---
abstract: "Counterfactual imaginings are known to have far reaching implications. In the present experiment, we ask if imagining events from one's past can affect memory for childhood events. We draw on the social psychology literature showing that imagining a future event increases the subjective likelihood that the event will occur. The concepts of cognitive availability and the source monitoring framework provide reasons to expect that imagination may inflate confidence that a childhood event occurred. However, people routinely produce myriad counterfactual imaginings (i.e., daydreams and fantasies) but usually do not confuse them with past experiences. To determine the effects of imagining a childhood event, we pretested subjects on how confident they were that a number of childhood events had happened, asked them to imagine some of those events, and then gathered new confidence measures. For each of the target items, imagination inflated confidence that the event had occurred in childhood. We discuss implications for situations in which imagination is used as an aid in searching for presumably lost memories."
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creators_name:
- family: Garry
given: Maryanne
honourific: ''
lineage: ''
- family: Manning
given: Charles G
honourific: ''
lineage: ''
- family: Loftus
given: Elizabeth F
honourific: ''
lineage: ''
- family: Sherman
given: Steven J
honourific: ''
lineage: ''
date: 1996
date_type: published
datestamp: 1998-01-19
department: ~
dir: disk0/00/00/05/90
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eprint_status: archive
eprintid: 590
fileinfo: /style/images/fileicons/text_html.png;/590/1/199801004.html
full_text_status: public
importid: ~
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ispublished: pub
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item_issues_count: 0
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keywords: ~
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:05
latitude: ~
longitude: ~
metadata_visibility: show
note: ~
number: 2
pagerange: 208-214
pubdom: FALSE
publication: Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
publisher: ~
refereed: FALSE
referencetext: ~
relation_type: []
relation_uri: []
reportno: ~
rev_number: 8
series: ~
source: ~
status_changed: 2007-09-12 16:31:53
subjects:
- appl-cog-psy
- cog-psy
succeeds: ~
suggestions: ~
sword_depositor: ~
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thesistype: ~
title: 'Imagination Inflation: Imagining a Childhood Event Inflates Confidence That It Occurred'
type: journalp
userid: 97
volume: 3