Abstract
The effect of randomizing the response-generation sequence on the frequency of cryptomnesia or inadvertent plagiarism was investigated. It was hypothesized that, if subjects were not aware of the sequence of responding, frequency of cryptomnesia would decrease. Each of the 24 undergraduate psychology students orally generated category exemplars, alternating with 3 other subjects according to a randomized response sequence imposed by the experimenter. Next, subjects attempted to recall items they had just generated. Finally, they had to generate new items in each category. On each task, they were instructed not to repeat an item generated by another subject. Plagiarism of others' responses occurred at the same frequency as in the Brown and Murphy study 0989) in which a sequential response generation was used, indicating that variables other than the awareness of sequence may affect the occurrence of cryptomnesia.
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