Concerns about confounds: False memory as an explanation for a hippocampus-supported implicit eye-movement-based relational memory effect

Steinkrauss and Slotnick (2024) propose that implicit eye-movement-based relational memory effects, predicted by hippocampal activity differences (Hannula & Ranganath, 2009), are due to an explicit false memory confound. However, the logic behind this claim is insufficiently fleshed out and alternative accounts of how false memory may have played out in this task were not considered. One such account would predict a pattern of results counter to the observed fMRI results, and another would be consistent with our original conclusions. These alternatives are described along with converging evidence from an additional fMRI study that was not considered by Steinkrauss and Slotnick.