The effects of ambiguous word-lists in the Deese/Roediger-McDermott procedure

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted using the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm to investigate whether false memories for lures associatively related to list items would occur when the lists were thematically ambiguous. In Experiment 1, participants were biased, via a picture, to interpret the list according to one of its two themes. Results showed that at test, participants falsely recognised lures consistent with the bias more than they did lures that were related to the list's alternative theme. Furthermore, participants were confident that the lures had appeared on the study lists and claimed to remember specific memorial detail of their presentation. The procedure was taken one step further in Experiment 2; participants were presented with the second bias after 24hrs to determine if they would switch their thematic interpretation of the list from the first to the second bias. The majority of participants stayed with the first theme; however, there was a medium-sized (but not statistically significant) effect of the thematic switch. Implications for real-life settings are discussed.