Reinstating contextual details from an event—or context reinstatement—often aids memory retrieval, but recent work from our lab has revealed that it can also systemically distort memory (Doss et al., 2018; 2020). We have found that presenting younger adult participants with the same context (e.g., background scenes) during encoding and retrieval not only boosted memory for studied objects (hit rates), but also boosted false recognition of similar objects that were not studied (false alarms). Building on this finding, the current study aimed to identify the underlying mechanisms of this “context illusion” effect. More specifically, the current project sought to determine whether the context illusion is driven by explicit or implicit processes while also examining the impact of aging on these effects. While our previous results establish the reliability of the context illusion in younger adults, the extent that this illusion is impacted by aging is poorly understood. Determining the effect of aging is imperative because context reinstatement has been suggested as a useful way to overcome memory decline with aging. In the present study, the context illusion task (Doss et al., 2018) and a modified DRM task (Gray & Gallo, 2016) were administered to online participants with varying levels of executive function (high or low) to determine whether the context illusion effect relies on explicit memory-monitoring processes or implicit fluency. Data collection is still underway; however, preliminary results show successful replication of the context illusion effect in older adults and suggest these two memory illusion tasks may not share underlying processes.