001 Academic Press.