THE OVER-CLAIMING TECHNIQUE (OCT)

OCT is a general technique designed to measure accuracy and exaggeration 
of knowledge.  

Respondents are asked to rate their familiarity with a list of items, 
some of which do not actually exist.  To measure accuracy and bias 
in the respondent's familiarity ratings, signal detection formulas are 
applied to the proportion of real items claimed (HITS) and the proportion
of non-existent (foil) items claimed (FALSE ALARMS).

The academic version was used in Paulhus et al. (2003) and Paulhus &
Harms (2004).  Other versions have been presented at conferences.

For further information, go to www.psych.ubc.ca/~dpaulhus/research/

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