Illusory Recollection and Dual–Process Models of Recognition Memory

Abstract

(2000, Exps. 1 & 3) demonstrated that a slight increase in the display duration of a briefly presented word prior to displaying it in the clear for a recognition response increased the bias to respond "old". In the current research, three experiments investigated the phenomenology associated with this illusion of memory using the standard remember-know procedure and a new, independent-scales methodology. Contrary to expectations based on the fluency heuristic, which predicts effects of display duration on subjective familiarity only, the results indicated that the illusion was reported as both familiarity and recollection. Furthermore, manipulations of prime duration induced reports of false recollection in all experiments. The results-in particular, the implications of illusory recollection-are discussed in terms of dualprocess, fuzzy-trace, two-criteria signal detection models and attribution models of recognition memory.Over the past 30 years, dual-process theory (e.g., Atkinson & Juola, 1973, 1974Jacoby, 1991;Jacoby & Dallas, 1981;Mandler, 1979Mandler, , 1980Yonelinas, 1994Yonelinas, , 1997 has remained a dominant account of recognition memory. The theory proposes that recognition memory is based on two qualitatively and quantitatively distinct processes, commonly referred to as recollection and familiarity (see Yonelinas, 2002, for a recent review). Recollection (with or without familiarity) involves the conscious retrieval of veridical episodic information from an earlier encounter with a stimulus and gives rise to a feeling of reliving a past event. On the other hand, familiarity is associated with fluent conceptual and perceptual processing, stimulus similarity, and a vague, source nonspecific feeling of remembrance. Thus, it follows from dual-process Requests for reprints should be sent to

The conscious, the unconscious, and familiarity.

“…The contribution of structural similarity to subjective feelings of familiarity does not of course preclude the contribution of other factors, for example, the manner in which stimuli are encoded and subsequently processed, as elegantly demonstrated by Whittlesea and Wright (1997). Manipulations of prime duration have also been shown to produce illusions of familiarity and recollection, indicating that sources other than structural similarity may contribute to both (Higham & Vokey, 2004).…”

Processing fluency affects subjective claims of recollection

“…In Experiment 2, we used an independent ratings method that was developed by Higham and Vokey (2004) to address limitations of the standard remember-know paradigm. 1 This procedure, which requires participants to provide separate and independent ratings of familiarity and recollection for every word in a recognition memory test, avoids the previously mentioned response dichotomy (one either remembers or does not and one either knows or does not) and resultant dependence between responses, either of which could potentially obscure the effects of variables on subjective memorial experience.…”

In defense of the signal detection interpretation of remember/know judgments

“…Higham and Vokey (2004) also noted systematic effects of such variables as word frequency on the remember false alarm rate: Low-frequency words yield a higher remember hit rate and a lower remember false alarm rate than do high-frequency words.…”

“…As Higham and Vokey (2004) have put it, dual-process models "have no mechanism to account for systematic variation in false R [remember] ratings" (p. 715). In fact, only one dual-process theory of remember/know judgments offers any interpretation at all of remember false alarms, and that is the high-threshold/detection model proposed by Yonelinas and his colleagues (e.g., Yonelinas, Dobbins, Szymanski, Dhaliwal, & King, 1996;Yonelinas, Kroll, Dobbins, Lazzara, & Knight, 1998).…”