Source monitoring in a generative task

Following exposure to experimenter-provided examples of space creatures, people tend to conform to the features contained in the examples when creating their own novel space creatures. In three experiments, we manipulated factors known to affect source-monitoring accuracy to determine how these manipulations would influence conformity to experimenter-provided examples. In Experiment 1 we altered people's cognitive agenda by means of the instructions given before the drawing task. In Experiment 2 we examined how time pressure would affect the level of conformity, and in Experiment 3 we manipulated the availability of the creatures during the drawing task by making them available to half the participants. Conformity decreased when extended source-monitoring processes were engaged and increased when these processes were disrupted. The results from the three experiments were consistent with the principles of the source-monitoring framework.