Abstract: Two experiments were conducted to investigate the generation and retaining of relatedness effects in memory illusion. Experiment 1 involved the effects of learned words and critical lure in both the young and old groups, using both recollection and recognition paradigms. In experiment 2, the article discussed the retaining of the learned words and the critical lure during four intervals (immediate,1 hour, 1 day & 5 days). The serial position effects of both learned words and critical lure were analyzed as well. The main results were: The relatedness effect was comparatively robust, approaching to the lower level of the learned words. Although being significantly lower in the common indexes of memory, the old group had similar relatedness effect to the young group in both recollection and recognition paradigms. When time variable was introduced, the memory illusion didn't change significantly. Compared with the learned words, the critical lure had no serial position effect. Such results are very similar to the relationship between explicit and implicit memory. The article indicated that the study of memory illusion may be a better way to analyze the unconscious memory.

Key words: memory illusion, relatedness effect, critical lure, serial position effect