Phantom recall

Abstract

Phantom recollection (illusory vivid experience of the “presentation” of unpresented items) occurs at high levels in certain types of false recognition, but it is not yet known whether it occurs at high levels in false recall. A nonintrospective methodology based on fuzzy-trace theory’s dual-retrieval model of recall was used to estimate this hallucinatory phenomenology directly from free-recall data. To generate convergent evidence, the methodology was implemented in two distinct paradigms (repeated recall and conjoint recall) using Deese/Roediger/McDermott lists. With both paradigms, levels of phantom recollection were high and were usually equal to or greater than corresponding levels of true recollection (for presented material). Measurements of phantom recollection and true recollection were singly and doubly dissociated by a series of theory-driven manipulations (list blocking, strength of false-memory illusions, repetition, and study-test delay), suggesting that the two phenomenologies are by-products of different retrieval processes.