NotesFAQContact Us
Collection
Advanced
Search Tips
50 Years of ERIC
50 Years of ERIC
The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) is celebrating its 50th Birthday! First opened on May 15th, 1964 ERIC continues the long tradition of ongoing innovation and enhancement.

Learn more about the history of ERIC here. PDF icon

Back to results
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
ERIC Number: EJ884824
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010-May
Pages: 25
Abstractor: As Provided
Reference Count: 60
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0278-7393
Remembering in Contradictory Minds: Disjunction Fallacies in Episodic Memory
Brainerd, C. J.; Reyna, V. F.; Aydin, C.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, v36 n3 p711-735 May 2010
Disjunction fallacies have been extensively studied in probability judgment. They should also occur in episodic memory, if remembering a cue's episodic state depends on how its state is described on a memory test (e.g., being described as a target vs. as a distractor). If memory is description-dependent, cues will be remembered as occupying logically impossible combinations of episodic states (e.g., as being a target "and" a distractor). Consistent with this idea, memory disjunction fallacies were repeatedly detected in a series of experiments, at the level of individuals as well as at the level of groups. Disjunction fallacies varied as a function of manipulations that should affect description-dependency, such as type of test cue, immediate versus delayed testing, word frequency, and emotional valence. Response bias, as well as description-dependency, contributed to disjunction fallacies, as predicted by fuzzy-trace theory's retrieval model. The significance of these findings for memory is that a new form of episodic distortion, description-dependent memory, has been added to the 2 traditional forms (forgetting and false memory). The significance for probability judgment is that disjunction fallacies, which have customarily been explained as by-products of memory retrieval, may be wholly or partly due to the uncontrolled influence of response bias. (Contains 1 figure, 4 tables and 3 footnotes.)
American Psychological Association. Journals Department, 750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242. Tel: 800-374-2721; Tel: 202-336-5510; Fax: 202-336-5502; e-mail: order@apa.org; Web site: http://www.apa.org/publications
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers: N/A