Investigating the effects of prior recall on phonological false memories

Abstract

This study investigated the mechanisms behind false memories in phonological associates using prior recall and confusable words. In Experiment 1, initial analyses reported a significant contribution of confusability for false recognition. However, further investigations revealed that confusability did not interact with prior recall. Results indicated that unrecalled critical items were more likely to be falsely recognised than previously recalled critical items. Experiment 2 showed similar results and provided additional insights through the use of the remember/know paradigm (Tulving, 1985). There were more remember judgments for previously recalled words than unrecalled words for studied items, but there were no significant differences between remember and know judgments for critical items in both previously recalled and unrecalled conditions. The effect of prior recall was consistent across both experiments suggesting that these patterns of results are more supportive of fuzzy trace accounts of phonological false memories, rather than those of activation monitoring theory.