Elsevier

Cognition

Volume 46, Issue 2, February 1993, Pages 101-128
Cognition

Reconstructive remembering of the scientific literature

https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(93)90015-NGet rights and content

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the role of reconstructive memory in citation errors that occur in the scientific literature. We focus on the case of de Groot's (1946) studies of the memory for chess positions by chess experts. Previous work has shown that this research is very often cited incorrectly. In Experiment 1 we show that free recall of this work by research psychologists replicates most of the errors found in the published literature. Experiment 2 shows that undergraduates reading a correct account of the de Groot study also make the same set of errors in recall. We interpret these findings as showing that consistent errors in secondary accounts of experimental findings are frequently reconstructive memory errors due to source confusion and schema-based processes. Analysis of a number of other examples of scientific literature that have been frequently cited incorrectly add additional support to the reconstructive account. We conclude that scientists should be aware of the tendency of reconstructive memory errors to cause violations of the scientific norm of accurate reporting of the scientific literature.

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    We would like to thank the following people for their help in formulating the ideas presented here: Reid Hastie, Dedre Gentner, Sally Cohen, John Flach, Alex Kirlik, John Lee, Randy Sollenberger, Herbert Simon, and the members of the Cognitive Psychology Seminar Group at the University of Illinois. We also want to thank Reid Hastie for leading us to several of the cases of mis-citation that occurred in the social psychology literature. A special thank you to Adriaan de Groot for invaluable comments and historical details, to Susan Perkins for help with data collection, to Ellen Brewer and Ann Bisantz for comments on an earlier draft, and to Penny Sanderson for her contribution to Experiment 1 and for her continued support and stimulation of the ideas presented in this paper.

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