False memory
Study six lists of words and take a recognition test, to see how accurate memory is and what kinds of error it makes.
Method
Procedure
- Six lists of 12 words appear, one word at a time, each word for 1.5 seconds. Read each word and try to remember it; no response is needed.
- A recognition test of 30 words follows. For each word, decide whether it was in one of the lists (Old) or not (New).
- After each Old answer, say whether you remember the word being shown, or only know or feel that it was there.
Responses
- F
- Old: the word was in a list
- J
- New: it was not
- R
- Remember: you recall seeing it
- K
- Know: you know or feel it was there
Measures
The proportion of Old answers to words that were shown and to different kinds of word that were not, the Remember and Know answers, and a measure of discrimination called d′.
Practice
A practice list of four words and a test of four words tell you after each answer whether the word was in the list.
The task uses common English words.
Knowing the design in advance would change the result, so it is explained with the results and the background section stays closed.
Terms
- Recognition test: A memory test in which items are shown again and you decide whether you saw them before.
- Hit and false alarm: A hit is an Old answer to a word that was shown; a false alarm is an Old answer to a word that was not.
- Remember and Know: Remember means you recall the experience of seeing the word; Know means you are confident it was there without recalling the moment.
- d′ (d-prime): A measure of how well studied words are told apart from new ones; 0 means no discrimination and larger values mean better discrimination.
- Prefrontal cortex: The front part of the frontal lobe, thought to help monitor where a memory came from.
Experiment
Responses stay in this browser tab. Nothing is stored or sent, and everything is lost when the page is closed or reloaded.
Results
Interpretation
Each list consisted of words associated with one word that was never shown, the critical lure: for example, the list with bed, tired and rest belongs to the lure sleep. If you said Old to critical lures more often than to new words from the lists you did not see, you showed the false-memory effect. A Remember answer to a lure means that the false memory felt like a memory of seeing the word. The d′ value shows how well you told studied words from new ones; it does not include the lures.
Comparison with published studies
The lists on this page were written in the style of the published lists, so the rates are not directly comparable with those of Roediger and McDermott (1995).
Limitations
There are only six critical lures, so each one changes the percentage by about 17 points. Knowing about the effect in advance, for example from reading this page, can reduce it.
The result comes from one person in one session, on a device whose timing and display are not calibrated. It describes this run, not a stable characteristic of the participant, and a second run could differ by chance alone. Research studies test many participants under controlled conditions and report the average with its variability. The experiment is educational; it is not a test of ability or health.
One row per test word: the word, its type (studied, critical lure, critical word of an unseen list, or new word from an unseen list), its list, your answer, the Remember or Know answer and reaction time. In the file, 1 means yes and 0 means no. The file is created on this device and can be opened in a spreadsheet.
Background and references (to be read after taking part)
Background
Original findings
Each list consists of words associated with a single word, the critical lure, which is never shown. Roediger and McDermott (1995), building on lists studied earlier by James Deese, found that the critical words were frequently recalled and recognised as if they had been presented. The effect is commonly taken as evidence that memory is reconstructive: the shared meaning of what was studied can produce a convincing memory of something that was not seen. The eight lists here were compiled for this page in the style of the published lists, and six of them, chosen at random, are shown. The test contains two studied words from each list shown, the six critical lures, and six words from each of the two lists that were not shown (including their critical words), which provide the baseline rate of saying Old to a new word. Discrimination between studied and new words is summarised as d′.
Neural basis
Brain imaging suggests that true and false recognition engage largely overlapping regions, including the medial temporal lobe and the prefrontal cortex, with some evidence that sensory areas of the cortex respond more to words that were actually seen. The prefrontal cortex is thought to help monitor where a memory came from.
References
- Roediger, H. L., & McDermott, K. B. (1995). Creating false memories: remembering words not presented in lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21(4), 803–814. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.21.4.803
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