How do pictures reduce false memories?

This experiment examined false memories in pictures using the Deese-Roediger and McDermott paradigm. False memories occur when a person mistakenly recalls something that never really happened. Research has shown that studying information through pictures can reduce false memories compared to auditory or visual word presentation modalities. This experiment examined why this occurs. Do pictures display this superiority over other study modalities because of their perceptual information or is it due to the additional elaborative processing they require? The results failed to provide clear evidence concerning the role of elaborative processing in the reduction of false memories following picture encoding in the DRM paradigm. Clear interpretation of the current findings was not possible due to unusual findings in the visual control condition that suggest that the high and low consistency lists are in fact not well matched.