Sharman Stefanie J, Garry Maryanne, Beuke Carl J
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
Am J Psychol. 2004 Summer;117(2):157-68.
To examine the effects of exposure to complex autobiographical events on imagination inflation, subjects performed a 3-stage procedure. First, they rated their confidence that a list of events had happened in their childhood. Second, subjects imagined and paraphrased complex fictitious events 0, 1, 3, or 5 times. Finally, they rated their confidence for the childhood events a second time. We found that subjects became more confident that the fictitious events really did happen in childhood, regardless of whether they were imagined or paraphrased. There was no repetition effect beyond that of a single exposure. Taken together with the results of other research, our data suggest that the greater processing fluency associated with the target events drives imagination inflation.
为了研究接触复杂自传体事件对想象膨胀的影响，受试者进行了一个三阶段程序。首先，他们对一系列事件在其童年时期发生的可能性进行评分。其次，受试者对复杂虚构事件进行0次、1次、3次或5次的想象和释义。最后，他们再次对童年事件的可能性进行评分。我们发现，受试者更加确信虚构事件确实发生在童年时期，无论这些事件是被想象还是被释义过。除了单次接触的影响外，没有重复效应。结合其他研究结果，我们的数据表明，与目标事件相关的更高加工流畅性会导致想象膨胀。
