An Exploration On Familiarity And Sensory Elaboration Of Imagination Inflation

This study explored the phenomenon of imagination inflation. The term was first used in a study by Garry, Manning, Loftus& Sherman(1996).Imagination inflation had provided a new paradigm for the false memory research. Afterwards many researchers had conducted extensive research on the autobiographical memory, the recent memory as well as the simple action memory. Many scholars attempted to explain this false memory phenomenon with some theories. Source-Monitoring Framework and Familiarity-Attribution Theory were two main theories.This research first reorganized the researches about the imagination inflation, then explored the role of familiarity and sensory elaboration in Imagination Inflation.In test 1, I Controlled familiarity and specific characteristics by different types of imagining and different numbers of imagining. The result indicated that As imagined more the error rate was higher;Under the elaborate condition, It would produce bigger imagination inflation than under the simple condition. The R judgment result also indicated that along with repeat imagining,false memory would be more and more vivid; It was more vivid Under the elaborate imagining than under the simple imagining. Tested 1 confirmed that Maybe the familiarity and sensory elaboration both play a role in imagination inflation.In test 2, Setting different types of imagining to confirm how two factors influence imagination inflation. Types of imagining include elaborate imagining, individual imagining and text present. Under the elaborate imagining, We provided the detailed descriptions including three sentences and asked participants to imagine actions according these descriptions; Under individual imagining, asked participants to read action description of one sentence, then adding two sensation details in their imagination; So both individual imagining and the elaborate imagining had contained...