Author:

Abstract:

The Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm is commonly used in research on false memories. In a learning phase, lists of related words are presented to participants and in the test phase, participants have to identify previously seen words. Crucial items (critical lures) involve words that are not presented but related to a previously seen list. In the present study, we rely on the paradigm to compare two models of semantics. The first model relies on text corpora and assumes that external language representations are sufficient to capture mental representations. The second model relies on human word associations and assumes that other types of information make a crucial contribution. We constructed two 15-words lists for each of 24 targets, selecting the 15 most similar words on the basis of either model. In total, 80 participants completed the task. Critical lure recognition will be compared between list types and implications will be discussed.