Flexible retrieval: When true inferences produce false memories.

ABSTRACT: Episodic memory involves flexible retrieval processes that allow us to link together distinct episodes, make novel inferences across overlapping events, and recombine elements of past experiences when imagining future events. However, the same flexible retrieval and recombination processes that underpin these adaptive functions may also leave memory prone to error or distortion, such as source misattributions in which details of one event are mistakenly attributed to another related event. To determine whether the same recombination-related retrieval mechanism supports both successful inference and source memory errors, we developed a modified version of an associative inference paradigm in which participants encoded everyday scenes comprised of people, objects, and other contextual detail

SUBMITTER: Carpenter AC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5334182 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature