Abstract
The effects of detailed misinformation about unseen items on false recall are examined. Pairs of participants saw pictures of six scenes. Half of the participants were presented with three critical items that were not seen by the other participants. In a subsequent collaborative recall test, the participant pairs orally reported about items included in each scene. Under an item condition, the participants were asked to recall item names, while under a detail condition, the participants were asked to recall item names, together with information about their colors, shapes, and locations. In this way, the participants who had not seen the critical items would hear misinformation about them during the test. On completion of the test, individual recall tests were conducted, as well as remember/know judgments about the recalled items. The frequencies of false recalls for critical items did not differ under the item and detail conditions. Remember judgments for false recalls were observed in the item condition but not in the detail condition. These results are discussed in terms of source monitoring.
