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Under the Behavior

False memory test: 15 words, then write what you remember

In a 1995 study, students wrote down a word that was never on the list on 55% of the lists. Roediger and McDermott, 1995

False memory test

You see 15 words, one at a time, at the study's pace of about one every 1.5 seconds. Then you write down every word you remember, in any order. The page shows which ones you got.

This test runs on JavaScript, in your browser only. With it turned off, the steps and the study's numbers are below.

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How it works

  1. 1Watch

    Fifteen words, one at a time, at the study's pace.

  2. 2Write

    Every word you remember, in any order.

  3. 3Check

    See which words came back, and what the list was built around.

What Roediger and McDermott found in 1995

Recall in Roediger and McDermott's Experiment 2
  • Words that were on the lists62%
  • The word that was never on the list55%
Roediger and McDermott, 1995
55%

of the lists, 30 students wrote down the word the list was built around, a word they never heard.

Experiment 2 · Roediger and McDermott, 1995
62%

of the time, the words that really were on the lists came back.

Experiment 2 · Roediger and McDermott, 1995
More from the paper
Subjects recalled the critical nonpresented word on 55% of the lists.
Quoted from Roediger and McDermott, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 1995

The method goes back to a 1959 study by Deese. In 1995 the students heard the words read aloud on tape. Here you read them on the screen.

Questions

Is this a clinical memory test, or a test for OCD?

No. It is not a test for any condition. It shows how one word list from a 1995 study works.

Where does the word list come from?

It is one of the published lists from Roediger and McDermott's 1995 paper, in its published order.

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Sources (2)

  1. Roediger, H. L., III, and McDermott, K. B. (1995). Creating false memories: Remembering words not presented in lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21(4), 803 to 814. doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.21.4.803
  2. Deese, J. (1959). On the prediction of occurrence of particular verbal intrusions in immediate recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 58(1), 17 to 22. doi.org/10.1037/h0046671

The 15 words are the published list. The rest of the test is our own build.