There was not, they did not: May negation cause the negated ideas to be remembered as existing?

Abstract

In this article we demonstrate that negation of ideas can have paradoxical effects, possibly leading the listener to believe that the negated ideas actually existed. In Experiment 1, participants listened to a description of a house, in which some objects were mentioned, some were negated, and some were not mentioned at all. When questioned about the existence of these objects a week later, the participants gave more false positives for items that were negated in the original material than for items that were not mentioned at all, an effect we call negation related false memories (NRFM). The NRFM effect was replicated again in Experiment 2 with a sample of five and six year-old children. Experiment 3 confirmed NRFM in the case of negated actions. The results are discussed in terms of retention hypothesis, as well as the theory that negation can activate a representation of an entity and behaviour. It is also indicated that future research is needed to ensure that it is indeed negation which caused false alarms, not merely mentioning an object.