Attentional cueing induces false memory

•Effects of attentional cueing on Remember/Know recognition judgments were assessed.•Stimulus position was predicted or unpredicted by an arrow (cue validity=50%).•Invalid cueing increased familiarity-based false recognition.•Attentional cueing induces unintentional processing about the source of fluency.•This unintentional processing may bias recognition memory judgments. The fluency of stimulus processing significantly contributes to recognition memory judgments. We investigated the effect of processing fluency induced by attentional cueing on recognition judgments. Participants performed a Remember/Know recognition test, while their spatial attention was manipulated in the test session. Stimulus location was either predicted (congruent condition) or unpredicted (incongruent condition) using an arrow cue. The results revealed that familiarity-based false recognition increased in the incongruent condition wherein the participants may have attributed part of the perceived disfluency to the attentional cue, and they may have overestimated the fluency for the stimulus, leading to increased false recognition. However, in the congruent condition, the participants may have attributed some parts of the perceived fluency to the attentional cue and underestimated the fluency for the stimulus, leading to decreased false recognition. In sum, stimulus-irrelevant attentional cueing induces unintentional processing about the source of fluency and biases recognition memory.