Abstract
The present experiments suggest that imagery perspective—first person (own) versus third person (observer’s)—influences source-monitoring judgments. Imagination inflation (Garry, Manning, Loftus, & Sherman, 1996) occurs when imaginary experience with events is mistaken for real experience. In Experiment 1, the perspective used to visualize real past events depended on memory test wording (“remember doing?” vs. “happened to you?”). Experiment 2 manipulated the perspective used to visually imagine counterfactual events and showed that the effect on imagination inflation depended on memory test wording. Imagination inflation was most likely when memory test wording encouraged participants to visualize real events from the same perspective as they had used to imagine counterfactual ones. Imagination inflation may result not simply from having created imaginary representations of events, but also from having created representations that match the decision criteria used in source monitoring.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Barclay, J. R., Bransford, J. D., Franks, J. J., McCarrell, N. S., &Nitsch, K. (1974). Comprehension and semantic flexibility.Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior,13, 471–481.
Bernstein, D. M., Whittlesea, B. W. A., &Loftus, E. F. (2002). Increasing confidence in remote autobiographical memory and general knowledge: Extensions of the revelation effect.Memory & Cognition,30, 432–438.
Binks, M. L., Marsh, R. L., &Hicks, J. L. (1999). An alternative conceptualization to memory “strength” in reality monitoring.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,25, 804–809.
Dodson, C. S., &Johnson, M. K. (1993). Rate of false source attributions depends on how questions are asked.American Journal of Psychology,106, 541–557.
Garry, M., Manning, C. G., Loftus, E. F., &Sherman, S. J. (1996). Imagination inflation: Imagining a childhood event inflates confidence that it occurred.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,3, 208–214.
Garry, M., &Polaschek, D. L. L. (2000). Imagination and memory.Current Directions in Psychological Science,9, 6–10.
Goff, L. M., &Roediger, H. L., III (1998). Imagination inflation for action events: Repeated imaginings lead to illusory recollections.Memory & Cognition,26, 20–33.
Heaps, C., &Nash, M. (1999). Individual differences in imagination inflation.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,6, 313–318.
James, W. (1950).The principles of psychology (Vol. 1). New York: Dover. (Originally published 1890)
Johnson, M. K., Foley, M., Suengas, A. G., &Raye, C. L. (1988). Phenomenal characteristics of memories for perceived and imagined autobiographical events.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,117, 371–376.
Johnson, M. K., Hashtroudi, S., &Lindsay, D. S. (1993). Source monitoring.Psychological Bulletin,114, 3–28.
Johnson, M. K., Nolde, S. F., Mather, M., Kounios, J., Schacter, D. L., &Curran, T. (1997). The similarity of brain activity associated with true and false recognition memory depends on test format.Psychological Science,8, 250–257.
Johnson, M. K., Raye, C. L., Foley, H. J., &Foley, M. A. (1981). Cognitive operations and decision bias in reality monitoring.American Journal of Psychology,94, 37–64.
Libby, L. K. (2003).Seeing meaning: Imagery perspective, action identification, and perceptions of change in the self. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Cornell University.
Libby, L. K., &Eibach, R. P. (2002). Looking back in time: Self-concept change affects visual perspective in autobiographical memory.Journal of Personality & Social Psychology,2, 167–179.
Lindsay, D. S., &Johnson, M. K. (1989). The eyewitness suggestibility effect and memory for source.Memory & Cognition,17, 349–358.
Manning, C. G., Garry, M., Assefi, S., & Loftus, E. F. (1999).Imagination inflation: Changing autobiographical memory by imagining others. Unpublished manuscript.
Marsh, R. L., &Hicks, J. L. (1998). Test formats change source-monitoring decision process.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,24, 1137–1151.
Nigro, G., &Neisser, U. (1983). Point of view in personal memories.Cognitive Psychology,15, 467–482.
Paddock, J. R., Joseph, A. L., Chan, F. M., Terranova, S., Manning, C., &Loftus, E. F. (1998). When guided visualization procedures may backfire: Imagination inflation and predicting individual differences in suggestibility.Applied Cognitive Psychology,12, S63-S75.
Robinson, J. A., &Swanson, K. L. (1993). Field and observer modes of remembering.Memory,1, 169–184.
Thomson, D. M., &Tulving, E. (1970). Associative encoding and retrieval: Weak and strong cues.Journal of Experimental Psychology,86, 255–262.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Libby, L.K. Imagery perspective and source monitoring in imagination inflation. Memory & Cognition 31, 1072–1081 (2003). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196128
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196128