CRYPTOMNESIA AND SOURCE MEMORY DIFFICULTIES

Cryptomnesia, or inadvertent plagiarism, and its relationship to memory monitoring difficulties was investigated. Subjects took turns orally generating category exemplars in 3-person groups. Immediately, or one week later, they were given a test for recall (own and new exemplars) or recognition/identification (own, others', and new). The incidence of inadvertent plagiarisms during generation replicated earlier findings (Brown & Murphy, 1989). Other varieties of cryptomnesia (recalling others' responses as one's own or new) increased over one week. Plagiarized words usually came from the initial portion of the generation series and from the person speaking just before the "plagiarizer." Forgetting the source of the previous items (self or others) also increased over one week, and at a greater rate than cryptomnesia. Cryptomnesia was statistically unrelated to either source forgetting or recognition, suggesting that cryptomnesia is separable from conscious recollection.