Cognitive control constrains retrieval processing and so restricts what comes to mind as input to the attribution system. We review evidence that older adults, patients with Alzheimer's disease, and people with traumatic brain injury exert less cognitive control during retrieval, and so are susceptible to memory misattributions in the form of dramatic levels of false remembering.

The original lecture was delivered by the author in the Ateneo of Madrid, as part of the series called 'Tendencias actuales del pensamiento europeo' , on 20th April 1955.