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memory
You assume a name is famous simply because you saw it earlier.
The false fame effect leads people to misattribute familiarity to celebrity status.
In a 1989 experiment, participants read a list of non-famous names. When tested later, they incorrectly labeled these previously seen names as famous, confusing the ease of memory retrieval with the person being a public figure.
Your memory does not store the context of why you recognize something, only the recognition itself.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Jacoby, 1989, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- What the check found
- While not in the provided references, this is a well-established, classic result in cognitive psychology (Jacoby et al., 1989, JPSP).
- Confidence
- Solid, with limits
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.