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Updated: May 18, 2026

Using a Classroom-Based Deese Roediger McDermott Paradigm to Assess the Effects of Imagery on False Memories
Published on: November 14, 2018
False recognition of objects in visual scenes: findings from a combined direct and indirect memory test
Yana Weinstein1, Robert A Nash
1Department of Psychology, Washington University, One Brookings Drive, Box 1125, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA. y.weinstein@wustl.edu
Abstract:
We report an extension of the procedure devised by Weinstein and Shanks (Memory & Cognition 36:1415-1428, 2008) to study false recognition and priming of pictures. Participants viewed scenes with multiple embedded objects (seen items), then studied the names of these objects and the names of other objects (read items). Finally, participants completed a combined direct (recognition) and indirect (identification) memory test that included seen items, read items, and new items. In the direct test, participants recognized pictures of seen and read items more often than new pictures. In the indirect test, participants' speed at identifying those same pictures was improved for pictures that they had actually studied, and also for falsely recognized pictures whose names they had read. These data provide new evidence that a false-memory induction procedure can elicit memory-like representations that are difficult to distinguish from "true" memories of studied pictures.
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