“You and your best friend Suzy put Slime in Ms. Smollett’s desk”: Producing false

1090 Interest in false memories continues to increase, in conjunction with advances in related areas of research and the widespread attention given to real life instances wherein memory accuracy has been questioned. Instead of exemplifying literal representations of original experience, it is now widely held that autobiographical memory is best conceptualized as a reconstructive process involving information from many sources (Schacter & Addis, 2007). For example, the postevent contamination of memory is well documented (Loftus, 2003). In other research, the creation of false autobiographical memories has been investigated. One empirical approach to memory falsification is the familial-informant false-narrative procedure (Lindsay, Hagan, Read, Wade, & Garry, 2004). In this procedure, descriptions of childhood events are provided by participants’ parents. Participants are then presented with true event descriptions and one event fabricated by researchers. Over several interviews, participants are encouraged to recall unremembered events, often using procedures that are purported to aid memory recovery, such as imagination. In a review of nine studies using these methods, Lindsay et al. calculated a mean false memory rate of 31%. Recent studies (see below) have demonstrated even more dramatic rates. Research has thus shown that false memory creation is a robust phenomenon. However, it remains unclear which factors drive their development. Numerous manipulations occur in these complex studies, and many variables operate within and between studies. Some factors have been investigated, such as event plausibility (Pezdek, Finger, & Hodge, 1997) and the effects of imagination (Hyman & Pentland, 1996). Other factors, such as social pressure or parental provision of information, are not as well understood. In the spirit of “dismantling” these complex studies (Scoboria, Mazzoni, Kirsch, & Jimenez, 2006), the present study investigates one potentially relevant factor, the nature of details provided to participants within target false events. Recent false memory studies have focused upon the media for presenting false events. Wade, Garry, Read, and Lindsay (2002) explored the potential for doctored photographs to foster false memories. After participants viewed a false photograph depicting them on a hot air balloon ride, 50% were judged as having developed some degree of memory. Subsequently, Lindsay et al. (2004) used standard narrative methodology to suggest a target event (getting in trouble at school), and provided half of the participants with a class picture from the grade when the event allegedly took place, to “aid in recall. ” When provided the photograph, an astonishing 72.8% of participants were judged to have created false memories (65.2%) or images (13%) associated with the false event, compared to 45.5% receiving the narrative alone. Interested in exploring the apparent differences between narratives and photographs in fostering false memories, Garry and Wade (2005) studied their relative effects. Participants were informed about a fabricated hot air balloon ride in either narrative or photographic form. After three interviews, 50% of the photograph condition participants “You and your best friend Suzy put Slime in Ms. Smollett’s desk”: Producing false memories with selfrelevant details