The episodic memory deficits experienced by older adults are characterized not only by increased forgetting, but also greater susceptibility to false memories of events that did not occur (see Devitt & Schacter, 2016 for review). One particularly robust example of false memory among older adults is the false recognition of novel objects that are perceptually similar to studied objects in a recognition memory test. Despite this increased tendency to incorrectly identify similar foils as having been studied previously, the ability to correctly identify previously studied targets as old, and identify novel and perceptually distinct foils as new, is typically unaffected (Koutstaal, 2003; Toner, Pirogovsky, Kirwan, & Gilbert, 2009; Yassa et al., 2011; Holden, Toner, Pirogovsky, Kirwan, & Gilbert, 2013). This deficit has proven to be resistant to a number of task manipulations, including those that aim to enhance attention to perceptual detail during encoding and those that encourage more strict responding during retrieval (Koutstaal, Schacter, Galluccio, & Stofer, 1999; Stark, Stevenson, Wu, Rutledge, & Stark, 2015). Despite the frequent emergence and stability of this pattern, our current understanding of the basis for elevated rates of false recognition of lures among older adults remains limited.