False Memory for Categorized Pictures and Words: The Category Associates Procedure for Studying Memory Errors in Children and Adults

Subjects studied lists of category exemplars with the highest and lowest frequency exemplars of those categories excluded. In Experiment 1, first and fifth grade children and college students falsely recognized pictures of related-high-frequency category exemplars more than related-low-frequency or unrelated exemplars. The magnitude of this false memory effect was comparable across all age groups and it increased after a 3-day delay. In Experiment 2, college students falsely recognized related-high-frequency word exemplars more than related-low-frequency or unrelated exemplars when exposure duration at study was 2 s or 20 ms per item. Similar to recent findings with converging associates (Seamon et al., 1998, even subjects who could not recognize list words following rapid exposure still demonstrated false memory of related-nonstudied category exemplars. These findings were discussed in terms of implicit activation and fuzzy trace interpretations of false memory.