1. Can People Distinguish
Between True, False, and
Fabricated Memories?
Suzanne O. Kaasa* Cara Laney+ Elizabeth F. Loftus*
Department of Psychology and Social Behavior
University of California, Irvine*
School of Psychology
University of Leicester+

2. Importance of Memory Judgments

3. False vs. Fabricated Memories
 False Memory: individuals describe a memory
that they believe to be true, but in reality is not
(source confusion).
 Fabricated Memory: individuals describe a
memory that they know is not true (deception).

4. Judging Memory
 Individuals are not good at accurately
distinguishing between true and false memories
or true vs. fabricated memories (Campbell & Porter,
2002; Leichtman & Ceci, 1995; for review see Kassin & Gudjonsson,
2004).
 Bias towards Truth
(Edelstein et al., 2006; Vrij & Baxter, 1999)

5. Study Purpose
 True vs. False vs. Fabricated memories
 Predictors of accuracy and judgment type
 Characteristics of participants
 Characteristics of memories

6. Study Design
Memory
Clip
Memory
Judgments
Questionnaires
Memory Clip
Memory
Judgments
17 Clips Total
Memory
Judgments

7. Memory Clips
 17 different memories
 Randomly presented: True vs. False vs.
Fabricated
 3 individuals
 6 Fabricated, 6 True, 5 False
 False “proof”: infantile amnesia,
corroboration, etc.

8. Memory Judgments
 True vs. False vs. Fabricated
 Confidence in their memory judgment
 Plausibility
 Detail
 Emotionality

9. Individual Differences
 Age
 Gender
 GPA (high school and undergrad)
 SAT

10. Individual Differences
 Eysenck Abbreviated Personality Scale
(Francis, Brown & Philipchalk, 1992)
 extraversion
 neuroticism
 psychoticism
 lying
 Autism-Spectrum Quotient Measure (Baron-
Cohen, Wheelwright, Skinner, Martin, & Clubley, 2001)

11. Method
 111 subjects
 81% female
 Mean age 21

12. Accuracy
 Subjects were on average correct 38% of the time
 Range from 1 (6%) correct judgment to 12 (71%)
0
5
10
15
20
25
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Number of Memories Accurately Judged
PercentofSubjects

13. Individual Differences
 Age: ns
 Sex: ns
 GPA: ns
 SAT: ns

14. Personality Characteristics
 Eysenck subscales of extraversion,
neuroticism, psychoticism, and lying: ns
 Autism-Spectrum Quotient
 Accuracy: ns
 Lower plausibility ratings, p < .05
 More False memory judgments, p < .01

15. Memory Bias
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Actual True Judged True
PercentofSubjects

16. Memory Characteristics
 Total Accuracy
 More detail associated with less accuracy, p < .05
 True Label
 Higher plausibility (p = .08) and emotionality (p < .05)
associated with True label
 Fabricated Label
 Higher confidence associated with Fabricated label,
p < .05
 False Label = ns

17. Summary
 Wide range in accuracy, but on average people were
accurate less than half the time.
 Subjects used cues from the memories such as detail,
plausibility, and emotionality when making their
judgments.
 Of the individual differences studied, only autistic traits
was a significant predictor of memory judgments.

18. Implications & Further Directions
 Importance of True, False and Fabricated
memories
 Cues may mislead individuals
 Identifying individual differences in accuracy
and judgment biases

19. Acknowledgements
 Undergraduate Research Assistants
 Tyler Han
 Janet Kim
 Kelly Dorsey