factors that determine false recall: a multiple regression

Psychonomic Bulletin amp Review2001 8 (3) 385-407

In 1894 in the first volume of Psychological ReviewE A Kirkpatrick performed ldquoan experimental study ofmemoryrdquo in which he showed that items presented as vi-sual objects are better remembered than are words andthat imagery aids retention of verbal materials Thosefeatures of his paper have been cited off and on through-out the years However toward the end of the paperKirkpatrick reported briefly the results of a side experi-ment It is worth quoting part of the relevant paragraphto help set the stage for the present inquiry

About a week previously in experimenting upon mentalimagery I had pronounced to the students ten commonwords Many of these were recalled and placed with thememory list Again it appears that when such words asldquospoolrdquo ldquothimblerdquo ldquokniferdquo were pronounced many stu-dents at once thought of ldquothread ldquoneedlerdquo ldquoforkrdquo whichare so frequently associated with them The result was that

many gave those words as belonging to the list This is anexcellent illustration of how things suggested to a personby an experience may be honestly reported by him as partof the experience (Kirkpatrick 1894 p 608)

Kirkpatrickrsquos informal observations have recentlybeen confirmed by many investigators (eg Roediger ampMcDermott 1995) and false recall and false recognitionowing to associative processes have become central top-ics in the field (see Roediger McDermott amp Robinson1998 for a review) Roediger and McDermottrsquos (1995)research built on prior work by Deese (1959b) Deesepresented subjects with 36 lists of 12 associatively re-lated words in which the list words (eg shoe hand toekick etc) were all associates of a word not presented inthe list ( foot in this case) with a free recall test givenafter each list For some of the lists Deese (1959b)showed that subjects intruded the word associated to thelist items at relatively high rates However Deese was in-terested in how associations affected recall (eg Deese1959a) not in false recall per se and his paper and tech-nique were relatively neglected (see Bruce amp Winograd1998) Many of the lists Deese created elicited no or veryfew intrusions which served his needs perfectly well be-cause he was interested in how associative factors wouldaffect both veridical and false recall (Deese 1959a 1959b)It is perhaps for this reason that Deese never made muchof his intrusion findings Indeed in his 1965 book TheStructure of Associations in Language and Thoughtwhich summarized much of his important work pub-lished over the previous 10 years the intrusion paper(Deese 1959b) was not even cited

385 Copyright 2001 Psychonomic Society Inc

This research was supported by a contract from the US Office ofTechnical Services to HLR and KBM as well as NIMH Grant 1RO3MH59034-01 to KBM The authors thank Martha Storandt for adviceregarding the regression analysis Michael A Stadler for providing nor-mative data Douglas Nelson for advice in collecting our norms DavidA Balota for advice on various aspects of this research Randy Buck-ner for calling our attention to Kirkpatrickrsquos work and Cathy McEvoyDouglas Nelson and Tamaku Komatsu for providing additional dataMichael Cortese Patrick Dolan Stephanie Lee Elizabeth MarshMichelle Meade Douglas Nelson and Valerie Reyna provided helpfulcomments Correspondence concerning this article may be sent to H LRoediger III Department of Psychology Box 1125 Washington Uni-versity One Brookings Drive St Louis MO 63130-4899 (e-mailroedigerartsciwustledu)

Factors that determine false recall A multiple regression analysis

HENRY L ROEDIGER III JASON M WATSON KATHLEEN B MCDERMOTT and DAVID A GALLO

Washington University St Louis Missouri

In the DeesendashRoedigerndashMcDermott (DRM) paradigm subjects study lists of words that are designedto elicit the recall of an associatively related critical item The 55 lists we have developed provide lev-els of false recall ranging from 01 to 65 and understanding this variability should provide a key to un-derstanding this memory illusion Using a simultaneous multiple regression analysis we assessed thecontribution of seven factors in creating false recall of critical items in the DRM paradigm This analy-sis accounted for approximately 68 of the variance in false recall with two main predictors associa-tive connections from the study words to the critical item (r 5 173 semipartial r 5 160) and re-callability of the lists (r 5 43 semipartial r 5 34) Taken together the variance in false recallcaptured by these predictors accounted for 84 of the variance that can be explained given the relia-bility of the false recall measures (r 5 90) Therefore the results of this analysis strongly constrain the-ories of false memory in this paradigm suggesting that at least two factors determine the propensityof DRM lists to elicit false recall The results fit well within the theoretical framework postulating thatboth semantic activation of the critical item and strategic monitoring processes influence the proba-bility of false recall and false recognition in this paradigm

386 ROEDIGER WATSON MCDERMOTT AND GALLO

Roediger and McDermott (1995) developed a para-digm for the creation and experimental investigation offalse memories that was an adaptation of Deesersquos tech-nique Following a suggestion made by Endel Tulvingthis procedure is now referred to as the DRM paradigman acronym for Deese Roediger and McDermott Thebasic procedure is straightforward Subjects hear lists of15 words that are the strongest associates to a missingword or critical item in word association norms (NelsonMcEvoy amp Schreiber 1999 Russell amp Jenkins 1954)For example subjects might be presented with a list ofwords like bed rest awake tired dream wake snoozeblanket doze slumber snore nap peace yawn drowsymdashall of which are associated to the (nonpresented) criticalitem sleep Immediately following the presentation of astudy list subjects recall as many of the list words aspossible without respect to their order (ie single-trialfree recall) In addition subjects are instructed to be surethat each word they write down was indeed on the pre-ceding list Despite this warning against guessing sub-jects recall these critical nonpresented items with aboutthe same probability as items appearing in the middle ofthe list (ie excluding the primacy and recency effects)At the end of the experiment a recognition test that cov-ers many lists is usually given (often with metamemoryjudgments) Recognition of the critical lures typicallyequals or exceeds recognition of the studied words Theseremarkably high levels of false recall and false recogni-tion in the DRM paradigm have been widely replicated(eg Payne Elie Blackwell amp Neuschatz 1996 andRoediger McDermott amp Pisoni 2001 among manyothers)

The DRM paradigm is quite different from many otherpopular techniques used to study false memories Mostdemonstrations of false memory phenomena have usedrelatively naturalistic materials such as stories or visualscenes fairly complex techniques such as the presenta-tion of misleading information or relatively long delaysbetween the study of the material and its later testing Infact the underlying assumption (beginning at least withBartlettrsquos 1932 influential pronouncements) seems tobe that these conditions are necessary to create illusorymemories because the use of such materials as wordlists encourages reliance on reproductive rather than re-constructive memory However the levels of false re-membering with the DRM paradigm are among the mostrobust ever obtained in the experimental literature eventhough they occur under conditions of immediate test-ing with no misleading information with lists of wordsand with strong warnings against guessing and makingerrors Therefore Roediger and McDermott (1995) sug-gested that the distinction between reproductive and re-constructive modes of retention should be abandoned Insome sense all recollection even immediate recall andrecognition of lists of words is reconstructive

Although the DRM paradigm is a relative newcomerto the investigation of false memories considerable re-search has been conducted using it and variations on its

basic theme The purpose of this paper is to consider anoverlooked issue in the growing literature on false mem-oriesmdashnamely the characteristics of the materials usedto produce the effect In Roediger and McDermottrsquos(1995) first experiment they selected the 6 lists used byDeese (1959b) that produced the highest levels of intru-sion in his experiment and they replicated his effects Intheir second experiment they used a total of 24 falsememory lists that included the 6 lists from their first ex-periment along with 18 new lists Some of the new listshad been used by Deese whereas Roediger and McDer-mott (1995) created some of the others using similar pro-cedures

One remarkable outcome that we have noticed repeat-edly while working with these lists is the striking vari-ability they exhibit in eliciting false recall and falserecognition of the associatively related critical itemThese differences occur despite the fact that all the listsare created in the same manner to include with someminor variation the first 15 associates of a single wordthat is itself not presented With few exceptions later re-searchers have used Roediger and McDermottrsquos (1995)original 24 lists to study various interesting issues col-lapsing the resulting data across the lists as did Roedi-ger and McDermott (1995) However few investigatorshave been concerned with the fundamental issue of iden-tifying characteristics of lists that influence the effectThat is why do some lists work so well in producing thefalse memory effect whereas others do not when all ofthe lists are constructed in the same general manner Inaddition examination of the lists often reveals no obvi-ous reasons for their variations in effectiveness at elicit-ing false recall For example consider the lists associ-ated with bitter (sweet sour taste chocolate rice coldlemon angry hard mad acid almonds herbs grapefruit) and sweet (sour candy sugar bitter good tastetooth nice honey soda chocolate heart cake tart pie)Despite the fact that both words refer to concepts in thesame domain represent the same part of speech and haveoverlapping words in the lists they differ dramatically inthe effectiveness with which they elicit false recall Themean probability of false recall of bitter when the rele-vant list was presented was only 01 whereas the meanfalse recall of sweet following the relevant list was 54

Stadler Roediger and McDermott (1999) obtainednorms on 36 DRM lists the 24 used by Roediger andMcDermott (1995) and 12 other lists False recall rangedfrom greater than 60 intrusion rates to lists structuredaround the nonpresented words window sleep smelland doctor to 20 and 10 respectively for the listsstructured around fruit and king False recognitionshowed similarly wide variations Although these listswere originally constructed to yield high levels of falseresponding some did not The purpose of the presentstudy was to attempt to identify those characteristics ofthe lists that cause their differential efficacy in produc-ing false recall and false recognition through a simul-taneous multiple regression analysis By identifying

FALSE RECALL A MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS 387

these factors we should gain evidence bearing on themechanisms that underlie the creation of false memoriesin the DRM paradigm Before turning to this analysiswe review leads provided by prior research in uncover-ing the factors at work

Deesersquos (1959a 1959b) early work produced two im-portant clues about factors that affect both veridical andfalse recall The two factors he identified are associativeconnections among the study list words themselves andassociative connections between the study list words andthe critical item Deese (1959a) provided subjects withlists that varied in what he termed interitem associativestrength ldquodefined as the average relative frequency withwhich all items in a list tend to elicit all other items in thesame list as free associatesrdquo (p 235) He showed that thismeasure correlated highly (r 5 188) with the totalnumber of words recalled from the listsmdashthe strongerthe associative bonds between items in the list the bet-ter that list was recalled More important for present pur-poses interitem associative strength correlated nega-tively with the number of extralist intrusions (r 5 48)However the stronger the associative bonds among listitems the more likely the subjects were to produce thesame intrusion (r 5 155) Therefore associationsamong list items increased recall of list items and de-creased overall intrusions yet when intrusions did occurfor strongly interconnected lists they tended to be thesame item across subjects

Deese (1959b) also examined the influence of asso-ciative connections from the list words to the critical itemon the false recall of the critical item Subjects in this ex-periment heard 36 lists each of which consisted of the12 highest associates to the nonpresented critical itemFalse recall with these lists ranged from 42 for the crit-ical item needle to 0 for the critical item butterfly Deese(1959b) found that one predictor could account for themajority of the variance in the recall of critical itemsacross his 36 lists This variable was the mean backwardassociative strength (BAS) or the average tendency forwords in the study list to elicit the critical item on a freeassociation test In fact Deese (1959b) reported that thecorrelation between a listrsquos mean BAS and the probabil-ity of recall of its associated critical item was 187Roediger and McDermott (1995) argued that this out-come supports the notion that encoding factors are partlyresponsible for the effect That is lists high in BAS mightactivate the critical item consciously or unconsciouslyas the list items are presented Subjects are confrontedwith a reality-monitoring dilemma (Johnson amp Raye1981) during the test ldquoDid I hear the critical item or didI only think of it while listening to the list itemsrdquo

Other data support this interpretation of the produc-tion of false memories in the DRM paradigm Subjectsclaim to remember the occurrence of the critical items inthe study list which may mean that the item was con-sciously aroused during encoding (Roediger amp McDer-mott 1995) or at least unconsciously activated throughspreading activation (Roediger Balota amp Watson 2001)

In addition subjects claim to remember which of twospeakers said the nonpresented critical item when thelists are presented in both a male and a female voice(Payne et al 1996 Roediger McDermott amp Pisoni2001) Similarly when some lists are presented auditorilyand others are presented visually subjects attribute theillusory item as having occurred in the modality in whichthe list had been presented to the same extent as theymake attributions for list items (Gallo McDermott Perceramp Roediger 2001) Furthermore subjects have beenshown to report having rehearsed the critical item duringthe presentation of the study list (Mather Henkel ampJohnson 1997) Finally McDermott (1997) showed thatpresentation of the lists yields priming of the nonpre-sented critical item on implicit memory tests of word-stem and word-fragment completion albeit at a lessermagnitude than would be the case if the critical itemshad actually been presented Because priming on thesetests usually depends on lexical activation (Weldon1991) McDermott (1997) argued that her data were con-sistent with the notion that the presentation of DRM listsproduces lexical activation of the critical item at leastfor some lists

Of course all memory phenomena depend on theinteraction of encoding and retrieval processes (Tulving1974 1979) and we do not intend to suggest that re-trieval processes are unimportant In fact Roediger andMcDermott (1995) argued that the consideration of re-trieval and decision processes are crucial to under-standing this memory illusion and others They cited Ja-cobyrsquos attributional approach (eg Jacoby Kelley ampDywan 1989) and Johnsonrsquos source-monitoring theory(eg Johnson Hashtroudi amp Lindsay 1993) as promis-ing frameworks to guide this arena of inquiry Israel andSchacter (1997) and Smith and Hunt (1998) have bothargued that the distinctiveness of studied items at re-trieval can explain why some manipulations reduce falserecall and false recognition in this paradigm Neverthe-less given the strong activation of the critical item by itssemantic associates at encoding list context clearlyplays an important role in eliciting false memories in theDRM paradigm

To our knowledge McEvoy Nelson and Komatsu(1999) are the only other contemporary researchers whohave attempted to determine the list-based factors thatunderlie the creation of false memories with associativelists In their experiments McEvoy et al manipulatedthe two factors that Deesersquos (1959a 1959b) earlier workhad implicated interitem associative strength (whichthey call connectivity) and the mean BAS of the listwords to the critical item Consistent with Deesersquos (1959a)research they found that lists with high interitem asso-ciative strength yielded higher recall of list words andlower false recall of critical items relative to lists withlower interitem associative strength In addition and alsoconsistent with Deese (1959b) they found that lists withhigh mean BAS yielded more false recall than did listswith low mean BAS They concluded that although con-


nectivity and mean BAS had opposite influences on the re-call of critical items both variables played an importantrole in creating false memories in the DRM paradigm

In sum both Deese (1959a 1959b) and McEvoy et al(1999) argued that at least two factors are important inpredicting veridical and false recall Associative con-nections from study words to the critical item increasethe probability of false memories whereas associativeconnections among study words decrease the probabilityof false memories However other factors besides meanBAS and connectivity may underlie the recall of criticalitems in the DRM paradigm For example consider theperformance on the king list (ie queen England crownprince George dictator palace throne chess rule sub-jects monarch royal leader reign) Because it has a rel-atively high mean BAS it would be predicted to have ahigh level of false recall However this list elicited thelowest level of recall in the entire set of 36 DRM listsnormed by Stadler Roediger and McDermott (1999)

Gallo and Roediger (2001 Experiment 1) attemptedto produce lists that were constructed in the same generalway as those of Roediger and McDermott (1995) but thatwould like the king list produce low levels of false re-call and false recognition However unlike the king listthe lists created by Gallo and Roediger all had low BASOf the 19 new lists they constructed many had very lowlevels of false recall and false recognition However sev-eral of the lists (eg wish justice) produced relativelyhigh levels of false recall and false recognition muchlike the lists developed by Roediger and McDermott(1995) Clearly BAS is not the entire reason for the widedifferences in the effectiveness of the lists in creating falsememories The aim of the present study is to gain furtherinformation on the characteristics of lists and criticalitems that affect false recall and false recognition

OVERVIEW OF THE PRESENT STUDY

In the present study we used a simultaneous multipleregression analysis to identify the factors predicting re-call of critical items in the DRM paradigm We consid-ered factors that pertain to the critical item itself as wellas factors characterizing the study lists Specificallywith respect to the critical items we used the followingthree variables word length word frequency and con-creteness On the basis of an examination of the Stadleret al (1999) norms and Deesersquos (1959b) original find-ings we hypothesized that factors making a critical itemdistinct might produce low levels of false recall For ex-ample butterfly is a long low-frequency critical itemInterestingly it was never recalled in Deesersquos (1959b) ex-periment and it was recalled by only 1 of Gallo andRoedigerrsquos (2001) subjects

We also assessed the ability of several variables re-lated to the study words to predict the recall of criticalitems in the DRM paradigm In particular we used thefollowing four variables an index of the strength of theassociative connections from the critical item to the

study words or forward associative strength (FAS ieassociations from sleep to bed to rest to awake etc) anindex of the strength of the associative connections fromthe study words to the critical item or BAS (associationsfrom bed rest to sleep) the average number of as-sociative connections among the study words (interitemassociative strength or connectivity) and the averageprobability of recall of the studied words within each ofthe false memory lists (veridical recall) On the basis ofprior research by Deese (1959a 1959b) and McEvoy et al(1999) we hypothesized that BAS and connectivitywould be the best predictors of the differences observedin false recall among critical items More specificallyrecall of critical items should increase as the strength ofassociative connections from the study words to the crit-ical item increases however recall of critical items shoulddecrease as the average number of associative connec-tions among study words increases (As will be shownin our data set only the first of these two predictions wasfulfilled) In sum the goal of the present research was toidentify the factors that underlie the creation of falsememories in the DRM paradigm by explaining the widevariability in the effectiveness of our 55 lists to elicitfalse recall The multiple regression analysis that led toour answers is explained more fully in the Method andResults sections

METHOD

MaterialsIn the present study we obtained data for 55 DRM lists which in-

cluded 24 lists from Roediger and McDermott (1995) 12 others fromthe Stadler et al (1999) norms and 19 lists from the Gallo andRoediger (2001) norms The study words and the associated criticalitem for each list are presented in Appendix A along with the BASand FAS of each item in relation to the critical item The words withinlists are presented in descending order with respect to their strengthof association to the critical item That is the first list item is typicallythe item most often generated as an associate to the critical item Bothveridical and false recall across our 55 lists are quite stable The split-half correlation of veridical recall for the 55 lists is +86 and the split-half correlation for the lists in eliciting false recall is +90 Thereforewe could potentially explain 81 of the variance in false recall

VariablesAs was described in the introduction the variables we used can

be considered as belonging to two categories properties of the crit-ical item itself and properties of the word lists A complete listingof the values of all seven variables (as well as levels of false recalland false recognition) for all 55 lists appears in Appendix B

Critical item variables With respect to the critical items weused the following three variables word length log frequency andconcreteness We consider each below

1 Word length was defined by the number of letters in each crit-ical item and represents the relative distinctiveness of each wordform (longer words being more distinct) For example butterfly hasnine letters whereas sleep has only five letters We also obtained asubjective measure of orthographic distinctiveness 1 and an objec-tive measure of orthographic neighborhood size2 but because ofthe high degree of multicollinearity among these three variables 3

we included only word length of the critical item in the multiple re-gression analyses


2 The raw frequency of each critical item was obtained from theKu Iumlcera and Francis (1967) norms and is the number of instancesfound in print per million words For example the raw frequency ofthe critical item sleep is 65 and the raw frequency of the criticalitem butterfly is 2 To correct for skewness in the frequency distri-bution for each critical item raw frequencies were transformedinto log frequencies using the following formula log (5 1 rawfrequency) For example the log frequency of sleep is 182 [ie log(655)] whereas the log frequency of butterfly is 40 [ie log (25)]

3 Concreteness ratings for each critical item were obtained fromthe word association norms of Nelson et al (1999) which were inturn obtained in part from the Paivio Yuille and Madigan (1968)and the Toglia and Battig (1978) norms These ratings are obtainedon a scale of 1ndash7 with 1 being the least concrete and 7 the mostconcrete To carry through with our examples sleep is slightlyabove the midpoint in concreteness (with a rating of 474) and but-terfly is more concrete (with a rating of 591)

List variables With respect to the study lists we used the fol-lowing four variables FAS BAS interitem associative strengthand veridical recall We consider each below

1 Forward associative strength Indices of the strength of asso-ciative connections from the critical item to the study words wereobtained from the word association norms of Nelson et al (1999)Specifically for each critical item we obtained the probability thatit elicited each word in its corresponding study list as an associatea measure Deese (1959b) referred to as the FAS For example as isshown in the third column of Appendix A for the critical item sleepwe identified the strength of its connections to bed rest awaketired and the remaining study words We then averaged these asso-ciations to obtain the mean FAS value for each list In the case ofsleep the mean FAS value for its 15 study words is 047 whereasin the case of butterfly the mean FAS value is 033 Note that all 15list items were given as a response to the critical item in the Russelland Jenkins (1954) norms (from which the lists were generated)However owing to discrepancies between these norms and those ofNelson et al (1999) the number of forward connections for eachlist could have theoretically ranged from 0 to 15

2 Backward associative strength An index of the strength of as-sociative connections from the study words to the critical item wasobtained in large part from the Nelson et al (1999) word associa-tion norms However for some of the 55 DRM lists there were afew list words that were missing from these norms For these wordswe collected our own norms using the procedures outlined by Nel-son and colleagues Briefly we gave groups of over 75 undergrad-uates one of three sheets of 80 to-be-normed words the subjectswere instructed to write next to each word the first word it broughtto mind In those cases in which more than one word from a partic-ular study list needed to be normed these words were placed onseparate norming sheets or were separated by at least 30 items onthe same norming sheet At least 86 observations were obtained foreach normed item and 150 or more observations were obtained foran item in some cases

With these two sets of norms we took each study word and de-termined its connection strength to its corresponding critical itemthe measure Deese (1959b) referred to as the BAS For example asis shown in the second column of Appendix A we obtained for eachstudy word (eg bed rest awake tired etc) the probability thatit elicited its critical item (eg sleep) as an associate Thus thismeasure examines connections in the direction opposite to that usedto obtain the FAS measures We then averaged these associations toobtain the mean BAS value for each list For example the meanBAS value for the sleep list is 431 By comparison the mean BASvalue for the butterfly list is 045

3 Interitem associative strength or connectivity The average in-teritem associative strength (Deese 1959a) or connectivity (Mc-Evoy et al 1999) of the study words was obtained for each listusing two steps First following a procedure outlined by McEvoy

et al we constructed a 15 3 15 matrix of study items for each listIn Appendix C we have illustrated the connectivity matrix for thesleep list Second using the Nelson et al (1999) norms and insome instances our own word association norms we identified thepresence of a connection for all 225 combinations of study wordpairs in each listrsquos matrix excluding the 15 self-connections whichwere not determined (listed as ND) For each word pair a nonzeroconnection strength was scored as a 1 and a zero connectionstrength was scored as a 0 In the case of sleep a total of 27 nonzeroconnections exists among the study words (or an average of 180connections per study word) In the case of butterfly a total of 29nonzero connections exists among the study words (or an averageof 193 connections per study word) High mean connectivityscores indicate a greater number of associative relationships amongthe study words whereas low mean connectivity scores indicate alesser number of associative relationships among the study words

4 Veridical recall of the list One final predictor was the averageprobability of recall of the studied words collapsing across serialpositions 1ndash15 for each list These data were obtained from Stadleret al (1999) and Gallo and Roediger (2001) In the case of sleepstudied items were recalled at a 61 level whereas in the case ofbutterfly studied items were recalled at a 70 level As was notedearlier the split-half correlation of the veridical recall measure wasreasonably high at +86

ProcedureTaking the seven factors that were just described along with the

probability of false recall and the probability of false recognitionfor each of the 55 lists we constructed the data matrix shown inAppendix B for our simultaneous multiple regression analysis4

Each of the 55 lists used in the regression analysis is represented byits respective critical item each of which is listed in alphabeticalorder in the f irst column of the matrix The second and thirdcolumns of the matrix contain the probability of false recall andfalse recognition respectively of each critical item from the Stadleret al (1999) and Gallo and Roediger (2001) norms The next threecolumns contain properties of the critical item itself length log fre-quency and concreteness The next four columns contain propertiesof the list that was constructed for each critical item mean FASmean BAS the mean connectivity of the study words and the av-erage recall of the studied items The last three columns contain thecritical item predictors that were excluded from the multiple re-gression analyses raw frequency orthographic distinctiveness andorthographic neighborhood size (Coltheartrsquos N )

In multiple regression analysis the independent variables can beentered either simultaneously (in a single step) or hierarchically (withsome variables entered into the analysis before others) In the for-mer case all independent variables are allowed to compete forshared variance in the dependent variable (eg false recall) in a sin-gle step so that no single variable is given greater priority than isanother In the latter case those independent variables entered inearlier steps are allowed to capture variance in the absence of com-petition from variables to be entered subsequently In this way in ahierarchical analysis earlier variables are given greater prioritythan later ones usually for theoretical reasons For the purpose ofthe present analysis there exists no definitive theoretical justifica-tion for ordering the entry of critical item variables and list vari-ables so we opted for the simultaneous entry of all variables in asingle step

RESULTS

We consider first the bivariate correlations betweenour seven factors and false recall and then we turn to thesimultaneous multiple regression analysis and its find-ings The entire matrix of correlations (Pearsonrsquos r in all


cases) among the seven predictors and false recall isshown in Table 1

Bivariate CorrelationsIn describing the results we report significant bivari-

ate correlations between critical item variables and falserecall followed by significant correlations between listvariables and false recall To determine these values eachof the critical item and list variables were entered into aregression equation as the sole predictor of false recallOnly three of our seven variables were significantly cor-related ( p lt 05) with false recall the critical item vari-able of length and the list variables of BAS and recall ofthe studied items (Figures 1A and 1B respectively)

Length The length of the critical item and false recallwere negatively correlated [r 5 37 t(53) 5 287]

Backward associative strength Mean BAS or thestrength of the connections between study items andtheir corresponding critical items was positively corre-lated with false recall r 5 173 t(53) 5 773 As isshown in Figure 1A the greater the strength of associa-tion between the list items and the critical item the morelikely is false recall This outcome replicates Deesersquos(1959b) finding of a 187 correlation between BAS andfalse recall which he obtained with a set of thirty-six 12-item lists Although the 173 correlation between thesetwo variables in our set of f ifty-f ive 15-item lists issomewhat smaller than the 187 correlation obtained byDeese BAS is still the strongest correlate of false recallin our entire data set

Veridical recall Recall of list items and false recallwere negatively correlated [r 5 43 t(53) 5 346]As is shown in Figure 1B increasing levels of accuraterecall are associated with decreasing levels of false re-call This outcome is contrary to some ideas about whyfalse recall occurs as will be brought out in the Discus-sion section

As is shown in Table 1 no other variables were corre-lated with false recall at the bivariate level which is sur-prising in some cases For example in terms of criticalitem variables one might have expected word frequencyor concreteness to be correlated with false recall but nei-ther did (Deese 1959b also failed to find a relation be-tween word frequency and false recall) In terms of listvariables one might have expected connectivity to cor-relate with false recall but it did not The lack of a rela-

tion between connectivity and false recall is noteworthybecause Deese (1959a) and McEvoy et al (1999) re-ported a significant relationship between these variablesso that lists with greater connectivity were less likely toelicit false recall of the critical item In the Discussionsection we consider connectivity or interitem associa-tive strength more fully We turn now to the results of thesimultaneous multiple regression analysis

Simultaneous Multiple Regression AnalysisIn the multiple regression analysis the three variables

based on the characteristics of the critical items them-selves (ie length log frequency and concreteness) andthe four variables based on the characteristics of the listsdesigned to elicit the critical items (ie FAS and BASmeasures interitem associative strength or connectivityand the level of recall of list items) were entered simul-taneously into the regression equation to predict false re-call The results of the analysis are shown in Table 2 in-cluding beta weights (b) semipartial correlations (sr)and significance tests for each predictor For signifi-cance tests a t(47) was used for each predictor and theresultant t statistic is expressed as the absolute valuemdashthat is frac12tfrac12 In addition Table 2 displays the results of thesignificance test for the multiple R2 for the entire set ofseven predictor variables

As is shown in Table 2 the results of the regressionanalysis indicated that two list variables were signifi-cantly related to false recall Specifically BAS was thestrongest predictor of false recall (b 5 170 sr 5160 t 5 717) Therefore consistent with our findingsat the bivariate level the greater the strength of associa-tion between study items and their corresponding criti-

Table 1 Correlation Matrix Among Eight Variables False Recall Three Critical Item Variables and Four List Variables

False Log VeridicalRecall Length Frequency Concreteness FAS BAS Connectivity Recall

False recall 100Length 37 100Log frequency 17 40 100Concreteness 15 13 28 100FAS 08 15 01 10 100BAS 73 41 25 26 00 100Connectivity 04 15 21 19 15 10 100Veridical recall 43 31 10 26 09 10 32 100

NotemdashFAS forward associative strength BAS backward associative strength p lt 05

Table 2 Summary of Multiple Regression Analysis on False Recall With

Critical Item Variables and List Variables Used as Predictors

Variable b Semipartial r t value R2

Length 107 06 68 68Log frequency 01 01 06Concreteness 107 06 70Forward associative strength 112 12 140Backward associative strength 170 60 717Interitem associative strength 02 02 25Veridical recall 40 34 411

NotemdashR2 5 68 F(747) 5 1406 MSe 5 0013 p lt 05 p lt 05

Figure 1 Probability of false recall of the critical item from 55 lists (A) as a functionof associative strength of the list items to the critical item or backward associativestrength and (B) as a function of veridical recall of studied items from the lists


cal item on a free association test the more probable isfalse recall of the critical item Veridical recall was alsoa strong predictor of false recall (b 5 40 sr 5 34t 5 411) As we found at the bivariate level the morewords recalled from a list the less likely that the criticalitem for that list was falsely recalled None of the re-maining critical item or list variables including length ofthe critical item connectivity and FAS explained aunique portion of the total variance in false recall afterthe influence of other predictors had been residualized inthe context of the regression equation Therefore BASand recall of list items appeared to be the major contrib-utors to the multiple R of 182 and the associated mul-tiple R2 of 68 [F(747) 5 1406 MSe 5 0013] We fur-ther explore the implications of these effects in theDiscussion section

Factors Affecting False RecognitionIn our analyses thus far we have concentrated on

false recall exclusively However the norms for our 55lists (collected by Stadler et al 1999 and Gallo ampRoediger 2001) also include values for false recogni-tion The recognition data in these norms were collectedin a final recognition test after lists had been studied andrecalled This confounding of recognition by prior recallalmost certainly affected both veridical and false recog-nition However in experiments directly examining theeffects of recall on recognition in this paradigm and oth-ers the finding is that recall of a list may increase itsrecognition by a moderate amount (typically in the4ndash10 range eg Roediger amp McDermott 1995Roediger McDermott amp Pisoni 2001) In fact some re-searchers have failed to observe any effect at all of recall


on recognition (Schacter Verfaellie amp Pradere 1996 seeRoediger et al 1998 for a discussion) We conducted thesame regression analyses with our seven predictor vari-ables on false recognition as we did on false recall Wesummarize the basic results and conclusions as follows

There were three significant bivariate correlationswith false recognition including length (r 5 27)BAS (r 5 143) and veridical recall (r 5 52) Over-all these correlations with false recognition were simi-lar to those obtained with false recall However the pos-itive correlation between BAS and false recognition wassmaller than that in the recall data and the negative cor-relation between veridical recall and false recognitionwas larger than that in the recall data To maintain con-sistency with the previous regression analysis on falserecall we used veridical recall rather than veridicalrecognition in this analysis In addition recognition es-timates were based on only three itemslist and wereprobably affected by prior recall

Turning to the results of the simultaneous multiple re-gression analysis on false recognition BAS and veridi-cal recall of list items appeared to be the major contrib-utors to the multiple R of 169 and the associatedmultiple R2 of 48 [F(747) 5 611 MSe 5 002] Table 3shows the summary of the regression analyses Althoughthe regression analysis accounted for less total variancein false recognition than in false recall (48 as opposedto 68 respectively) the same factors seem to be re-sponsible for predicting false recognition and false re-call Of course because measures of recognition alwaysfollowed recall this similar pattern may reflect a carry-over effect of false recall on false recognition Nonethe-less within the limits of this study the factors responsi-ble for false recognition across lists seem to be the sameas those producing false recall

DISCUSSION

To summarize the main findings our results implicatetwo primary factors (of the seven variables we exam-ined) as accounting for most of the variance in false re-call across lists The split-half correlation of our lists was190 so the amount of potentially explainable variancein our dependent variable of false recall is 81 The fac-

tors in our multiple regression accounted for 68 of thetotal variance in false recall or 84 of the explainablevariance (68 4 81 3 100 5 84) The analysis forfalse recognition revealed the same factors at work al-though they accounted for less overall variance Thestrongest factor was BAS consistent with prior work byDeese (1959b) and McEvoy et al (1999) The other fac-tor was the number of items recalled accurately from thelist which is negatively correlated with false recall

We turn next to the theoretical implications of ourfindings We first consider the implications for the acti-vationmonitoring framework that we have developed toexplain false recall and false recognition in the DRMparadigm We then consider the implications for othertheories and f inally turn to several further issues onwhich our results shed light

ActivationMonitoring TheoryIn the theroretical framework that we (eg McDer-

mott amp Watson 2001 Roediger Balota amp Watson 2001Roediger amp McDermott 1995 2000) have used to explainvariations in the probability of false recall and false recog-nition in the DRM paradigm two sets of processes havebeen proposed Specifically we have proposed that pro-cesses occurring during both encoding and retrieval af-fect the probability of false recall and false recognitionin the DRM paradigm Two critical sets of processes in-volve activation and monitoring Although there is a nat-ural alignment of activation to encoding and monitoringto retrieval we note that both processes can potentiallyoccur both during encoding and during retrieval as willbe discussed below The ideas we employ have many pre-cursors which we acknowledge below although theirparticular arrangement here may be unique

A critical distinction in understanding encoding pro-cesses and their interaction with retrieval processes isbetween item-specific and relational processing (Ander-son 1972 Hunt amp Einstein 1981 Hunt amp McDaniel1993) Briefly the notion is that emphasis can be given tothe encoding of individual elements and their features(what Anderson called node-taggingand Hunt and his col-leagues called item-specific processing) or to the encod-ing of relationships among elements (pathway-taggingor relational processing) Item-specific processing should

Table 3 Summary of Multiple Regression Analysis

on False Recognition With Critical Item Variablesand List Variables Used as Predictors

Variable r b Semipartial r t value R2

Length 27 109 07 063 48Log frequency 21 112 09 089Concreteness 11 07 06 056Forward associative strength 12 116 16 147Backward associative strength 43 138 32 302Interitem associative strength 03 117 15 144Veridical recall 52 55 46 438



make individual elements more memorable and lead tomore distinctive memories such processing should helpdistinguish veridical memories from false memories be-cause list items would have features of presentation as-sociated with them whereas the critical item sometimeswould not (However if the critical item is strongly acti-vated during encoding it may take on many of the fea-tures of list items) Relational processing (extractingthemes or schemas or constructing networks of associa-tions) should increase the probability of false recall andfalse recognition by leading to inferences or associationsof events that may not actually have occurred

We assume that in encoding and interpreting experi-ences people go beyond the information given in thestimulus (Bartlett 1932 chap 2 Bruner 1957) and ac-tivate related information through inferential processingEach personrsquos experience is coded in terms of his or herown schemata (or associative networks or knowledgestructures) When schemata are activated a process offilling in of ldquomissingrdquo information may occur wherebyitems strongly implied by the schema (but not actuallypresent in the stimulus) may become activated (Bartlett1932) In encoding lists of words in the DRM paradigmpresentation of the list can create activation that spreadsthroughout the lexicalsemantic system and can createimplicit associative responses (Underwood 1965) Thisactivation may arouse concepts that are not presented but that are associated to concepts that are presented(eg Anderson amp Pirolli 1984 Collins amp Loftus 1975Meyer amp Schvaneveldt 1971) The associative activa-tion in this approach can arise from automatic process-ing or from more controlled elaborative processing(Neely 1977) In addition the associative activation ofconcepts that were not presented may occur consciously(subjects may become aware of the concept of sleep andrehearse it during presentation of the list words bed restawake etc) or the concept may be strongly activatedbut never come to conscious awareness The debate overwhether arousal of the critical item in the DRM para-digm is conscious or unconscious is interesting but dif-ficult to decide empirically Some evidence has impli-cated conscious arousal of the concepts (McDermott1997) whereas other evidence implicates unconsciousactivation (Seamon Luo amp Gallo 1998) The correctanswer to the question of whether activation is consciousor unconscious is probably ldquobothrdquomdashthat is the criticalitem probably sometimes comes consciously to mindand even if it does not relevant information may never-theless be activated unconsciously

The high correlation between BAS and false recall aswell as the strong weighting of BAS in the multiple re-gression analysis strongly implicates activation of criti-cal items as an important factor in explaining false recalland false recognition in the DRM paradigm The morestrongly associated list items are to critical items themore activation would be expected to spread to the crit-ical items More colloquially to the extent that the wordson the list spark the associative connection to the critical

item the more likely the critical item is to be falsely re-called This activation factor would seem to be one mainreason why ldquothings suggested to a person by an experi-ence may be honestly reported by him as part of the ex-periencerdquo (Kirkpatrick 1894 p 608) These associatedlists probably all tend to elicit relational processing butonly those with strong BAS to the critical item lead tofalse recall

The second set of factors proposed in activationmon-itoring theory is concerned with the monitoring of mem-ory accuracy Monitoring of encoding processes canoccur during the study phase of an experiment espe-cially under intentional learning conditions In experi-ments in which subjects are warned about false memoryphenomena and are told to pay close attention to lists andto remember only the presented items and not the criti-cal items monitoring is enhanced (Gallo Roberts amp Sea-mon 1997 Gallo Roediger amp McDermott 2001 Mc-Dermott amp Roediger 1998) Monitoring of memorieshas typically been discussed with respect to retrieval dur-ing which time a primary goal is to distinguish fromamong the considerable information brought to con-sciousness that which refers to perception of past eventsfrom that which does not a process referred to as realitymonitoring (Johnson amp Raye 1981) The experience ofremembering events involves mentally traveling back intime and seeming to reexperience the events (Tulving1985) During retrieval recovered memories that appar-ently carry with them details of having been experiencedare generally attributed to be memories of actual pastevents although sometimes this attribution may be inerror (Jacoby et al 1989)

Johnson et al (1993) have described in detail the typesof information that may be used to distinguish eventsthat actually happened from ones that were only imag-ined thought about or read about For example eventsthat actually occurred have more features from the ex-ternal world associated with them (sights sounds etc)whereas those that were internally generated are lesslikely to have these features but more likely to have as-sociated reflections and cognitive operations In theDRM paradigm the fact that the critical item has beenstrongly activated during encoding means that duringretrieval the subject is likely to retrieve the critical itemas a list member To the extent that the critical items arestrongly activated during encoding they will take onsome features similar to those of the list items this is es-pecially true if the critical items come consciously tomind during encoding and are rehearsed in the samemanner as list items To the extent that the features of thecritical item are similar to those of actual list items theprobability of false recall or false recognition is increasedHowever if the list items systematically differ from thecritical item on some dimensions or features retrievalheuristics may be brought into play that can reduce falserecall and false recognition (Israel amp Schacter 1997Schacter Israel amp Racine 1999) Considerable evidencesupports this general source-reality-monitoring frame-


work that we advocate here (eg Johnson et al 1993Schacter et al 1999) as well as the attributional ap-proach to remembering (Jacoby et al 1989)

The other significant factor arising from our multipleregression analysis may operate during retrieval by aid-ing the monitoring processes that reduce false recall Thenegative correlation between veridical recall of list itemsand false recall of the critical item may indicate that thebetter encoded list items are the more easily they can bedistinguished from the illusory critical item Subjectsmay use item-specific information to aid recall of listitems and suppress recall of the critical items whichwould not carry as much item-specific information Whenexperimental manipulations increase veridical recall ei-ther through longer study time at relatively slow rates(Gallo amp Roediger 2001 McDermott amp Watson 2001Toglia Neuschatz amp Goodwin 1999) or through re-peated study and test opportunities (McDermott 1996Schacter et al 1999) false recall is often decreasedTherefore the negative relation between veridical recalland false recall can be produced experimentally as wellas appearing in our correlationregression analysis How-ever veridical and false recall can be positively related as afunction of other variables too as was shown by McDer-mott (1996) Toglia et al (1999) and Thapar amp McDermott(2001) In these cases greater activation of the criticalitem from relational processing or from greater seman-tic processing is probably at work

The fact that the length andor distinctiveness of thecritical item are negatively correlated with false recallcan be similarly interpreted as the effect of monitoringduring retrieval because the greater distinctiveness ofthe critical item simplifies the monitoring process Forexample if words in the list are generally shorter andhave more regular orthography than does the criticalitem then during retrieval the critical items that are longand distinctive (eg butterfly cabbage) should be moreeasily discriminated from list items as indeed seems tobe the case in the bivariate correlations Interestingly thelengthdistinctiveness factor played a role in determin-ing false recall even though the lists in our norms werepresented auditorily and the orthographic informationat least should not be particularly accessible In addi-tion presenting the DRM lists visually rather than audi-torily reduces false recall and false recognition at leaston tests in which recognition items are presented visually(as opposed to auditorily) or recall is written rather thanspoken (Gallo McDermott et al 2001 Kellogg 2001Smith amp Hunt 1998) This modality difference has alsobeen interpreted as arising from the retrieval of distinctiveinformation operating during the test (Gallo McDermottet al 2001 Smith amp Hunt 1998)

As was noted above activation processes may occurduring retrieval as well as during encoding The morelist items a subject recalls the more primed the criticalitem might become However the present analyses un-dercut the simplest form of this idea If the recalling oflist items activated or primed false recall the simplest

prediction would be that there should be a positive cor-relation between veridical recall and false recall Our datarevealed the opposite pattern showing a negative corre-lation between veridical and false recall Marsh McDer-mott and Roediger (2001) reported other experimentsthat also call into question the idea that priming duringthe test plays a role in false recall and false recognition

Balota et al (1999) obtained further evidence sup-porting the activationmonitoring interpretation of falsememories in the DRM paradigm They compared per-formance of younger adults healthy older adults andolder adults with Alzheimerrsquos disease The latter twogroups have been shown to have intact activation pro-cesses as measured by semantic priming paradigms(Balota amp Duchek 1988 1991) yet they are deficient insource-monitoring processes which is probably attribut-able to impaired frontal lobe functioning (see BalotaDolan amp Duchek 2000) Therefore one might expectthat whereas veridical recall would be worse in older adultsand Alzheimerrsquos patients (relative to younger adults)false recall and false recognition would occur at the samelevel or perhaps be increased in these groups IndeedBalota et al (1999) reported exactly this pattern A sim-ilar outcome has been obtained in other laboratories(eg Budsen Daffner Desikan amp Schacter 2000 Nor-man amp Schacter 1997 Tun Wingfield Rosen amp Blan-chard 1998) This pattern is just as predicted by the ac-tivation monitoring framework

In short the present results and many others (seeRoediger Balota amp Watson 2001 Roediger et al 1998)fit comfortably within the activationmonitoring frame-work In the remainder of our discussion we will con-sider briefly the implications of our present results forother accounts of the DRM paradigm and for the role ofconnectivity (or interitem associative strength) in pro-ducing veridical and false recall

Fuzzy-Trace TheoryAnother leading theory that has been used to explain

false memory phenomena is fuzzy-trace theory (egReyna amp Brainerd 1995) Payne et al (1996) and Schac-ter et al (1996) among many others have used the basictheory to account for false recall and false recognitiondata within the DRM paradigm and the theory has beenextended in interesting ways to account for new varia-tions on the paradigm (eg Brainerd Wright Reyna ampMojardin 2001) The fundamental assumption of fuzzy-trace theory is that experience leaves two types of mem-ory traces gist traces (which capture the meaning of ex-perience but without specific attributes) and verbatimtraces (which represent specific attributes) False memo-ries are attributed to gist processing When the meaning ofa recognition probe matches the gist of the encoded expe-rience false recognition occurs The theory has been di-rected primarily to false recognition and not false recall

In trying to explain the present results one difficultyis that the operational definition of gist has never beenspecified that is within the DRM paradigm given a list


of 15 related words how does one specify the gist repre-sentation of the list and quantify how strong it is Onecould use patterns of false recognitionmdashto the extentthat a concept is falsely recognized it was represented aspart of the gist representation This definition is per-fectly suitable for some purposes but clearly explainingfalse recognition is not one of them owing to the prob-lem of circularity To explain why some lists lead to highlevels of false recall and false recognition (whereas otherlists lead to low levels) within fuzzy-trace theory oneneeds an independent specification of gist which to ourknowledge has not been provided in this context Whydoes the sweet list have so much gist that it leads to falserecall whereas the bitter list does not One plausible in-terpretation of gist is BAS The more the list items areassociated to the critical item the more a gist represen-tation of the critical item is created This solution to adefinition of gist works within the DRM paradigm butof course the interpretation of how gist is created be-comes isomorphic to activation processes within the ac-tivationmonitoring framework

Interpretation of the other factor that was significantwithin our multiple regression analysis may be morestraightforward within fuzzy-trace theory The negativecorrelation between veridical recall and false recall (andfalse recognition) may be accounted for by increased re-liance on verbatim traces That is if increased recall of listitems is due to increased verbatim information subjectsmay rely less heavily on gist information and hence showless false recall and false recognition during respondingSimilarly for critical items that are long andor ortho-graphically distinct recall of list items that relies on thesefeatures may lead to suppression of false recall and falserecognition of the critical items because they may differsystematically from other list items These factors pos-tulated within the context of fuzzy-trace theory are quitesimilar to those within the activationmonitoring frame-work outlined above At some level of generality there aretwo sets of factors in each account and both theories canexplain many empirical results

Shifting Criterion TheoryMiller and Wolford (1999) proposed that false recog-

nition in the DRM paradigm could be explained by sub-jectsrsquo shifting their criteria differentially to list items andto critical items during a recognition test (They ex-tended their explanation to false recall but somewhattenuously by proposing a generaterecognize theory)They postulated that subjects encoded the structure ofthe list during its presentation and then during the recog-nition test responded with especially liberal criteria tocritical items but not to list items The criterion shift issupposed to occur to the degree that the test item appearsto be related to the list items To support their argumentthey reported that a measure of bias from signal detec-tion theory was indeed more liberal for critical itemsthan for list items However Wickens and Hirshman(2000) and Wixted and Stretch (2000) pointed out that

within signal detection theory differences in bias mea-sures do not necessarily implicate a criterion shiftRather differences in measured bias could arise fromdifferences among the underlying distributions Wixtedand Stretch argued that this latter interpretation was themore likely and that the criterion shift interpretation wasuntenable (also see Roediger amp McDermott 1999)

The present evidence also weighs heavily against acriterion shift account Miller and Wolford (1999) ap-pealed to subjectsrsquo metaknowledge of the structure of thelist Within the criterion shift account we can assumethat the likelihood that a critical item cues metaknowl-edge of the list depends on its FAS or how well the crit-ical item will cue the list If so FAS (the association ofthe critical item to the list items) should be the primarydeterminant of false recognition and false recall How-ever the correlation between FAS and false recall in ourdata was negligible (08) and the same was true in analy-ses of false recognition BAS was actually the primarypredictor of false recall which implicates activation pro-cesses during encoding as being a primary cause of theeffect There would be no reason to expect BAS to haveany impact according to the idea that a simple criterionshift during the test causes false recall and false recog-nition Of course all our lists were relatively high androughly equivalent in terms of FAS because they werecreated from forward associations to the critical item sorestriction of range may account for the low correlationEven so the same problem exists for the shifting crite-rion theory to explain the results If FAS is supposed todetermine false recall and false recognition by this ac-count and if all our lists were high and roughly equal onthis feature why were so many lists ineffective in elicitingfalse recognition and false recall In short either way theshifting criterion theory cannot account for the results

Of course within the activationmonitoring frame-work the monitoring processes occurring during retrievalcould be conceived as conservative shifts in response cri-teria However in our theory these monitoring processesdetermine the degree to which a given level of activationat retrieval will be judged sufficient to endorse a criticalitem as having been studied thereby producing a falsememory In contrast in Miller and Wolfordrsquos (1999) ac-count there was no activation of the critical item duringencoding and shifting criteria during the test were saidto account entirely for the false recognition phenomenon(see Wixted amp Stretch 2000) In the activationmonitoringaccount the memory illusion provoked by the DRM listsis assumed to be a subjectively powerful phenomenonthat can be ameliorated (but rarely eliminated) when listitems are made more distinctive relative to criticalitems Under conditions in which the subject is warnedat test (but not before the encoding phase) to monitortheir memories for the presence or absence of the criti-cal item and is discouraged from making criterion shiftsthe false memory effect is neither eliminated nor greatlyreduced (Gallo Roediger amp McDermott 2001) Hicksand Marsh (2001) showed that under conditions in which


subjects are explicitly told to monitor their memories dur-ing the test (and are asked to judge whether each wordhad been externally presented or internally generated)false recognition in the DRM paradigm actually increasesrather than decreases In fact the false recognition effectpersists even when subjects are fully informed about thenature of the phenomenon before the study episode andare therefore encouraged to enhance monitoring processesduring both encoding and retrieval in order to attempt todiminish or eliminate the effect (see Gallo et al1997Gallo Roediger amp McDermott 2001 McDermott ampRoediger 1998) For these and other reasons the notionthat the DRM memory illusion is caused by a general shiftof criteria can be eliminated as a potential explanation

Interitem Associative Strength or ConnectivityOur data pose something of a puzzle about the role of

interitem associative strength (Deese 1959a) or connec-tivity (McEvoy et al 1999) in false recall As was dis-cussed in the introduction Deese (1959a) found a sig-nificant negative correlation between this construct andthe probability of false recall In a later paper Deese(1961) obtained a weaker negative correlation that failedto reach conventional levels of significance so the issueis somewhat in doubt from Deesersquos (1959a 1961) researchMcEvoy et al created lists that varied in connectivity(interitem associative strength) and in BAS and manip-ulated these factors orthogonally They replicated thefinding of Deese (1959a) in that the density of inter-connections of list words was negatively related to falserecall However in our analysis of 55 lists (different fromthose used by McEvoy et al 1999) we found no relationbetween connectivity and false recall (r 5 04) or be-tween connectivity and false recognition (r 5 03)

Further research will be necessary to determine thetrue state of affairs although a case can be made that thelack of correlation we obtained is accurate First we had55 lists that varied widely in their ability to elicit false re-call as compared with 24 lists used in McEvoy et al(1999) Our lists also represented a relatively full rangeof connectivity or interitem associative strength relativeto those of McEvoy et al McEvoy et al used lists thathad a somewhat wider range of connectivity because theyused extreme values whereas our larger set of lists pro-vided a fuller body of the middle ranges of connectivityGiven our results it seems at least possible that interitemassociative strength (connectivity) is not a factor in de-termining whether lists of associative words lead to falserecall although the issue remains in doubt

We did find that interitem associative strength or con-nectivity is positively and significantly correlated withveridical recall (r 5 132) This outcome is consistentwith that of Deese (1959a) and McEvoy et al (1999)The greater the associative bonds among list items thegreater is list recall This outcome is also consistent withvirtually any associative theory of recall (eg Anderson1972 1983 Nelson Schreiber amp McEvoy 1992)

CONCLUSION

The present study has uncovered two primary factorsthat are significantly related to false recall and falserecognition in the DRM paradigm BAS is positivelycorrelated with false recall whereas veridical recall ofthe list items is negatively related to false recall The ac-tivationmonitoring account provides a natural interpre-tation of these factors Any viable theory posited to ex-plain the occurrence of false memories in the DRMparadigm must explain the variability in false recall andfalse recognition across lists and the two primary factorsresponsible for this variability

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Anderson J R (1983) The architecture of cognition CambridgeMA Harvard University Press

Anderson J R amp Pirolli P L (1984) Spread of activation Journalof Experimental Psychology Learning Memory amp Cognition 10791-798

Balota D A Cortese M J Duchek J M Adams D RoedigerH L III McDermott K B amp Yerys B E (1999) Veridical andfalse memories in healthy older adults and in dementia of the Alz-heimers type Cognitive Neuropsychology 16 361-384

Balota D A Dolan P O amp Duchek J M (2000) Memorychanges in healthy older adults In E Tulving amp F I M Craik (Eds)The Oxford handbook of memory (pp 395-409) Oxford Oxford Uni-versity Press

Balota D A amp Duchek J M (1988) Age-related differences inlexical access spreading activation and simple pronunciation Psy-chology and Aging 3 84-93

Balota D A amp Duchek J (1991) Semantic priming effects lexicalrepetition effects and contextual disambiguation effects in healthyaged individuals and individuals with senile dementia of theAlzheimer type Brain amp Language 40 181-201

Bartlett F C (1932) Remembering A study in experimental and so-cial psychology Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Brainerd C J Wright R Reyna V F amp Mojardin A H (2001)Conjoint recognition and phantom recollection Journal of Experi-mental Psychology Learning Memory amp Cognition 27 307-327

Bruce D amp Winograd E (1998) Remembering Deesersquos 1959 arti-cles The Zeitgeist the sociology of science and false memoriesPsychonomic Bulletin amp Review 5 615-624

Bruner J S (1957) On perceptual readiness Psychological Review64 123-152

Budson A E Daffner K R Desikan R amp Schacter D L(2000) When false recognition is unopposed by true recognitionGist-based memory distortion in Alzheimerrsquos disease Neuropsy-chology 14 277-287

Collins A M amp Loftus E F (1975) A spreading-activation theoryof semantic memory Psychological Review 82 407-428

Coltheart M Davelaar E Jonasson J T amp Besner D (1977)Access to the internal lexicon In S Dormic (Ed) Attention and per-formance VI (pp 535-555) Hillsdale NJ Erlbaum

Deese J (1959a) Influence of interitem associative strength upon im-mediate free recall Psychological Reports 5 235-241

Deese J (1959b) On the prediction of occurrence of particular verbalintrusions in immediate recall Journal of Experimental Psychology58 17-22

Deese J (1961) Associative structure and the serial reproduction ex-periment Journal of Abnormal amp Social Psychology 63 95-100

Deese J (1965) The structure of associations in language and thoughtBaltimore Johns Hopkins University Press


Gallo D A McDermott K B Percer J M amp Roediger H LIII (2001) Modality effects in false recall and false recognitionJournal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory amp Cogni-tion 27 339-353

Gallo D A Roberts M J amp Seamon J G (1997) Rememberingwords not presented in lists Can we avoid creating false memoriesPsychonomic Bulletin amp Review 4 271-276

Gallo D A amp Roediger H L III (2001) Variability among wordlists in evoking associative memory illusions Manuscript submittedfor publication

Gallo D A Roediger H L III amp McDermott K B (2001) As-sociative false recognition occurs without strategic criterion shiftsPsychonomic Bulletin amp Review 8 579-586

Hicks J L amp Marsh R L (2001) False recognition occurs more fre-quently during source identification than during oldndashnew recogni-tion Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory ampCognition 27 375-383

Hunt R R amp Einstein G O (1981) Relational and item-specific in-formation in memory Journal of Verbal Learning amp Verbal Behav-ior 19 497-514

Hunt R R amp McDaniel M A (1993) The enigma of organizationand distinctiveness Journal of Memory amp Language 32 421-445

Israel L amp Schacter D L (1997) Pictorial encoding reduces falserecognition of semantic associates Psychonomic Bulletin amp Review4 577-581

Jacoby L L Kelley C M amp Dywan J (1989) Memory attribu-tions In H L Roediger III amp F I M Craik (Eds) Varieties of mem-ory and consciousness Essays in honour of Endel Tulving (pp 391-422) Hillsdale NJ Erlbaum

Johnson M K Hashtroudi S amp Lindsay D S (1993) Sourcemonitoring Psychological Bulletin 114 3-28

Johnson M K amp Raye C L (1981) Reality monitoring Psycho-logical Review 88 67-85

Kellogg RT (2001) Presentation modality and mode of recall in ver-bal false memory Journal of Experimental Psychology LearningMemory amp Cognition 27 913-919

Kirkpatrick E A (1894) An experimental study of memory Psy-chological Review 1 602-609

Ku Iumlcera H amp Francis W (1967) Computational analysis of present-day American English Providence RI Brown University Press

Marsh E J McDermott K B amp Roediger H L III (2001) Doretrieval factors play a role in the creation of of false memories Man-uscript submitted for publication

Mather M Henkel L A amp Johnson M J (1997) Evaluatingcharacteristics of false memories Rememberknow judgments andmemory characteristics questionnaire compared Memory amp Cogni-tion 25 826-837

McDermott K B (1996) The persistence of false memories in list re-call Journal of Memory amp Language 35 212-230

McDermott K B (1997) Priming on perceptual implicit memorytests can be achieved through presentation of associates Psycho-nomic Bulletin amp Review 4 582-586

McDermott K B amp Roediger H L III (1998) Attempting to avoidillusory memories Robust false recognition of associates persistsunder conditions of explicit warnings and immediate testing Journalof Memory amp Language 39 508-520

McDermott K B amp Watson J M (2001) The rise and fall of falserecall The impact of presentation duration Journal of Memory ampLanguage 45 160-176

McEvoy C L Nelson D L amp Komatsu T (1999) What is the con-nection between true and false memories The differential roles of in-teritem associations in recall and recognition Journal of Experimen-tal Psychology Learning Memory amp Cognition 25 1177-1194

Meyer D E amp Schvaneveldt R W (1971) Facilitation in recog-nizing pairs of words Evidence of a dependence between retrievaloperations Journal of Experimental Psychology 90 227-234

Miller M B amp Wolford G L (1999) Theoretical commentaryThe role of criterion shift in false memory Psychological Review106 398-405

Neely J H (1977) Semantic priming and retrieval from semanticmemory Roles of inhibitionless spreading activation and limited-

capacity attention Journal of Experimental Psychology General106 226-254

Nelson D L McEvoy C L amp Schreiber T A (1999) The Uni-versity of South Florida word association rhyme and word fragmentnorms Unpublished manuscript University of South Florida Tampa

Nelson D L Schreiber TA amp McEvoy C L (1992) Processing im-plicit and explicit representations Psychological Review 99 322-348

Norman K A amp Schacter D L (1997) False recognition in youngerand older adults Exploring the characteristics of illusory memoriesMemory amp Cognition 25 838-848

Paivio A Yuille J C amp Madigan S A (1968) Concreteness im-agery and meaningfulness values for 925 nouns Journal of Experi-mental Psychology Monographs 76 (1 Pt 2)

Payne D G Elie C J Blackwell J M amp Neuschatz J S (1996)Memory illusions Recalling recognizing and recollecting events thatnever occurred Journal of Memory amp Language 35 261-285

Reyna V F amp Brainerd C J (1995) Fuzzy-trace theory An interimsynthesis Learning amp Individual Differences 7 1-75

Roediger H L III Balota D A amp Watson J M (2001) Spreadingactivation and the arousal of false memories In H L Roediger III J SNairne I Neath amp A M Surprenant (Eds) The nature of remem-bering Essays in honor of Robert G Crowder (pp 95-115) Wash-ington DC American Psychological Association

Roediger H L III amp McDermott K B (1995) Creating false mem-ories Remembering words not presented in lists Journal of Experi-mental Psychology Learning Memory amp Cognition 21 803-814

Roediger H L III amp McDermott K B (1999) False alarms aboutfalse memories Psychological Review 106 406-410

Roediger H L III amp McDermott K B (2000) Tricks of memoryCurrent Directions in Psychological Science 9 123-127

Roediger H L III McDermott K B amp Pisoni D B (2001) Rec-ollection of illusory voices Manuscript submitted for publication

Roediger H L III McDermott K B amp Robinson K J (1998)The role of associative processes in creating false memories In M AConway S E Gathercole amp C Cornoldi (Eds) Theories of memoryII (pp 187-245) Hove UK Psychological Press

Russell W A amp Jenkins J J (1954) The complete Minnesotanorms for responses to 100 words from the KentndashRosanoff Word As-sociation Test (Tech Rep No 11 Contract N8 ONR 66216 Officeof Naval Research) University of Minnesota Minneapolis

Schacter D L Israel L amp Racine C (1999) Suppressing falserecognition in younger and older adults The distinctiveness heuris-tic Journal of Memory amp Language 40 1-24

Schacter D L Verfaellie M amp Pradere D (1996) The neuro-psychology of memory illusions False recall and recognition in am-nesic patients Journal of Memory amp Language 35 319-334

Seamon J G Luo C R amp Gallo D A (1998) Creating false mem-ories of words with or without recognition of list items Evidence fornonconscious processes Psychological Science 9 20-26

Smith R E amp Hunt R R (1998) Presentation modality affects falsememory Psychonomic Bulletin amp Review 5 710-715

Stadler M A Roediger H L III amp McDermott K B (1999)Norms for word lists that create false memories Memory amp Cogni-tion 27 494-500

Thapar A amp McDermott K B (2001) False recall and false recog-nition induced by presentation of associated words Effects of retentioninterval and level of processing Memory amp Cognition 29 424-432

Toglia M P amp Battig W F (1978) Handbook of semantic wordnorms Hillsdale NJ Erlbaum

Toglia M P Neuschatz J S amp Goodwin K A (1999) Recall ac-curacy and illusory memories When more is less Memory 7 233-256

Tulving E (1974) Cue-dependent forgetting American Scientist 6274-82

Tulving E (1979) Relation between encoding specificity and levelsof processing In L S Cermak amp F I M Craik (Eds) Levels of pro-cessing in human memory (pp 405-428) Hillsdale NJ Erlbaum

Tulving E (1985) Memory and consciousness Canadian Psycholo-gist 26 1-12

Tun P A Wingfield A Rosen M J amp Blanchard L (1998)Response latencies for false memories Gist-based processes in nor-mal aging Psychology amp Aging 13 230-241


Underwood B J (1965) False recognition produced by implicit ver-bal responses Journal of Experimental Psychology 70 122-129

Weldon M S (1991) Mechanisms underlying priming on perceptualtests Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory ampCognition 17 526-541

Wickens T D amp Hirshman E (2000) False memories and statisticaldecision theory Comment on Miller and Wolford (1999) and Roedi-ger and McDermott (1999) Psychological Review 107 377-383

Wixted J T amp Stretch V (2000) The case against a criterion-shiftaccount of false memory Psychological Review 107 368-376

Zechmeister E B (1969) Orthographic distinctiveness Journal ofVerbal Learning amp Verbal Behavior 8 754-761

NOTES

1 The orthographic distinctiveness of a critical item was obtained bypresenting 72 subjects with all 55 critical items visually and havingthem rate the words in accordance with procedures developed by Zech-meister (1969) Briefly the subjects were instructed to rate each wordfor its physical appearance in terms of distinctiveness in the languageon a 9-point scale with 1 being not very distinctive 5 corresponding toaverage distinctiveness and 9 being most distinctive To avoid orderingeffects three different randomized orderings of words were used acrossroughly equal groups of subjects In the case of the critical item sleep

for example the distinctiveness is 515 Corresponding values for but-terfly and for man are 744 and 213 respectively Although ortho-graphic distinctiveness was not included in our multiple regressionanalyses this predictor is included in Appendix C

2 The orthographic neighborhood size or Coltheartrsquos N of each crit-ical item was defined as the number of words that can be formed bychanging a single letter in the word (Coltheart Davelaar Jonasson ampBesner 1977) For example because it has no orthographic neighborsColtheartrsquos N for the critical item butterfly is zero In contrast sleep hasfive orthographic neighbors (ie sheep sleek sleet steep and sweep)The reference set of words used were those in Ku Iumlcera and Francisrsquos(1967) norms Although Coltheartrsquos N was not included in our multipleregression analyses this predictor is included in Appendix C

3 Word length orthographic distinctiveness and orthographic neigh-borhood size of the critical item were all highly correlated Specificallythe bivariate correlations among these three predictors were as followslength and orthographic distinctiveness r 5 184 t(53) 5 1117 p lt05 orthographic distinctiveness and orthographic neighborhood sizer 5 66 t(53) 5 640 p lt 05 length and orthographic neighbor-hood size r 5 63 t(53) 5 582 p lt 05 Of these three variablesword length had the largest bivariate correlation with false recall (r 5

37) so it was the predictor used in the multiple regression analyses4 The multiple regression data matrix is available at wwwiacwustl

edunmclWeb


APPENDIX A The Fifty-Five 15-Word Lists and Their Associated Critical Items

With Backward Associative Strength (BAS) and Forward Associative Strength (FAS)Values Used in the Multiple Regression Analysis of False Recall

Item Word BAS FAS Item Word BAS FAS

Anger mad 393 412 Black white 655 557fear 020 059 dark 111 100hate 028 109 cat 000 043rage 541 042 charred 023 000temper 182 000 night 000 021fury 306 000 funeral 034 000ire 179 000 color 074 050wrath 128 000 grief 000 000happy 000 042 blue 028 000fight 034 000 death 016 014hatred 070 000 ink 020 000mean 090 000 bottom 000 000calm 000 000 coal 288 000emotion 000 000 brown 338 000enrage 378 000 gray 365 000

Mean 157 044 Mean 130 052Army Navy 543 500 Bread butter 364 487

soldier 287 027 food 000 045United States 000 000 eat 000 026rifle 000 000 sandwich 067 026Air Force 133 014 rye 791 000draft 122 000 jam 054 000military 266 027 milk 012 000Marines 283 047 flour 142 000march 041 000 jelly 053 019infantry 284 000 dough 310 058captain 014 000 crust 243 000war 000 041 slice 048 019uniform 048 000 wine 000 000pilot 000 000 loaf 552 051combat 000 000 toast 364 000

Mean 135 044 Mean 200 049Beautiful ugly 028 229 Butterfly moth 267 109

pretty 095 389 insect 000 079girls 033 049 wing 000 030woman 016 014 bird 000 042homely 000 000 fly 000 091lovely 182 000 yellow 000 018nice 000 000 net 000 030picture 000 000 flower 000 036lady 010 000 bug 000 012mountain 000 000 cocoon 412 024snow 000 000 summer 000 000scene 024 000 color 000 030music 000 000 bee 000 000day 000 000 stomach 000 000gorgeous 184 056 worm 000 000

Mean 038 049 Mean 045 033Bitter sweet 020 435 Cabbage head 000 022

sour 115 254 lettuce 021 281taste 024 065 vegetable 000 137chocolate 000 000 food 000 022rice 000 000 salad 000 022cold 000 101 green 000 079lemon 000 022 garden 000 000angry 000 000 leaf 000 029hard 000 000 sauerkraut 042 000mad 000 000 smell 000 000acid 000 014 slaw 041 043almonds 000 000 patch 066 115herbs 000 000 plant 000 000grape 000 000 carrots 000 000fruit 000 000 soup 000 014

Mean 011 059 Mean 011 051


APPENDIX A (Continued)Item Word BAS FAS Item Word BAS FAS

Car truck 264 111 City town 529 307bus 252 022 crowded 000 010train 058 011 state 117 132automobile 709 133 capital 095 000vehicle 740 000 streets 054 046drive 480 122 subway 000 000jeep 240 000 country 068 020Ford 331 000 New York 383 066race 043 011 village 020 000keys 360 000 metropolis 536 000garage 519 000 big 000 025highway 115 000 Chicago 152 000sedan 510 000 suburb 265 010van 448 000 county 195 010taxi 129 000 urban 358 000

Mean 347 027 Mean 185 042Carpet rug 468 248 Cold hot 676 413

floor 074 159 snow 199 033soft 000 062 warm 364 033red 000 048 winter 277 022sweeper 000 000 ice 364 098tack 000 000 wet 108 011walk 000 000 frigid 570 000bag 000 021 chilly 395 000room 000 000 heat 169 000blue 000 021 weather 032 011chair 000 000 freeze 461 011thick 000 000 air 000 000deep 000 000 shiver 669 011magic 014 028 Arctic 642 000wool 000 000 frost 370 000

Mean 037 039 Mean 353 043Chair table 756 314 Command order 000 288

sit 183 212 army 000 034legs 000 013 obey 140 062seat 543 109 officer 000 027couch 288 109 performance 000 014desk 290 019 do 000 014recliner 547 000 tell 000 055sofa 132 077 general 000 027wood 012 013 shout 000 000cushion 086 019 halt 000 000swivel 593 000 voice 000 000stool 320 032 soldier 000 000sitting 096 000 harsh 000 000rocking 593 019 attention 000 000bench 109 013 sharp 000 000

Mean 303 063 Mean 009 035Citizen United States 000 191 Cottage house 000 381

man 000 000 lake 000 063person 000 191 cheese 000 206American 034 086 home 000 040country 000 059 white 000 000alien 000 079 cabin 020 016people 000 000 small 000 016vote 000 013 door 000 000me 000 000 fence 000 000patriot 013 020 vines 000 000flag 000 000 woods 000 040foreigner 000 000 ivy 000 000France 000 000 roses 000 000immigrant 000 013 cozy 000 000member 000 033 hut 030 032

Mean 003 046 Mean 003 053



Cup mug 268 025 Fruit apple 154 223saucer 527 418 vegetable 220 082tea 054 056 orange 194 174measuring 385 000 kiwi 709 000coaster 096 000 citrus 426 000lid 000 000 ripe 151 000handle 014 000 pear 347 000coffee 051 105 banana 215 065straw 029 000 berry 298 000goblet 118 000 cherry 168 000soup 000 062 basket 084 011stein 014 000 juice 035 027drink 011 049 salad 000 000plastic 075 000 bowl 028 000sip 000 000 cocktail 000 011

Mean 109 048 Mean 202 040Doctor nurse 547 379 Girl boy 701 738

sick 031 051 dolls 199 000lawyer 149 101 female 098 013medicine 152 066 young 000 000health 049 020 dress 063 000hospital 027 015 pretty 149 027dentist 214 020 hair 000 000physician 804 040 niece 026 000ill 000 025 dance 000 000patient 365 025 beautiful 049 000office 014 010 cute 035 000stethoscope 520 000 date 056 000surgeon 479 040 aunt 000 000clinic 300 000 daughter 042 000cure 028 010 sister 041 000

Mean 245 053 Mean 097 052Flag banner 687 000 Health sickness 220 140

American 200 269 good 000 133symbol 014 021 happiness 000 014stars 000 048 wealth 022 021anthem 062 000 ill 014 000stripes 177 014 doctor 020 049pole 157 193 service 000 000wave 000 103 strong 000 000raised 000 000 hospital 000 014national 027 000 disease 000 021checkered 247 000 body 027 028emblem 048 000 vigor 000 000sign 000 000 center 000 000freedom 021 000 pain 000 000pendant 000 000 robust 000 000

Mean 109 043 Mean 020 028Foot shoe 321 337 High low 777 655

hand 158 122 clouds 000 000toe 605 235 up 041 034kick 039 000 tall 000 020sandals 209 000 tower 079 000soccer 000 000 jump 072 000yard 126 000 above 057 000walk 016 020 building 000 000ankle 364 000 noon 033 000arm 000 000 cliff 028 000boot 142 000 sky 017 014inch 473 020 over 000 000sock 172 000 airplane 000 014knee 032 000 dive 028 000mouth 000 000 elevate 174 000

Mean 177 049 Mean 087 049



Justice peace 000 151 Long short 222 536law 031 171 fellow 000 000courts 090 158 narrow 021 000judge 014 096 John 000 017right 000 021 time 000 034liberty 113 021 far 041 000government 000 000 hair 103 078jury 000 000 island 000 000truth 082 000 road 020 000blind 000 000 thin 000 011fair 030 027 underwear 000 000supreme 021 000 distance 150 000crime 014 021 line 031 000department 000 000 low 000 000trial 000 000 rope 000 000

Mean 026 044 Mean 039 045King queen 730 772 Man woman 595 660

England 000 000 husband 018 000crown 471 016 uncle 070 000prince 134 016 lady 371 013George 020 000 mouse 000 000dictator 023 000 male 131 000palace 159 000 father 048 000throne 759 000 strong 020 013chess 092 000 friend 000 000rule 014 031 beard 055 000subjects 000 000 person 122 000monarch 317 039 handsome 144 000royal 315 016 muscle 048 013leader 034 000 suit 074 000reign 383 000 old 034 000

Mean 230 059 Mean 115 047Lamp light 020 769 Mountain hill 428 265

shade 028 058 valley 195 020table 000 019 climb 291 092bulb 014 045 summit 108 000post 000 026 top 000 041black 000 000 molehill 256 031cord 000 000 peak 248 020desk 034 019 plain 000 000bright 000 000 glacier 020 000lighter 000 000 goat 028 000read 000 000 bike 033 000on 000 000 climber 603 031bed 000 000 range 000 051burn 000 013 steep 061 000stand 000 000 ski 034 000

Mean 006 063 Mean 154 037Lion tiger 308 362 Music note 132 068

circus 011 000 sound 205 020jungle 034 000 piano 230 020tamer 489 021 sing 033 088den 097 021 radio 270 041cub 063 074 band 432 020Africa 014 021 melody 243 020mane 200 021 horn 014 000cage 035 000 concert 395 000feline 000 000 instrument 148 000roar 614 032 symphony 329 000fierce 112 021 jazz 367 000bears 034 021 orchestra 309 000hunt 000 000 art 020 020pride 029 000 rhythm 277 000

Mean 136 040 Mean 227 020



Mutton lamb 024 133 Rough smooth 416 352sheep 000 027 bumpy 150 028meat 000 047 road 000 000chops 000 000 tough 192 048beef 000 000 sandpaper 429 041veal 000 000 jagged 128 000collar 000 000 ready 000 000leg 000 000 coarse 291 014eat 000 000 uneven 019 000fat 000 000 riders 027 000coat 000 000 rugged 174 014stew 000 000 sand 000 000fur 000 000 boards 000 000pork 000 000 ground 000 000steak 000 000 gravel 000 000

Mean 002 014 Mean 122 033Needle thread 758 424 Rubber elastic 035 000

pin 289 212 bounce 018 000eye 000 000 gloves 033 041sewing 181 224 tire 062 095sharp 030 024 ball 000 041point 024 024 eraser 026 000prick 108 012 springy 000 000thimble 218 000 foam 116 000haystack 418 030 galoshes 063 000thorn 028 000 soles 000 041hurt 000 000 latex 107 014injection 331 000 glue 000 000syringe 520 000 flexible 041 000cloth 000 000 resilient 000 000knitting 135 000 stretch 000 027

Mean 203 063 Mean 033 017Pen pencil 476 594 Shirt blouse 647 135

write 128 065 sleeves 347 038fountain 071 000 pants 185 269leak 000 000 tie 074 103quill 635 000 button 240 064felt 047 000 shorts 252 013Bic 372 000 iron 010 000scribble 020 000 polo 177 000crayon 000 000 collar 342 032Cross 013 000 vest 143 000tip 000 000 pocket 058 000marker 257 000 jersey 174 000red 000 000 belt 000 000cap 000 000 linen 000 000letter 000 000 cuffs 143 000

Mean 135 044 Mean 186 044River water 000 071 Sleep bed 638 092

stream 321 118 rest 475 163lake 142 118 awake 618 143Mississippi 654 031 tired 493 092boat 000 055 dream 247 194tide 000 000 wake 304 000swim 000 016 snooze 520 020flow 283 063 blanket 024 000run 000 016 doze 682 000barge 047 000 slumber 514 000creek 397 000 snore 439 000brook 161 016 nap 730 000fish 000 016 peace 000 000bridge 197 000 yawn 235 000winding 000 016 drowsy 551 000

Mean 147 036 Mean 431 047



Slow fast 598 527 Spider web 845 246lethargic 142 000 insect 000 127stop 000 034 bug 040 127listless 000 000 fright 000 000snail 486 020 fly 000 016cautious 027 000 arachnid 704 079delay 059 000 crawl 000 024traffic 020 000 tarantula 744 000turtle 372 115 poison 000 000hesitant 034 000 bite 000 000speed 061 014 creepy 058 040quick 272 000 animal 000 000sluggish 340 000 ugly 000 000wait 000 000 feelers 000 000molasses 170 000 small 000 000

Mean 172 047 Mean 159 044Smell nose 108 116 Stove hot 000 285

breathe 000 000 heat 000 030sniff 442 043 pipe 000 018aroma 678 000 cook 000 212hear 000 000 warm 000 012see 000 000 fire 000 000nostril 000 000 oven 224 279whiff 577 000 wood 030 000scent 625 029 kitchen 056 018reek 510 000 lid 000 000stench 562 000 coal 000 000fragrance 389 000 gas 026 000perfume 393 036 iron 000 000salts 028 000 range 149 012rose 034 000 furnace 041 000

Mean 290 015 Mean 035 058Smoke cigarette 449 323 Sweet sour 405 372

puff 240 000 candy 336 162blaze 000 000 sugar 433 061billows 061 000 bitter 435 020pollution 068 000 good 000 014ashes 052 000 taste 071 014cigar 507 000 tooth 000 027chimney 240 000 nice 095 095fire 018 291 honey 451 000tobacco 338 000 soda 000 000stink 000 000 chocolate 101 041pipe 419 016 heart 000 000lungs 119 000 cake 027 000flames 000 000 tart 223 000stain 000 000 pie 000 000

Mean 167 042 Mean 172 054Soft hard 564 509 Swift fast 016 606

light 000 012 slow 000 176pillow 236 018 river 000 000plush 178 000 Jonathan 054 000loud 333 000 current 000 000cotton 166 018 rapid 021 012fur 061 000 stream 000 000touch 061 012 water 000 000fluffy 266 000 quick 000 048feather 045 024 Gulliver 000 000furry 061 000 run 000 024downy 221 000 sure 000 000kitten 033 000 deer 000 000skin 161 018 car 000 000tender 297 000 author 000 000

Mean 179 041 Mean 006 058



Thief steal 089 388 Whistle stop 000 032robber 361 224 train 045 016crook 459 091 noise 000 071burglar 257 085 sing 000 016money 000 012 blow 034 175cop 000 000 tune 000 032bad 000 012 sound 000 000rob 074 000 dog 000 016jail 013 000 song 000 127gun 000 000 shrill 000 000villain 000 000 boy 000 000crime 028 012 lips 000 024bank 000 000 wolf 000 000bandit 167 000 call 000 016criminal 051 012 loud 000 048

Mean 100 056 Mean 005 038Trash garbage 456 526 Window door 156 147

waste 067 026 glass 144 256can 014 212 pane 833 179refuse 017 000 shade 021 058sewage 053 000 ledge 152 013bag 000 026 sill 682 128junk 126 013 house 000 000rubbish 397 013 open 014 019sweep 000 000 curtain 189 038scraps 048 000 frame 014 013pile 049 000 view 048 026dump 218 013 breeze 000 000landfill 186 000 sash 000 000debris 266 000 screen 027 000litter 209 000 shutter 480 000

Mean 140 055 Mean 184 058Trouble bad 000 123 Wish want 028 071

shooter 000 048 dream 014 165worry 000 000 desire 027 039danger 048 027 hope 068 213sorrow 000 000 well 000 039fear 000 000 think 000 031school 000 000 star 045 126problem 027 089 bone 000 079police 000 041 ring 000 000fight 000 027 wash 000 016sad 000 000 thought 000 000difficulty 031 000 get 000 000help 049 041 true 000 016maker 000 000 for 000 000jail 000 000 money 000 000

Mean 010 026 Mean 012 053Whiskey drink 000 081

drunk 000 121beer 000 051liquor 000 081gin 021 000bottles 000 020alcohol 000 051rye 000 000glass 000 020wine 000 030rum 035 081bourbon 144 051evil 000 000bar 000 000scotch 135 040

Mean 022 042

NotemdashUnless otherwise indicated with an asterisk all BAS and FAS values are drawn from the associative norms of Nel-son McEvoy and Schreiber (1999) Those values shown with an asterisk were obtained by the authors by using normingprocedures similar to those of Nelson et al (1999) The corresponding mean for these BAS and FAS values for each list arealso represented


APPENDIX B Data Matrix of the Fifty-Five 15-Word Lists and Associated Critical Items

Used in the Multiple Regression Analysis of False Recall

Critical False False Log Vrd Raw Ortho Item Recall Recgn Length Freq Concrete FAS BAS Connect Recall Freq Dist Colt N

anger 490 790 5 169 375 044 157 173 500 48 430 3army 250 530 4 212 653 044 135 253 610 132 412 2beautiful 030 440 9 211 389 049 038 213 710 127 638 0bitter 010 260 6 173 405 059 011 140 680 53 578 10black 340 490 5 231 466 052 130 147 600 203 441 3bread 310 640 5 162 618 049 200 133 550 41 397 5butterfly 010 260 9 040 591 033 045 193 700 2 744 0cabbage 050 440 7 065 607 051 011 253 650 4 699 0car 350 420 3 244 635 027 347 173 660 274 208 19carpet 150 490 6 113 568 039 037 060 610 13 437 0chair 540 740 5 182 612 063 303 193 640 66 360 3citizen 100 600 7 148 451 046 003 227 680 30 626 0city 460 640 4 259 541 042 185 180 650 393 438 3cold 440 840 4 223 467 043 353 227 610 171 360 14command 080 550 7 186 na 035 009 067 580 72 582 1cottage 080 380 7 129 593 053 003 100 660 19 652 0cup 450 820 3 166 535 048 109 153 530 45 266 7doctor 600 710 6 200 575 053 245 260 570 100 500 0flag 310 600 4 122 620 043 109 100 630 16 425 5foot 350 620 4 185 346 049 177 140 640 70 518 10fruit 200 450 5 155 600 040 202 167 710 35 458 0girl 320 580 4 234 683 052 097 127 670 220 415 2health 110 550 6 202 354 028 020 127 620 105 497 2high 260 720 4 270 362 049 087 147 580 497 518 3justice 300 760 7 206 218 044 026 140 590 114 567 1king 100 270 4 195 554 059 230 207 650 88 440 9lamp 140 630 4 127 609 063 006 073 610 18 351 9lion 230 330 4 124 614 040 136 080 630 17 400 6long 030 340 4 288 368 045 039 047 600 755 336 10man 240 610 3 308 614 047 115 080 560 1207 213 33mountain 420 690 8 153 625 037 154 087 600 33 562 1music 340 690 5 234 515 020 227 160 590 216 371 0mutton 010 110 6 093 534 014 002 200 650 8 637 4needle 520 680 6 119 579 063 203 193 600 15 629 0pen 350 570 3 127 559 044 135 133 630 18 215 19river 420 670 5 222 583 036 147 247 640 165 368 6rough 530 830 5 162 448 033 122 127 560 41 474 8rubber 320 670 6 119 604 017 033 067 530 15 589 2shirt 270 540 5 144 605 044 186 140 640 27 384 4sleep 610 800 5 182 474 047 431 180 610 65 515 5slow 420 690 4 178 289 047 172 113 530 60 338 10smell 600 840 5 154 440 015 290 147 580 34 432 5smoke 540 730 5 162 516 042 167 180 640 41 505 2soft 460 810 4 179 410 041 179 080 590 61 370 4spider 370 580 6 040 595 044 159 133 620 2 578 0stove 180 700 5 119 575 058 035 200 600 15 429 7sweet 540 780 5 185 453 054 172 207 630 70 547 6swift 140 350 5 151 331 058 006 173 630 32 543 1thief 230 700 5 093 483 056 100 427 610 8 534 1trash 490 780 5 040 576 055 140 260 540 2 400 2trouble 080 540 7 213 225 026 010 107 580 134 553 1whiskey 030 530 7 124 600 042 022 493 720 17 770 1whistle 090 190 7 065 558 038 005 113 600 4 652 0window 650 840 6 208 627 058 184 067 630 119 573 1wish 290 800 4 204 266 053 012 087 580 110 415 6


APPENDIX C Connectivity Matrix for the Critical Item Sleep

Target

Cue bed rest awake tired dream wake snooze blanket doze slumber snore nap peace yawn drowsy Sum

bed ND 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1rest 1 ND 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 3awake 0 0 ND 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1tired 1 0 1 ND 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3dream 0 0 0 0 ND 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0wake 0 0 1 0 0 ND 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1snooze 0 0 0 1 0 0 ND 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 4blanket 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 ND 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1doze 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 ND 0 1 1 0 0 0 4slumber 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 ND 0 1 0 0 0 2snore 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ND 0 0 0 0 1nap 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ND 0 0 0 3peace 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ND 0 0 0yawn 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ND 0 1drowsy 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ND 2Sum 5 1 3 9 0 0 1 0 1 0 2 3 1 0 1 N = 27

Mean = 18

(Manuscript received July 10 2000revision accepted for publication February 23 2001)


Roediger and McDermott (1995) developed a para-digm for the creation and experimental investigation offalse memories that was an adaptation of Deesersquos tech-nique Following a suggestion made by Endel Tulvingthis procedure is now referred to as the DRM paradigman acronym for Deese Roediger and McDermott Thebasic procedure is straightforward Subjects hear lists of15 words that are the strongest associates to a missingword or critical item in word association norms (NelsonMcEvoy amp Schreiber 1999 Russell amp Jenkins 1954)For example subjects might be presented with a list ofwords like bed rest awake tired dream wake snoozeblanket doze slumber snore nap peace yawn drowsymdashall of which are associated to the (nonpresented) criticalitem sleep Immediately following the presentation of astudy list subjects recall as many of the list words aspossible without respect to their order (ie single-trialfree recall) In addition subjects are instructed to be surethat each word they write down was indeed on the pre-ceding list Despite this warning against guessing sub-jects recall these critical nonpresented items with aboutthe same probability as items appearing in the middle ofthe list (ie excluding the primacy and recency effects)At the end of the experiment a recognition test that cov-ers many lists is usually given (often with metamemoryjudgments) Recognition of the critical lures typicallyequals or exceeds recognition of the studied words Theseremarkably high levels of false recall and false recogni-tion in the DRM paradigm have been widely replicated(eg Payne Elie Blackwell amp Neuschatz 1996 andRoediger McDermott amp Pisoni 2001 among manyothers)

The DRM paradigm is quite different from many otherpopular techniques used to study false memories Mostdemonstrations of false memory phenomena have usedrelatively naturalistic materials such as stories or visualscenes fairly complex techniques such as the presenta-tion of misleading information or relatively long delaysbetween the study of the material and its later testing Infact the underlying assumption (beginning at least withBartlettrsquos 1932 influential pronouncements) seems tobe that these conditions are necessary to create illusorymemories because the use of such materials as wordlists encourages reliance on reproductive rather than re-constructive memory However the levels of false re-membering with the DRM paradigm are among the mostrobust ever obtained in the experimental literature eventhough they occur under conditions of immediate test-ing with no misleading information with lists of wordsand with strong warnings against guessing and makingerrors Therefore Roediger and McDermott (1995) sug-gested that the distinction between reproductive and re-constructive modes of retention should be abandoned Insome sense all recollection even immediate recall andrecognition of lists of words is reconstructive

Although the DRM paradigm is a relative newcomerto the investigation of false memories considerable re-search has been conducted using it and variations on its

basic theme The purpose of this paper is to consider anoverlooked issue in the growing literature on false mem-oriesmdashnamely the characteristics of the materials usedto produce the effect In Roediger and McDermottrsquos(1995) first experiment they selected the 6 lists used byDeese (1959b) that produced the highest levels of intru-sion in his experiment and they replicated his effects Intheir second experiment they used a total of 24 falsememory lists that included the 6 lists from their first ex-periment along with 18 new lists Some of the new listshad been used by Deese whereas Roediger and McDer-mott (1995) created some of the others using similar pro-cedures

One remarkable outcome that we have noticed repeat-edly while working with these lists is the striking vari-ability they exhibit in eliciting false recall and falserecognition of the associatively related critical itemThese differences occur despite the fact that all the listsare created in the same manner to include with someminor variation the first 15 associates of a single wordthat is itself not presented With few exceptions later re-searchers have used Roediger and McDermottrsquos (1995)original 24 lists to study various interesting issues col-lapsing the resulting data across the lists as did Roedi-ger and McDermott (1995) However few investigatorshave been concerned with the fundamental issue of iden-tifying characteristics of lists that influence the effectThat is why do some lists work so well in producing thefalse memory effect whereas others do not when all ofthe lists are constructed in the same general manner Inaddition examination of the lists often reveals no obvi-ous reasons for their variations in effectiveness at elicit-ing false recall For example consider the lists associ-ated with bitter (sweet sour taste chocolate rice coldlemon angry hard mad acid almonds herbs grapefruit) and sweet (sour candy sugar bitter good tastetooth nice honey soda chocolate heart cake tart pie)Despite the fact that both words refer to concepts in thesame domain represent the same part of speech and haveoverlapping words in the lists they differ dramatically inthe effectiveness with which they elicit false recall Themean probability of false recall of bitter when the rele-vant list was presented was only 01 whereas the meanfalse recall of sweet following the relevant list was 54

Stadler Roediger and McDermott (1999) obtainednorms on 36 DRM lists the 24 used by Roediger andMcDermott (1995) and 12 other lists False recall rangedfrom greater than 60 intrusion rates to lists structuredaround the nonpresented words window sleep smelland doctor to 20 and 10 respectively for the listsstructured around fruit and king False recognitionshowed similarly wide variations Although these listswere originally constructed to yield high levels of falseresponding some did not The purpose of the presentstudy was to attempt to identify those characteristics ofthe lists that cause their differential efficacy in produc-ing false recall and false recognition through a simul-taneous multiple regression analysis By identifying

















METHOD






















RESULTS
































DISCUSSION












































CONCLUSION


REFERENCES












































































NOTES






edunmclWeb












Mean 011 059 Mean 011 051










Mean 003 046 Mean 003 053










Mean 177 049 Mean 087 049










Mean 136 040 Mean 227 020










Mean 147 036 Mean 431 047










Mean 179 041 Mean 006 058










Mean 022 042









Target



Mean = 18


















METHOD






















RESULTS
































DISCUSSION












































CONCLUSION


REFERENCES












































































NOTES






edunmclWeb












Mean 011 059 Mean 011 051










Mean 003 046 Mean 003 053










Mean 177 049 Mean 087 049










Mean 136 040 Mean 227 020










Mean 147 036 Mean 431 047










Mean 179 041 Mean 006 058










Mean 022 042









Target



Mean = 18
















RESULTS
































DISCUSSION












































CONCLUSION


REFERENCES












































































NOTES






edunmclWeb












Mean 011 059 Mean 011 051










Mean 003 046 Mean 003 053










Mean 177 049 Mean 087 049










Mean 136 040 Mean 227 020










Mean 147 036 Mean 431 047










Mean 179 041 Mean 006 058










Mean 022 042









Target



Mean = 18
































DISCUSSION












































CONCLUSION


REFERENCES












































































NOTES






edunmclWeb












Mean 011 059 Mean 011 051










Mean 003 046 Mean 003 053










Mean 177 049 Mean 087 049










Mean 136 040 Mean 227 020










Mean 147 036 Mean 431 047










Mean 179 041 Mean 006 058










Mean 022 042









Target



Mean = 18


































CONCLUSION


REFERENCES












































































NOTES






edunmclWeb












Mean 011 059 Mean 011 051










Mean 003 046 Mean 003 053










Mean 177 049 Mean 087 049










Mean 136 040 Mean 227 020










Mean 147 036 Mean 431 047










Mean 179 041 Mean 006 058










Mean 022 042









Target



Mean = 18



























































NOTES






edunmclWeb












Mean 011 059 Mean 011 051










Mean 003 046 Mean 003 053










Mean 177 049 Mean 087 049










Mean 136 040 Mean 227 020










Mean 147 036 Mean 431 047










Mean 179 041 Mean 006 058










Mean 022 042









Target



Mean = 18













Mean 011 059 Mean 011 051










Mean 003 046 Mean 003 053










Mean 177 049 Mean 087 049










Mean 136 040 Mean 227 020










Mean 147 036 Mean 431 047










Mean 179 041 Mean 006 058










Mean 022 042









Target



Mean = 18











Mean 003 046 Mean 003 053










Mean 177 049 Mean 087 049










Mean 136 040 Mean 227 020










Mean 147 036 Mean 431 047










Mean 179 041 Mean 006 058










Mean 022 042









Target



Mean = 18











Mean 177 049 Mean 087 049










Mean 136 040 Mean 227 020










Mean 147 036 Mean 431 047










Mean 179 041 Mean 006 058










Mean 022 042









Target



Mean = 18











Mean 136 040 Mean 227 020










Mean 147 036 Mean 431 047










Mean 179 041 Mean 006 058










Mean 022 042









Target



Mean = 18











Mean 147 036 Mean 431 047










Mean 179 041 Mean 006 058










Mean 022 042









Target



Mean = 18











Mean 179 041 Mean 006 058










Mean 022 042









Target



Mean = 18











Mean 022 042









Target



Mean = 18









Target



Mean = 18


factors that determine false recall: a multiple regression

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