How fuzzy-trace theory predicts true and false memories for words, sentences, and narratives

•Fuzzy-trace theory explains and predicts false memories for words and narratives.•Fuzzy-trace theory predicts that false memories relevant to law increase from childhood to adulthood.•Math models of words explained memory for narratives, the kind of memory interrogated in law.•Gist memory supported false memories of inferences from narratives.

Fuzzy-trace theory posits independent verbatim and gist memory processes, a distinction that has implications for such applied topics as eyewitness testimony. This distinction between precise, literal verbatim memory and meaning-based, intuitive gist accounts for memory paradoxes including dissociations between true and false memory, false memories outlasting true memories, and developmental increases in false memory. We provide an overview of fuzzy-trace theory, and, using mathematical modeling, also present results demonstrating verbatim and gist memory in true and false recognition of narrative sentences and inferences. Results supported fuzzy-trace theory's dual-process view of memory: verbatim memory was relied on to reject meaning-consistent, but unpresented, sentences (via recollection rejection). However, verbatim memory was often not retrieved, and gist memory supported acceptance of these sentences (via similarity judgment and phantom recollection). Thus, mathematical models of words can be extended to explain memory for complex stimuli, such as narratives, the kind of memory interrogated in law.