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Exploring the role of repetition and sensory elaboration in the imagination inflation effect

Memory & Cognition volume 31, pages630–640(2003)Cite this article

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to examine whether a misattribution of specific characteristics or a misattribution of global familiarity underlies false memories as assessed through imagination inflation. Using the paradigm developed by Goff and Roediger (1998), we found that the proportion of false memories increased with repeated imagination, replicating the imagination inflation effect. False memories developed through imagination were greatest in conditions that forced participants to include sensory detail in their imaginings. Finally, conscious recollection more often accompanied false memories in perceptually detailed imagination conditions, whereas feelings of familiarity more often accompanied false memories in conditions that lacked sensory cues. These results suggest that imagination that contains more perceptual information leads to more elaborate memory representations containing specific characteristics that can be confused with actually performed actions. Confusion based on these representations, as opposed to confusion based on processing fluency, is more likely to lead to false memories.

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Author information

Affiliations

  1. Psychology Department, Washington University, One Brookings Drive, Box 1125, 63130-4899, St. Louis, MO

    Ayanna K. Thomas & John B. Bulevich

  2. University of California, Irvine, California

    Elizabeth F. Loftus

Authors
  1. Ayanna K. Thomas
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  2. John B. Bulevich
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  3. Elizabeth F. Loftus
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ayanna K. Thomas.

Additional information

The results of these experiments have been presented at the 12th Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Society, Miami, June 2000, and at the 2nd Annual Northwest Conference on Cognition and Memory in Bellingham, WA, June 2000. This manuscript benefited from comments by Mary Ann Foley, Colleen Kelley, and Karen Mitchell.

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Thomas, A.K., Bulevich, J.B. & Loftus, E.F. Exploring the role of repetition and sensory elaboration in the imagination inflation effect. Memory & Cognition 31, 630–640 (2003). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196103

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Keywords

  • False Memory
  • Mixed ANOVA
  • Text Presentation
  • Familiar Action
  • Perceptual Detail