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We report on the 1st experimental elicitation of nonbelieved memories for childhood events in adults (Study 1) and children (Study 2) using a modified false memory implantation paradigm. Participants received true (trip to a theme park) and false (hot air balloon ride) narratives and recalled these events during 2 interviews. After debriefing, 13% of adults and 15% of children reported nonbelieved memories. While phenomenal ratings were higher for true than for nonbelieved memories immediately after the debriefing, after a month nonbelieved memories behaved as true memories. Also following debriefing, 23% of adults and 15% of children retracted their false memory claims. Prior to debriefing, participants with nonbelieved memories were most likely to indicate remembering the event, whereas participants with false memories who retracted their claim were most likely to endorse believing but not remembering the event. This research suggests that debriefings in previous false memory studies can lead to the development of nonbelieved memories. Additional findings regarding the correspondence between subjective belief, subjective memory, and objective memory judgments prior to and following debriefing are discussed.

Research on the effect of acute stress and high levels of glucocorticoids on memory has largely focused on memory tasks involving the medial temporal lobe (e.g., declarative memory). Less is known, however, about the effects of stress and glucocorticoids on more strategic memory processes regulated by the prefrontal cortex (e.g., source monitoring). In the current study, the authors investigated whether exposure to acute psychosocial stress would result in altered source monitoring performance relative to the performance of a nonstressed control group. To this end, the authors assigned nonsmoking, healthy, young men to either a stress (n = 22) or a control (n = 18) condition, after which the men were given an internal source monitoring test. Results show that relative to control participants, stressed participants made fewer source monitoring errors. This study suggests that stress may have differential effects on memory, depending on whether the memory test is regulated by the prefrontal cortex or the medial temporal lobe.