were later asked whether specific events were familiar and how they happened. The study revealed that elderly subjects were more likely than younger subjects to claim that they recognized events that never happened. Additionally, these participants were more likely to say that they watched specific actions occurring when they had actually either imagined them occurring or had never experienced the actions. These studies show that simply rehearsing material may not always work to improve memory. In the Jacoby study, older adults who read a word several times were likely to accurately judge it as familiar but were then more likely to think they had heard the word read aloud, rather than reading it themselves. Jacoby explains that— because repetition of a word caused recognition to go up but ability to correctly remember the source to go down— recognition and source monitoring are likely separate neurological processes. This may shed some light on the common phenomenon of Alzheimer's patients mistaking frequently presented non-famous faces as being those of celebrities or asking the same question repeatedly. Patients may recognize faces or identify that the subject of the question is important and was discussed recently, but they have no memory for the meaning attached to these common stimuli and so will misattribute this familiarity or simply ask again. References Error Memory Memory biases Memory disorders