Recollection and familiarity: Examining controversial assumptions and new directions (original) (raw)

Dual-process theory and signal-detection theory of recognition memory

Psychological Review, 2007

Two influential models of recognition memory, the unequal-variance signal-detection model and a dual-process threshold/detection model, accurately describe the receiver operating characteristic, but only the latter model can provide estimates of recollection and familiarity. Such estimates often accord with those provided by the remember-know procedure, and both methods are now widely used in the neuroscience literature to identify the brain correlates of recollection and familiarity. However, in recent years, a substantial literature has accumulated directly contrasting the signal-detection model against the threshold/detection model, and that literature is almost unanimous in its endorsement of signal-detection theory. A dual-process version of signal-detection theory implies that individual recognition decisions are not process pure, and it suggests new ways to investigate the brain correlates of recognition memory.

Separating the brain regions involved in recollection and familiarity in recognition memory

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2005

The neural substrates of recognition memory retrieval were examined in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study designed to separate activity related to recollection from that related to continuous variations in familiarity. Across a variety of brain regions, the neural signature of recollection was found to be distinct from familiarity, demonstrating that recollection cannot be attributed to familiarity strength. In the prefrontal cortex, an anterior medial region was related to recollection, but lateral regions, including the anterior and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, were related to familiarity. Along the lateral parietal cortex, two functionally distinct regions were also observed: a lateral parietal/temporal region related to recollection and a more superior parietal region involved in familiarity. Similarly, in medial parietal regions, the posterior cingulate was related to recollection, whereas the precuneus was related to familiarity. The hippocampus was related to re...

Functional-neuroanatomic correlates of recollection: implications for models of recognition memory

2004

Recognition decisions can be based on familiarity, the sense that an item was encountered previously (item memory), and on recollection, the conscious recovery of contextual information surrounding a previous encounter with the item (e.g., source memory). Recognition with recollection is thought to depend on multiple mechanisms, including prefrontal "control" processes that guide retrieval and recapitulation mechanisms that reactivate posterior neocortical representations that were present at encoding. However, uncertainty remains regarding the precise nature of prefrontal contributions to recollection and the selectivity of recapitulation to veridical recollection. The present event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study sought to examine whether regions showing "old-new" effects support processes sensitive to recollection success or recollection attempt and whether recapitulation of neocortical representations emerge during veridical recollection as well as during false recognition (i.e., false alarms) or whether false recognition resembles familiarity-based responding. Results revealed that multiple left prefrontal cortical regions were engaged during attempts to recollect previous contextual (source) details, regardless of the nature of the to-be-recollected details and of source recollection outcome (successful vs unsuccessful). Recapitulation effects were observed in regions sensitive to the encoding task, suggesting that veridical recollection entails the reactivation of processes or representations present during encoding. Importantly, in contrast to leading models of recognition memory, false alarms also appeared to be based partially on recollection, as revealed through false recapitulation effects. Implications for neural and cognitive models of recognition are considered.

The role of the human hippocampus in familiarity-based and recollection-based recognition memory

Behavioural Brain Research, 2010

The ability to recognize a previously encountered stimulus is dependent on the structures of the medial temporal lobe and is thought to be supported by two processes, recollection and familiarity. A focus of research in recent years concerns the extent to which these two processes depend on the hippocampus and on the other structures of the medial temporal lobe. One view holds that the hippocampus is important for both processes, whereas a different view holds that the hippocampus supports only the recollection process and the perirhinal cortex supports the familiarity process. One approach has been to study patients with hippocampal lesions and to contrast old/new recognition (which can be supported by familiarity) to free recall (which is supported by recollection). Despite some early case studies suggesting otherwise, several group studies have now shown that hippocampal patients exhibit comparable impairments on old/new recognition and free recall. These findings suggest that the hippocampus is important for both recollection and familiarity. Neuroimaging studies and Receiver Operating Characteristic analyses also initially suggested that the hippocampus was specialized for recollection, but these studies involved a strength confound (strong memories have been compared to weak memories). When steps are taken to compare strong recollection-based memories with strong familiarity-based memories, or otherwise control for memory strength, evidence for a familiarity signal (as well as a recollection signal) is evident in the hippocampus. These findings suggest that the functional organization of the medial temporal lobe is probably best understood in terms unrelated to the distinction between recollection and familiarity. The ability to recognize a stimulus as having been previously encountered depends on the structures of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) [61] and is widely assumed to involve two processes, recollection and familiarity [4,28,38]. The familiarity process underlies the almost universal experience of recognizing someone whom you are sure you have met before despite being unable to remember anything about the prior encounter. The recollection process underlies the successful retrieval of the contextual details that

Behavioral and neurocomputational investigations of human recognition memory and cognition

2015

Models of human recognition memory frequently differentiate between processes of recollection, as the retrieval of qualitative information about a past event, and familiarity, as a more continuous process that matches a currently perceived stimulus against an accumulation of many similar past experiences. Cognitive models have made important advances in our understanding of memory functioning, but have at times struggled to account for some more nuanced empirical findings. Recently, computational models of the brain have provided an alternative, but complementary perspective by simulating networks of neurons that communicate with one another and learn to associate external events with internal patterns of activation. The research presented for this thesis combines behavioral and computational methodologies to investigate aspects of recognition memory and related cognitive domains that have to date been poorly understood. The current research is presented as four peer-reviewed papers...

Testing a neurocomputational model of recollection, familiarity, and source recognition.

Journal of Experimental …, 2008

The authors assess whether the complementary learning systems model of the medial temporal lobes is able to account for source recognition receiver operating characteristics (ROCs). The model assumes that recognition reflects the contribution of a hippocampally mediated recollection process and a cortically mediated familiarity process. The hippocampal process is found to produce threshold output functions that lead to U-shaped zROCs, whereas the cortical process produces Gaussian signal detection functions and linear zROCs. The model is consistent with several dual process theories of recognition and is capable of producing the types of zROCs observed in studies of item and source recognition. In addition, the model makes the novel prediction that as the level of feature similarity across items increases, the ability of the hippocampus to encode distinct representations for each stimulus will diminish, and the threshold nature of recollection will break down, leading source zROCs to become more linear. The authors conducted 3 new behavioral source experiments that confirmed the model's prediction. The results demonstrate that the model provides a viable account of item and source recognition performance.

Recognition memory: opposite effects of hippocampal damage on recollection and familiarity

Nature Neuroscience, 2007

A major controversy in memory research concerns whether recognition is subdivided into distinct cognitive mechanisms of recollection and familiarity that are supported by different neural substrates. Here we developed a new associative recognition protocol for rats that enabled us to show that recollection is reduced, whereas familiarity is increased following hippocampal damage. These results provide strong evidence that these processes are qualitatively different and that the hippocampus supports recollection and not familiarity. Some of the most compelling data on recognition memory and hippocampal function involve the use of signal detection analyses. In these analyses, subjects are initially presented with a stimulus list and are then required to identify test stimuli as the same (old) items or different (new) stimuli across a range of confidence levels or response biases. In normal human subjects, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) function for lists of single items is typically asymmetrical (featuring an above-zero y intercept), interpreted by some to reflect a threshold for recollection, and has a curvilinear shape, reflecting the strength of familiarity (the dual process model 1). A major alternative view is that recognition is supported by qualitatively similar memory signals, wherein for each the degree of curvilinearity reflects the sum of the strengths of memory components and the asymmetry reflects greater variability in strength for old than for new items (the unequal variance model 2). According to this latter view, familiarity and recollection differ only in sensitivity, such that familiarity reflects the detection of weaker memories, whereas recollection is experienced when memories are stronger or involve more information. There is also compelling evidence indicating that recollection and familiarity may have distinct neural substrates, but the question of whether specific brain areas make qualitatively different contributions to recognition memory remains controversial 1 , 3. Evidence from Correspondence should be addressed to H.E.

What could cognitive neuroscience tell us about recognition memory?

Australian Journal of Psychology, 2012

This paper is concerned with how the debate between single-and dual-process theories of recognition memory might be resolved. We argue that this is only possible if the theories concerned are competing to offer an explanation for the same phenomenon. We distinguish two kinds of explanations of recognition memory-roughly, one that explains what a person does to recognise an item, and another that explains what the brain does in order to enable a person to recognise an item. Our first point is that single-and dual-process theories typically, and perhaps counter-intuitively, do not offer competing explanations. Our second point is that this suggests two clear roles for neuroscience to play in the debate. Adjudicating between constitutive explanations would, we argue, require new experimental designs. Adjudicating between causal explanations requires prior determination of what function the brain is performing (an agreed psychological theory) before neuroscience could tell us how the brain is producing that performance.