No abstract

This study explores the revelation effect, a recognition memory phenomenon that occurs when test items (or related items) are specially processed before recognition judgment. These revealed items, whether targets or lures, receive a positive response bias. Although the effect occurs across various conditions, it has not been shown to occur when participants make judgments unrelated to episodic memory. We investigated whether the effect would occur when a recognition decision was nominally one of episodic memory, but when a complete episodic event had not occurred. Specifically, participants listened to noise that allegedly masked a list of words (in fact, no words existed). A revelation effect occurred with this pseudo-subliminal procedure, suggesting that the revelation effect need not rely on stimuli recalled through episodic memory but only a specific event to recall. The effect did not occur when participants simply guessed whether words were on an unheard list or made semantic judgments.When test items in recognition tests are somehow disguised or revealed, individuals provide more positive responses for these revealed items than when test items are presented in a normal fashion. This phenomenon, known as the revelation effect, occurs for both target and lure items on recognition tests (Watkins & Peynircioglu, 1990). For target items, participants show a greater hit rate for revealed items than for normal items, and similarly,for lures, a greater false alarm rate occurs for revealed items than for normal items.A variety ofprocedures generate the revelation effect: It is found when words on a recognition test are revealed letter by letter, presented as anagrams or word fragments to be solved, or shown with individual letters rotated. For example, when participants unscramble the letters ebalt to form the word table and then judge whether table was on the studied list, the participants are more likely to state that table was on the studied list than if it had not been initially presented as an anagram. The revelation effect also occurs when words are presented in a normal fashion on a recognition test but when participants must perform a task on the words before judging whether they were on the study list. For example, participants are more likely to respond positively to a word (e.g.,judicial) as having been on the study list if they are required to count the number of ascending letters of another word (e.g., band d of abandon) than ifthey simply read the wordjudicial. Overall, the revelation effect is a robust phenomenon that occurs when words are manipulated in many different ways (see LeCompte, 1995;Luo, 1993;Peynircioglu & Tekcan, 1993; Watkins & Peynircioglu, 1990;Westerman & Greene, 1996, 1998 bers rather than words are studied. For example, numbers presented as Roman numerals or as solutions ofequations receive more positive responses than do numbers presented in the standard format (Watkins & Peynircioglu, 1990). The revelation effect is found both when participants make binary recognition decision...