When people witness some incident, such as a crime or accident, they may subsequently be exposed to new information about that incident. Our past work has shown that such new information, whether true or false, can become integrated into memory and there by alter recollection. This has sometimes been referred to as the """"""""misinformation effect."""""""" The current proposal is an extension of this past work, and a response to recent critiques. The major goal is to explore the nature of the integration process and its role in the misinformation effect. A new way of studying the misinformation effect is to use a betting form recognition memory test. With this test, subjects distribute probability points across recognition alternatives according to the strength of their feeling about those alternatives. The betting form test has been used to show some interesting impairments in memory where more traditional tests have failed. One set of studies provides more information about this new testing technique which is then used throughout the work. As a framework for studying the misinformation effect, we explore the major stages of the misinformation paradigm. In the first stage, a subject encodes the event, and next the subject encodes the post-event information. We have proposed a new principle of change, namely change in recollection of an event is more likely to occur if discrepancies between the original and post-event information are not initially detected at the time the post event information is processed. Several studies explore discrepancy detection measure subject's reading speed and their eye movements while post-event information is processed. Another important stage is the stage in which the subject recalls information from memory. We have proposed a second principle of change, namely that change is solidified by the act of recollection. Several new studies explore the role that is played by the overt act of recollection. A final set of studies concerns the resulting memory product. One theoretically interesting product involves the blending of features from the original and post-event sources. Several studies are designed to produce and illuminate these blends.
