Revisiting the Plausibility Effect in Remembering Truth and Falsity: An Analysis of Underlying Memory and Guessing Processes

Daria Ford; Lena Nadarevic

doi:10.5334/joc.459

Revisiting the Plausibility Effect in Remembering Truth and Falsity: An Analysis of Underlying Memory and Guessing Processes

Journal of Cognition

Volume 8 (2025): Issue 1

By: Daria Ford and Lena Nadarevic

Open Access

|Sep 2025

Figures & Tables

The three-sources variant of the two-high-threshold model.
*Note*. The four processing trees refer to different statement conditions while branches represent cognitive processes underlying a particular response (“true”, “false”, “?”, “new”). The model’s parameters reflect item memory (D), feedback memory (d), and different guessing processes (*b, a*, and g).

Mean scores (SE) for the Conditional Source/Feedback Identification Measure (CSIM) and the Source/Feedback Identification Measure (SIM), depending on statement type (plausible vs. implausible) and veracity feedback (true vs. false).

Table 1

Conducted parameter tests.

TEST	DESCRIPTION	TESTED PARAMETER CONSTRAINTS
1	Test of Hypothesis 1	D_P,true = D_P,false, D_I,true = D_I,false
2a	Test of Hypothesis 2	d_P,true = d_P,false, d_I,true = d_I,false
2b	Post-hoc test	s_P,d = s_I,d
3	Test of Hypothesis 3	a_P,true = a_I,true, g_P,true = g_I,true

[i] Note. The parameters represent statement memory (D), feedback memory (d), parameter shrinkage (s), and different guessing processes (a and g). The parameter index P refers to plausible statements and I to implausible statements.

Parameter estimates with 95% confidence intervals for statement memory (D) and feedback memory (d), depending on statement type (plausible vs. implausible) and veracity feedback (true vs. false).

Table 2

Parameters for statement memory (D) and feedback memory (d) with 95% confidence intervals for each statement type and feedback.

TYPE	STATEMENT MEMORY			FEEDBACK MEMORY
TYPE	D_true	D_false	D_?	d_true	d_false	d_?
plausible	.75 [.72, .78]	.70 [.67, .74]	.70 [.68, .72]	.73 [.69, .77]	.76 [.72, .80]	.23 [.09, .36]
implausible	.75 [.72, .78]	.79 [.77, .82]	.72 [.70, .74]	.77 [.74, .80]	.62 [.57, .67]	.43 [.36, .50]

Table 3

Guessing parameters with 95% confidence intervals for each statement type.

TYPE	GUESS “OLD”	GUESS “FEEDBACK”		GUESS “TRUE”
TYPE	b	a_fb	g_fb	a_true	g_true
plausible	.43 [.40, .47]	.44 [.36, .51]	.73 [.68, .78]	.54 [.48, .60]	.65 [.58, .71]
implausible	.37 [.33, .40]	.56 [.50, .61]	.64 [.58, .71]	.29 [.25, .34]	.36 [.28, .44]