A compelling feature of human memory is its striking capacity. Under certain circumstances, subjects can remember large amounts of information even with brief exposure at study. This investigation shows that this ability is preserved even in severely impaired Alzheimer’s disease patients, and this holds implications for the clinical management of amnesic patients. To this date, demonstrations of preserved learning and memory capacity in Alzheimer’s disease and amnesia have been confined to implicit memory tasks. Since the present results were obtained in an explicit memory task, the finding also holds implications for the understanding of amnesia.

The aim of this study is to delineate some important circumstances where exceptionally good memory performance, or capacious memory occurs. A further aim is to study memory processes involved in this memory phenomenon. In a first experiment, participants looked through two series of pictures differing in number and were evaluated in two-alternative forced-choice and yes-no recognition memory tasks combined in a process-dissociation procedure. Moreover, participants were asked to provide remember and know responses to tap recollective experience. The results as to forced-choice recognition task accuracy and according to process-dissociation procedure estimates were replicated in a second experiment with a more intrinsic contextual manipulation, and in a third, forgetting experiment. In addition to replicating previous findings, the results show (a) that capacious memory is associated with strong feelings of recollection; and (b) that familiarity (in terms of the process-dissociation framework) contributes to this phenomenon.