Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience, 3rd Edition

216 • CHAPTER 8 Everyday Memory and Memory Errors

test, participants were told that all of

the names they had seen in the fi rst part

of the experiment were nonfamous.

Because the test was given shortly after

the participants had seen the fi rst list

of nonfamous names, they correctly

identifi ed most of the old nonfamous

names (like Sebastian Weissdorf and

Valerie Marsh) as being nonfamous.

The interesting result occurred

in the delayed test, which happened

24  hours later. When tested on the

same list of names a day later, partici-

pants were more likely to identify the

old nonfamous names as being famous.

Thus, even though they may have iden-

tifi ed Sebastian Weissdorf as not being

famous in the immediate test, his name was more likely to be labeled as famous 24 hours

later. Because of this result, Jacoby’s paper is titled “Becoming Famous Overnight.”

How did Sebastian Weissdorf become famous overnight? To answer this question,

put yourself in the place of one of Jacoby’s participants. It is 24 hours since you saw the

fi rst list of nonfamous names, and you now have to decide whether Sebastian Weissdorf

is famous or nonfamous. How do you make your decision? Sebastian Weissdorf doesn’t

pop out as someone you know of, but the name is familiar. You ask yourself the question:

“Why is this name familiar?” This is a source monitoring problem, because to answer this

question you need to determine the source of your familiarity. Are you familiar with the

name Sebastian Weissdorf because you saw it 24 hours earlier, or because it is the name

of a famous person? Apparently, some of Jacoby’s participants decided that the familiar-

ity was caused by fame, so the previously unknown Sebastian Weissdorf became famous!

Later in the chapter, when we consider some of the issues involved in determining

the accuracy of eyewitness testimony, we will see that situations that create a sense of

familiarity can lead to source monitoring errors, such as identifying the wrong person

as having been at the scene of a crime.

Remembering Who Said What: Source Monitoring and Gender Stereotypes When

in doubt about what we remember, we often make use of what we know about the

world, and often we do this unconsciously. An example is provided by an experiment

by Richard Marsh and coworkers (2006), which showed that people’s performance on

a source monitoring task can be infl uenced by gender stereotypes. They used the follow-

ing method to test for source monitoring.

METHOD Testing for Source Monitoring

In a typical memory experiment, items such as words, pictures, or statements are presented,

and the participant’s task in a later test session is to either recall or recognize as many of the

previously presented items as possible. In a source monitoring experiment, items are presented

that originate from specifi c sources, and the participant’s task in the later test session is to indi-

cate which source was associated with each item. For example, participants can be presented

with a number of statements, such as “‘I went to the party today,’ John said,” or “‘I have a feeling

that the Mets are going to win tonight,’ Sally said. ” Later, in the source memory test, partici-

pants are presented with each statement, but without the speaker’s name, and are asked to

indicate who the speaker was. Source monitoring errors occur when the statement is attributed

to the wrong person. Thus, the key result in a source memory experiment is not what proportion

of items were remembered (although those data can be collected in the experiment), but what

proportion of items were paired with the correct source.

Read nonfamous

names from

acquisition plus

new nonfamous

names and new

famous names.

Q: Which are

famous?

Same as

immediate

test.

Result: Most nonfamous

names correctly identified

as nonfamous

Result: Some

nonfamous

names

misidentified

as famous

Wait

24 hours

Acquisition Immediate test Delayed test

Read

nonfamous

names.

●FIGURE 8.10 Design of Jacoby et al.’s (1989) “Becoming Famous Overnight”

experiment.

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