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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Sep 13, 2025

Using a Classroom-Based Deese Roediger McDermott Paradigm to Assess the Effects of Imagery on False Memories

Using a Classroom-Based Deese Roediger McDermott Paradigm to Assess the Effects of Imagery on False Memories

Published on: November 14, 2018

Memory distrust and imagination inflation: A registered report.

Iwona Dudek^1,2, Romuald Polczyk²

¹Doctoral School in the Social Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland.

|August 1, 2025

Summary

Memory distrust does not increase susceptibility to imagination inflation, even when aware of discrepancies. Individuals distrusting their memory show similar effects to those who trust their memory.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Memory Research

Background:

Imagination inflation is a phenomenon where imagining an event increases confidence it occurred.
Understanding factors influencing this memory distortion is crucial for memory research.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the relationship between memory distrust and imagination inflation.
To examine if traits like disengagement from reality moderate this effect.
To test if memory distrust mediates the link between self-esteem and imagination inflation.

Main Methods:

279 participants assessed and reassessed confidence in childhood events after imagining them.
A memory distrust induction procedure was applied to half the participants.
Sensitization to discrepancies between actual and imagined memories was employed.

Main Results:

Memory distrust, as a trait, was not correlated with the imagination inflation effect.
Memory distrust, as a state, did not influence susceptibility in sensitized groups.
No significant moderation or mediation effects were found for the tested variables.

Conclusions:

Individuals distrustful of their memory are not more prone to imagination inflation.
Awareness of discrepancies does not heighten the effect in memory-distrusting individuals.
The study challenges assumptions about the role of memory distrust in memory distortions.