Publications [#154208] of Elizabeth Marsh
Journal Articles
- Brown, A. S., & Marsh, E. J (in press).
Creating illusions of past encounter through brief exposure.. Psychological Science.
(last updated on 2008/12/31)Abstract:
Titchener (1928) suggested that briefly glancing at a scene could make it appear strangely familiar when it was fully processed moments later. The closest laboratory demonstration used words as stimuli, and showed that briefly glancing at a to-be-judged word increased belief that it had been presented in an earlier study list (Jacoby & Whitehouse, 1989). We evaluated whether a hasty glance could elicit a false belief in an encounter from a much earlier time and another place, outside of the experiment. This goal precluded using word stimuli, so we had subjects evaluate unfamiliar symbols. Each symbol was preceded by a brief exposure to an identical symbol, a different symbol, or no symbol. A brief glance at a symbol increased attributions to pre-experimental experience, relative to a glance at a different symbol or no glance at all, providing a possible mechanism for common illusions of false recognition.