Reconstructive Memory and Stereotyped Biasing

ABSTRACT

I examined the reconstructive processes of remembering past events when new information is made available. Analyses with a variety of materials and conditions failed to reveal effects for distortion in recognition memory for retrospective label manipulations. Effects of prior knowledge were consistently strong and highly resistant to subsequent biasing information. The results suggest that people are less susceptible to thematic-based, stereotypic information and possess a memory network more flexible than traditional research implies.