Consider a test of your memory when a series of 15 words is presented to you one at a time. Then you are asked to recall as many as you can. This is called the recall test. After that you are presented with another list of words, one at a time. Some of the words were presented in the original series, and others are new. For each word, you are asked to indicate whether you remember seeing that word in the list. This is called the recognition test.
After the test recall and recognition scores can be determined. You can also construct a table with its first column showing the actual series of 15 words in the order presented. The second column can display the words you recalled correctly. If you "recalled" any words that were not in the original list, write them down in the space beneath the line. The third column can show the words from the recognition task and your judgment ("presented" or "new") about each word. Pay special attention to the words that were not on the original list, so if you "recalled" or "recognized" such a word, you have just experienced what researchers call a false memory.
People like to believe that their memories of an event closely match what actually happened. But researchers have demonstrated that false recognition (a feeling of familiarity about something that hasn’t been encountered yet) often occurs. Once these memories are established, they feel very authentic - as real as memories of actual events. One method of inducing false recognition involves presenting information that evokes a familiar context. Later, the person will remember the gist of that information rather than the actual details, and this can create a false memory of having heard or seen other information related to that context. For example, hearing the words nurse, patient, and surgery will evoke the context of a hospital. Because doctors are associated with this context, people may later remember hearing the word doctor, even though that word was not said.
When people hear the words yawn, bed, and wake, later they will probably recall hearing the word sleep. Why does this memory error happen?