In 2 experiments, the authors examined the effects of schemas on the subjective experience of remembering. Participants entered a room that was set up to look like a graduate student's office under intentional or incidental learning conditions. They later took a recognition memory test that included making remember-know judgments. In Experiment 1, they were tested during the same session; in Experiment 2 they were tested either during the same session or after a 48-hr delay. Consistent with the authors' predictions, memory for atypical objects was especially likely to be experienced in the remember sense. In addition, false remember judgments rose dramatically after the 48-hr delay, especially for participants in the incidental learning condition. Results are discussed in terms of schema theory, fuzzy-trace theory, and the distinctiveness heuristic.

False memories are sometimes accompanied by surprisingly vivid experiential detail that makes them difficult to distinguish from actual memories. Such strikingly real false memories may be produced by a process called content borrowing in which details from presented items are errantly borrowed to corroborate the occurrence of the false memory item. In 2 experiments using think-out-loud protocols at both study and test, evidence for content borrowing occurred for more than half of the false remember judgments participants reported. The present study also provides evidence consistent with recollection rejection and distinctiveness playing a role in false-memory editing.

The present research provides compelling evidence for recollection rejection in the memory conjunction paradigm. In Experiment 1, warnings provided at time of test were shown to reduce memory conjunction errors. Moreover, the authors found substantial evidence of recollection rejection and phantom recollection. In Experiment 2, the authors manipulated how often study items were presented. Participants were told that they could earn a cash payoff for being accurate. Recognition of conjunction lures was lower in the multiple presentation condition. However, the payoff manipulation did not significantly interact with item type. The authors obtained evidence of robust recollection rejection from 3 different dependent measures. Consistent with Experiment 1, they also found evidence of phantom recollection. These findings provide evidence that recollection rejection can be quite robust in the memory conjunction paradigm.

The phenomenology of false memories was investigated in three experiments in which participants heard two experimenters read lists of items that were related to critical nonpresented items. In Experiments 1, following a recognition memory test, participants rated the phenomenological characteristics of their memories immediately and after a 48-hour delay. False recognition was prevalent and on several dimensions participants rated their true memories as more vivid than their false memories. In Experiments 2 and 3, following the study phase, participants were warned about the phenomenological differences between true and false memories and were instructed to use this information to avoid reporting nonpresented items. This type of warning was ineffective at reducing false recall (Experiment 2) and false recognition (Experiment 3) relative to unwarned participants. Importantly, the inability of explicit warnings to impact illusory recollections demonstrates that the false memories cannot be attributed simply to a criterion shift.

Two experiments document the effect of memory schemata in naturalistic situations. Participants in both experiments watched a short videotaped lecture in which the instructor enacted several schemaconsistent actions (e.g. writing on a whiteboard) and schema-inconsistent actions (e.g. smoking a cigarette). Following the videotaped lecture, participants completed a recognition test and rated the phenomenological content of their memories. In both experiments, memory was more accurate for schema-inconsistent actions than for schema-consistent actions. Participants also indicated that their memories of schema-inconsistent actions were more vivid than schema-consistent actions. Interestingly, in Experiment 2, the false memory rate for typical items increased across both 48-hour and one week retention intervals. These results have important implications for the processes of normal human memory in everyday situations.