instance, found that delay drives true recognition rates (supported by both verbatim and gist traces) and false recognition rates (supported by gist and suppressed by verbatim traces) in opposite directions, namely true memory decays over time while false memory increases. Opponent processes in false memory The principle of opponent processes describes the interaction between verbatim and gist processes in creating true and false memories. Whereas true memory is supported by both verbatim and gist processes, false memory is supported by gist processes and suppressed by verbatim processes. In other words, verbatim and gist processes work in opposition to one another when it comes to false memories. Suppose, for example, that one is presented with a word list such as lemon, apple, pear, and citrus. During a recognition test, the items lemon (target), orange (related distractor), and fan (unrelated distractor) are shown. In this case, retrieval of a gist trace (fruits) supports acceptance of both test probes lemon (true memory) and orange (false memory), whereas retrieval of a verbatim trace (lemon) only supports acceptance of the test probe lemon. In addition, retrieval of an exclusory verbatim trace ("I saw only the words lemon, apple, pear, and citrus") suppresses acceptance of false but related items such as orange through an operation known as recollection rejection. If neither verbatim nor gist traces are retrieved, then one might accept any test probe on the basis of response bias. This principle plays a key role in FTT's explanation of experimental dissociations between true and false memories (e.g., when a variable affects one type of memory without affecting the other, or when it produces opposite effects on them). The time of exposure of each word during study and the number of repetitions have been shown to produce such dissociations. More specifically, while true memory follows a monotonically increasing function when plotted against presentation duration, false memory rates exhibit an inverted-U pattern when plotted as a function of presentation duration. Similarly, repetition is monotonically related to true memory (true memory increases as a function of the number of repetitions) and is non-monotonically related to false memory (repetition produces an inverted-U relation with false memory). Retrieval phenomenology Retrieval phenomenologies are spontaneous mental experiences associated with the act of remembering. It was first systematically characterized by E. K. Strong in the early 1900s. Strong identified two distinct types of introspective phenomena associated with memory retrieval that have since been