Conceptual automaticity in recognition memory: Levels-of-processing effects on familiarity (original) (raw)

Dissociations between familiarity processes in explicit recognition and implicit perceptual memory

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 1997

Dual-process theories of recognition posit that a perceptual familiarity process contributes to both explicit recognition and implicit perceptual memory. This putative single familiarity process has been indexed by inclusion-exclusion, remember-know, and repetition priming measures. The present studies examined whether these measures identify a common familiarity process. Familiarity-based explicit recognition (as indexed by the inclusion-exclusion and the independence remember-know procedures) increased with conceptual processing. In contrast, implicit word-identification priming and familiarity-based word-stem completion (as indexed by inclusion-exclusion) increased with study-test perceptual similarity. These dissociations indicate that familiarity-based explicit recognition may be more sensitive to conceptual than to perceptual processing and is functionally distinct from the perceptual familiarity process mediating implicit perceptual memory.

On the relationship between recognition familiarity and perceptual fluency: Evidence for distinct mnemonic processes

Acta Psychologica, 1998

Fluent reprocessing of perceptual aspects of recently experienced stimuli is thought to support repetition priming eects on implicit perceptual memory tests. Although behavioral and neuropsychological dissociations demonstrate that separable mnemonic processes and neural substrates mediate implicit and explicit test performance, dual-process theories of memory posit that explicit recognition memory judgments may be based on familiarity derived from the same perceptual¯uency that yields perceptual priming. Here we consider the relationship between familiarity-based recognition memory and implicit perceptual memory. A select review of the literature demonstrates that the¯uency supporting implicit perceptual memory is functionally and anatomically distinct from that supporting recognition memory. In contrast to perceptual¯uency, recognition familiarity is more sensitive to conceptual than to perceptual processing, and does not depend on modality-speci®c sensory cortices. Alternative possible relationships between familiarity in explicit memory and¯uency in implicit memory are discussed. Ó 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Distinctiveness in Recognition and Free Recall: The Role of Recollection in the Rejection of the Familiar

Journal of Memory and Language, 1998

Dual process models of recognition have identified two underlying processes which contribute to recognition performance: recollection, which involves the retrieval of qualitative information regarding an event occurrence, and familiarity, which represents a generalized feeling of prior occurrence. It has been proposed that recognition and free recall may be related because both involve the retrieval of qualitative event information. To examine this possibility, we compared recognition and free recall under different levels of word frequency, presentation frequency, and distinctiveness of semantic encoding. All three variables dissociated across recognition and recall. Most importantly, shifting the semantic orienting task between preexposure and study lists greatly facilitated recognition, yet left free recall unaffected. This benefit occurred primarily because the shift enabled subjects to more efficiently reject distractors that were familiar as a result of preexposure, but not encoded on the appropriate dimension. Since subjects in recall conditions were not prone to intrusions as a function of preexposure, and, in fact, could not intentionally provide sizable numbers of these items, such a selection mechanism was unnecessary. The current findings, in conjunction with those from process dissociation studies, emphasize the role of recollection in terms of selective responding in the presence of highly familiar competitors. Retrieved information which is not distinctive cannot serve as a basis for excluding alternative sources, and therefore will not contribute to performance nor be reflected in estimates of recollection. As a result, recollection estimates may often diverge from free recall performance. ᭧ 1998

Context effects in recognition memory: The role of familiarity and recollection

Consciousness and cognition, 2004

A variant of the process dissociation procedure was coupled with a manipulation of response signal lag to assess whether manipulations of context affect one or both of the familiarity and search processes described by the dual process model of recognition. Participants studied a list of word pairs (context + target) followed by a recognition test with target words presented in the same or different context, and in the same or different form as study (singular/plural). Participants were asked to recognize any target word regardless of changes to form (inclusion), or to only recognise words that were presented in the same form (exclusion). The standard context reinstatement effect was evident even at the short response lags. Analyses of the estimates of the contributions of familiarity and search processes suggest that the context effect demonstrated here can be attributed in part to the influence of familiarity on recognition, whereas the effect on recollection was less clear.

Recollection and familiarity: Examining controversial assumptions and new directions

Hippocampus, 2010

It is well accepted that recognition memory reflects the contribution of two separable memory retrieval processes, namely recollection and familiarity. However, fundamental questions remain regarding the functional nature and neural substrates of these processes. In this article, we describe a simple quantitative model of recognition memory (i.e., the dual-process signal detection model) that has been useful in integrating findings from a broad range of cognitive studies, and that is now being applied in a growing number of neuroscientific investigations of memory. The model makes several strong assumptions about the behavioral nature and neural substrates of recollection and familiarity. A review of the literature indicates that these assumptions are generally well supported, but that there are clear boundary conditions in which these assumptions break down. We argue that these findings provide important insights into the operation of the processes underlying recognition. Finally, we consider how the dual-process approach relates to recent neuroanatomical and computational models and how it might be integrated with recent findings concerning the role of medial temporal lobe regions in other cognitive functions such as novelty detection, perception, implicit memory and short-term memory. V V C 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Not all sources of familiarity are created equal: the case of word frequency and repetition in episodic recognition

Memory & Cognition, 2011

Low-frequency (LF) words produce higher hit rates and lower false alarm rates than high-frequency (HF) words. This word frequency mirror pattern has been interpreted within dual-process models of recognition, which assume the contributions of a slower recollective process and a relatively fast-acting familiarity process. In the present experiments, recollection and familiarity were placed in opposition using Jacoby, L. L., Journal of Memory and Language, 30, 513-541 (1991), two-list exclusion paradigm with HF and LF words. Exclusion errors to LF words exceeded those to HF words at fast deadlines, whereas the reverse occurred at slow deadlines. In Experiments 2 and 3, false alarms to HF nonpresented lures were higher than to LF nonpresented lures, indicating the use of baseline familiarity for totally new items. Combined, these results indicate that in addition to baseline familiarity and recollection, a third process involving the assessment of a relative change in familiarity is involved in recognition performance. Both relative changes in familiarity and recollection processes have distinct time courses and are engaged when there is diagnostic list information available, whereas baseline familiarity is used when there is no diagnostic information available (e.g., for nonpresented lure items).

Forgetting in recognition memory with and without recollective experience

Retention interval was manipulated in two recognition-memory experiments in which subjects indicated when recognizing a word whether its recognition was accompanied by some recollec-tive experience (" remember ") or whether it was recognized on the basis of familiarity without any recollective experience (" know "). Experiment 1 showed that between 10 mm and 1 week, " remember " responsesdeclined sharply from an initially higher level, whereas " know " responses remained relatively unchanged. Experiment 2 showed that between 1 week and 6 months, both kinds of responses declined at a similar, gradual rate and that despite quite low levels of performance after 6 months, both kinds of responses still gave rise to accurate discrimination between target words and lures. These findings are discussed in relationship to current ideas about mtil-tiple memory systems and processing accounts of explicit and implicit measures of retention.