Abstract Complementarity is a paradoxical phenomenon in which memory for incompatible reality states (e.g., old vs. new) violates basic logical constraints: Subjects remember certain groups of items as belonging to both of two incompatible states at reliable levels. The theoretical principle that predicts this phenomenon, non-compensatory gist memory, also predicts a more stringent form in which individual items are successively remembered as belonging to each of two incompatible states. In the present experiments, we investigated this within-item form of complementarity and evaluated an alternative theoretical explanation that relies on a selective retrieval principle. The experiments provided evidence of robust within-item complementarity, for both old items and new items that were semantically related to old ones. Logical incompatibility constrained memory for different reality states to only a limited degree. Our experiments provided no support for the selective retrieval explanation of complementarity. That account predicts several effects, some for judgment probabilities and others for latencies, none of which was observed. Thus, non-compensatory gist memory proved to be the more satisfactory of the two explanations.

中文翻译：

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解释错误记忆中的互补性

摘要 互补性是一种自相矛盾的现象，其中对不相容现实状态（例如，旧的与新的）的记忆违反了基本的逻辑约束：受试者记住某些项目组在可靠的水平上属于两个不相容的状态。预测这种现象的理论原理，即非补偿性要点记忆，也预测了一种更严格的形式，在这种形式中，单个项目被连续记住，属于两个不相容状态中的每一个。在目前的实验中，我们研究了这种互补的项目内形式，并评估了一种依赖于选择性检索原则的替代理论解释。实验为旧项目和与旧项目语义相关的新项目提供了强大的项目内互补性的证据。逻辑不兼容仅在有限程度上限制了不同现实状态的记忆。我们的实验没有为互补性的选择性检索解释提供支持。该帐户预测了几种影响，一些用于判断概率，另一些用于延迟，但均未观察到。因此，非补偿性要点记忆被证明是两种解释中更令人满意的。