The effect of study modality on false recognition

A number of previous studies have shown that false recognition of critical items in the Deese/Roediger-McDermott paradigm is reduced when study items are presented visually rather than auditorily; however, this effect has not been uniformly demonstrated. We investigated three potential boundary conditions of the effect of study modality in false recognition. Experiments 1 and 2 showed no reduction in false recognition following visual study presentation when the yes-no recognition test was not preceded by a recall test. Experiment 3 showed that visual study presentation can reduce false recognition without a preceding recall test, if the recognition test uses remember-know instructions. The order of the recognition test items did not influence the effect of visual study presentation on false recognition in Experiment 1. In general, the data imply that distinctive processing at study can reduce false memory in recognition if the test demands draw attention to the dimension of distinctive processing.