yes / The aim of the experiment reported here was to investigate the processes underlying the construction of truthful and deliberately fabricated memories. Properties of memories created to be intentionally false (fabricated memories) were compared to properties of memories believed to be true (true memories). Participants recalled and then wrote or spoke true memories and fabricated memories of everyday events. It was found that true memories were reliably more vivid than fabricated memories and were nearly always recalled from a first-person perspective. In contrast, fabricated differed from true memories in that they were judged to be reliably older, were more frequently recalled from a third-person perspective, and linguistic analysis revealed that they required more cognitive effort to generate. No notable differences were found across modality of reporting. Finally, it was found that intentionally fabricated memories were created by recalling and then “editing” true memories. Overall, these findings show that true and fabricated memories systematically differ, despite the fact that both are based on true memories.

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Yes / Participants generated both autobiographical memories (AMs) that they believed to be true and intentionally fabricated autobiographical memories (IFAMs). Memories were constructed while a concurrent memory load (random 8-digit sequence) was held in mind or while there was no concurrent load. Amount and accuracy of recall of the concurrent memory load was reliably poorer following generation of IFAMs than following generation of AMs. There was no reliable effect of load on memory generation times; however, IFAMs always took longer to construct than AMs. Finally, replicating previous findings, fewer IFAMs had a field perspective than AMs, IFAMs were less vivid than AMs, and IFAMs contained more motion words (indicative of increased cognitive load). Taken together, these findings show a pattern of systematic differences that mark out IFAMs, and they also show that IFAMs can be identified indirectly by lowered performance on concurrent tasks that increase cognitive load.