False Recall for People's Names in the Deese-Roediger-Mcdermott Paradigm: Conspicuousness and Semantic Encoding of the Critical Lure

Abstract

The Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm for studying false recall uses people's names as critical lures. In this study the contextual organization of list structure was manipulated in an effort to make the critical lure's absence inconspicuous and consequently increase the likelihood of false recall of the critical lures. Following Brédart's 2000 work, a list structure that appears to make the critical lure inconspicuous was constructed (Inconspicuous lure structure), according to the characteristics of two lists that previously induced a number of false memories. The rate of false recall for this structure was compared with Conspicuous lure structure, which was similar to his other lists that rarely induced false recall. 80 participants (age range 18–28 years, M age = 21.5 yr.) were presented eight 10-item lists, composed of four lists from each list structure. Contrary to expectations, the Inconspicuous lure structure produced less false recall than the Conspicuous lure structure. Moreover, better recall of list items was found in the Inconspicuous lure structure. These results were discussed in terms of semantic encoding related to contextual organization of the lists' structure.