Commission errors but not critical lures decrease when you have to pay a price for them

INGRID CANDEL, HARALD MERCKELBACH, MARKO JELICIC, and KIM JENTJENS
Maastricht University

Using the Deese­Roediger­McDermott paradigm, we explored the effect of monetary penalty on false memories. Participants were presented 6 15-word lists of semantic associates that all converged on a nonpresented critical lure. Next, half of the participants received a monetary reward (0.10 Euro; about $0.10) for each correctly recalled word, whereas they lost money (0.20 Euro; about $0.20) for each incorrect response. Compared with control participants who received a fixed financial compensation, participants in the experimental group reported fewer commissions (i.e., incorrect responses other than the critical lure). Number of hits and critical lures did not differ between the groups.