Can false memories be created through nonconscious processes?

Presentation times of study words presented in the Deese/Roediger and McDermott (DRM) paradigm varied from 20 ms to 2000 ms per word in an attempt to replicate the false memory effect following extremely short presentations reported by J.G. Seamon, C.R. Luo and D.A. Gallo (1998). Both in a within-subjects design (Experiment 1) and in a between-subjects design (Experiment 2) subjects showed memory for studied words as well as a false memory effect for related critical lures in the 2000-ms condition. However, in the conditions with shorter presentation times (20 ms in Experiment 1; 20 ms and 40 ms in Experiment 2) no memory for studied words, nor a false memory effect was found. We argue that these experiments do not support the claim for a nonconscious basis of the false memory effect.