[The differences in young and elderly adults on false memory: examination on the effect of retention interval].

False recognition can occur at high levels after participants study lists of associated words and are tested with semantically related lures. The present study attempted to determine the differences of young and elderly adults in retention interval on false recognition and remember-know judgments of critical lure. Young participants' mean age was 21.6 years (range 21-23 years). Elderly participants' mean age was 69.7 years (range 65-74 years). Participants engaged in estimating the frequency of usage of visually presented words, and they were tested both immediately and one week later after the study phase. We found that elderly adults were relatively more susceptible than young adults to this false recognition effect. Moreover, a reliable increase of false recognition for critical lures was observed across retention interval in young adults but not in elderly adults.

[The effect of encoding on false memory: examination on levels of processing and list presentation format].

Using the Deese/Roediger-McDermott paradigm, the effects of lists presentation format (blocked/random) and levels of processing of critical nonpresented lures were examined. A levels-of-processing effect in a blocked presentation order was not observed for lures. Rates of false recognition and remember judgments for lures in a shallow level of processing were significantly lower than those in a deep level of processing when items from various themes were inter-mixed instead of blocked. Results showed an interaction between levels of processing and list presentation format. It is thus concluded that encoding of each word and whole list should be both considered in understanding false memory.

[Effects of imagery instructions on false memories produced on implicit and explicit memory tests].

In two experiments, we investigated whether the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm using implicit and explicit memory tests would produce critical lure (CL) words. Participants studied lists of semantic associates (e.g., newspaper, book, write) to induce memories for CL words (e.g., read). Afterwards, participants participated in implicit and explicit memory tests in each experiment. The level of priming of the CL words was quite high and similar to that of the presented words when participants were instructed to image the interword relation on lists during study. Participants explicitly recognized many CL words as having been presented on the lists in Experiment 1 and recalled many CL words in Experiment 2. The results are discussed in light of Underwood's (1965) implicit associative response hypothesis.