Can false memories be created through nonconscious processes?
Presentation times of study words presented in the Deese/Roediger and McDermott (DRM) paradigm varied from 20 to 2000 ms per word in an attempt to replicate the false memory effect following extremely short presentations reported by. Both in a within-subjects design (Experiment 1) and in a between-subjects design (Experiment 2) subjects showed memory for studied words as well as a false memory effect for related critical lures in the 2000-ms condition. However, in the conditions with shorter presentation times (20 ms in Experiment 1; 20 and 40 ms in Experiment 2) no memory for studied words, nor a false memory effect was found. We argue that there is at present no strong evidence supporting the claim for a nonconscious basis of the false memory effect.
Zeelenberg
René
R
Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands. rzeelenb@indiana.edu
Plomp
Gijs
G
Raaijmakers
Jeroen G W
JG
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007088:Illusions; D008297:Male; D012094:Repression, Psychology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012660:Semantics; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology