Does the Body Know Best? Psychophysiological Reactivity to Perceived versus Imagined Childhood Events

Investigations of the ability to distinguish real from imagined events can inform the mechanisms by which false memories are created. We examined psychophysiological reactivity while participants (N = 53) narrated childhood events that they had experienced (according to their previous report) or that they denied having experienced but had imagined. Two types of events were narrated, emotional and neutral. Results show that participants rated experienced events as more vivid than imagined events and events the authors intended to be emotional as more emotional than events the authors intended to be neutral. Although there were no significant differences on the heart rate and skin conductance measures, both experienced and imagined events produced significant increases in reactivity in comparison to baseline measures. Implications for the creation of false memories are discussed.