Shared Realities: Social Influence and Stimulus Memory

In two studies, participants read a story and then completed a multiple choice recognition test assessing recall for facts from the story. After answering some of the recognition test items, participants were shown a tally of other participants' responses to the same items. However, these bogus tallies were controlled by the experimenter. Later, participants' memory for story facts was again assessed, this time using a cued recall test. The data indicate that participants' memory responses on the story cued recall test sometimes changed from the memory responses given on the initial story recognition test. The changes often matched the most frequent response given by the bogus others. This effect was more likely when apparent agreement among the bogus responses was high, and less likely when item memorability was high. In Study 1, evidence of such response alterations was still present, even when recall for others' responses was taken into account. In Study 2, these response alterations were observed even when participants were explicitly told that the responses of others were bogus. We conclude that attending to the bogus responses of others sometimes influenced participants' recall for story facts.