The Neuropsychology of Memory Illusions: False Recall and Recognition in Amnesic Patients

Abstract

Memory illusions have been explored extensively in cognitive studies of normal memory, but hardly at all in neuropsychological research with amnesic patients. The present experiment examined false recall and recognition of nonstudied words that are preceded by a list of strong associates. We used the Deese (1959) paradigm, recently revived by Roediger and McDermott (1995), in which people frequently claim that nonstudied words appeared on a presented list. Results showed that amnesic patients were less susceptible to false recognition than were matched controls and showed different patterns of false recall. To account for the observed differences between amnesics and controls, we suggest that false recognition of nonstudied words preceded by numerous associates depends on the same kinds of semantic and associative information about study list words that also supports accurate recognition. Amnesic patients do not retain such information, resulting in poor recollection of study list words and decreased susceptibility to false recognition.