Rapid induction of false memory for pictures

Abstract

Recognition of pictures is typically extremely accurate, and it is thus unclear whether the reconstructive nature of memory can yield substantial false recognition of highly individuated stimuli. A procedure for the rapid induction of false memories for distinctive colour photographs is proposed. Participants studied a set of object pictures followed by a list of words naming those objects, but embedded in the list were names of unseen objects. When subsequently shown full colour pictures of these unseen objects, participants consistently claimed that they had seen them, while discriminating with high accuracy between studied pictures and new pictures whose names did not appear in the misleading word list. These false memories can be reported with high confidence as well as the feeling of recollection. This new procedure allows the investigation of factors that influence false memory reports with ecologically valid stimuli and of the similarities and differences between true and false memories.