False memories lack perceptual detail: Evidence from implicit word-stem completion and perceptual identification tests

Rapid induction of false memory for pictures

“…However, no such priming was found. The absence of priming for pictures of imagined objects on a perceptual identification task is in line with the Michelon and Koenig (2002) finding of no perceptual priming following imagination, the Hicks and Starns (2005) finding of no priming for critical lures in the DRM paradigm on a verbal perceptual identification task, and the studies that found no priming for critical lures on a lexical decision task (McKone, 2004;Zeelenberg & Pecher, 2002). The findings are also in line with studies which have found no cross-form priming from words to pictures (Hirshman et al, 1990;Warren & Morton, 1982;Weldon et al, 1995).…”

“…Another detail which has not been kept constant is the encoding instruction (intentional/incidental). Hicks and Starns (2005) did systematically manipulate encoding instructions and found no effect of intentional versus incidental encoding on word-stem completion priming, which was significant for critical lures in both cases. On the other hand, McBride et al (2006) were the only authors to have conducted all their experiments with incidental study instructions, and they did not find significant priming of critical lures on word-stem completion in test-unaware subjects.…”

“…In this between-subjects design, priming of critical lures on a visual word-stem completion task was reduced by a mismatch between study and test modality. Hicks and Starns (2005), on the other hand, found that while critical lure priming on a visual word-stem-completion task was significant (though lower than list item priming), this priming was unaffected by a within-subjects manipulation of modality (visual/auditory), unlike priming of list items. Hicks and Starns suggested that if priming of critical lures can withstand a change in modality, the representations of these unstudied items could be non-specific in terms of modality and thus unlike the representations of studied items.…”

“…Perceptual indirect tests such as speeded recognition of degraded stimuli rely on the identification of perceptual features, while conceptual indirect tests such as word association access an item"s meaning. It has generally been found that performance on conceptual indirect tests is facilitated for critical lures as well as for studied items (e.g., McDermott, 1997), while the behaviour of critical lures on perceptual indirect tests is more controversial (e.g., Hicks & Starns, 2005;McBride, Coane, & Raulerson, 2006); these findings are reviewed in Chapter 5. So far, no work has been done on false memory for pictorial stimuli using indirect memory tests.…”

“…False memory for verbal stimuli has been investigated using the following indirect tests: word-stem completion (Hicks & Starns, 2005 (Hicks & Starns, 2005); and anagram solving (Lövdén & Johansson, 2003). McDermott (1997) found that priming of critical lures on a conceptual test (word association) was equivalent to priming of studied items, while priming for critical lures on word-stem completion and word fragment completion tests (both putative perceptual tests) was significant but generally lower than that of studied items.…”