Abstract
We conducted two experiments to investigate how test delay influences qualitative and temporal order judgments in source monitoring. In both experiments, participants were either presented with pictures or asked to create mental images on day 1 and day 2. In Experiment 1, stimulus items were presented three times on day 1 and once on day 2, while in Experiment 2, the items were presented only once on both days. Seven days later, there was a bias in the source judgments with the participants being more likely to attribute the source of test items to mental images than to the pictures for qualitative judgments in both experiments. However, in terms of temporal order judgments, the participants only attributed the source of items to day 1, where they were presented three times, in Experiment 1, while the accuracy of temporal order judgments in Experiment 2 dropped to chance levels. These results suggest that for qualitative judgments there is a response bias toward the weaker source, and that temporal order judgments are not possible after seven days, where the contextual information is controlled.
