Aging and false memories: Comparing effects of item-relatedness and list position

Semantic false memories are traditionally more frequent from early list positions and thought to arise from presumed long-term memory stores whereas phonological false memories traditionally are more frequent from late list positions and thought to arise from presumed short-term memory stores. However, recent research with younger adults challenges this distinction, finding semantic and phonological false memories across stores and list positions (Atkins & Reuter-Lorenz, 2008; Dimsdale-Zucker et al., 2018; Flegal et al., 2010). Since aging is thought to differently influence integrity of short- and long-term memory, we compared performance between younger (YAs) and older (OAs) adults using a modified Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm to understand whether semantic and phonological memories depend on distinct or shared underlying memory stores. We examined false memory generation across age groups, list composition (semantic, phonological), and putative memory stores. OAs recalled fewer items than YAs, but both groups generated more phonological than semantic false memories. Notably, list position did not influence false memories in either YAs or OAs, suggesting false memory generation is driven by list composition rather than putative memory store. These findings challenge traditional views of memory organization by revealing shared cognitive processes, which transcend traditional memory system distinctions, underlie semantic and phonological false memories.