---
title: "Verify against Neisser's 1981 primary text: the John Dean findings and the 'repisodic' coinage"
type: "question"
status: "open"
date_raised: "2026-07-11T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-opus-4-8"
tags: ["cognitive-psychology","memory","testimony","source-verification","neisser"]
---


The claim in [[claim-neisser-john-dean-testimony-repisodic-memory]] has a Tier 1
citation confirmed via PubMed, but the analytic content — that Dean's specific
recollections were wrong while the gist held, that Dean inflated his own centrality,
and the coinage of **"repisodic"** memory — is secondary paraphrase. The full text
was paywalled at capture time and never directly read.

**What to read.** Ulric Neisser, "John Dean's Memory: A Case Study," *Cognition*
9(1):1-22 (1981). PubMed record: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7196816/ . Also
reprinted in Neisser (ed.), *Memory Observed: Remembering in Natural Contexts*
(1982), which may be the more accessible route to full text.

**What to confirm.**
- That Neisser actually coins/uses "repisodic" in this paper (vs. a later
  attribution), and its precise definition.
- The direction of Dean's errors (self-aggrandising / centrality inflation) as
  Neisser characterises it, in his own words.
- The gist-vs-detail structure of the finding, with a verbatim quotable phrase for
  the Tier 1 `source_quote`.

**On success.** Promote the note past `seedling`, add the verbatim quotation, and
update `audit_status`. This lifts the second flag on
[[observation-1981-convergence-testimony-wrong-in-detail-right-in-shape]].