More than a feeling: Pervasive influences of memory without awareness of retrieval

Abstract

The subjective experiences of recollection and familiarity have featured prominently in the search for neurocognitive mechanisms of memory. However, these two explicit expressions of memory, which involve conscious awareness of memory retrieval, are distinct from an entire category of implicit expressions of memory that do not entail such awareness. This review summarizes recent evidence showing that neurocognitive processing related to implicit memory can powerfully influence the behavioral and neural measures typically associated with explicit memory. Although there are striking distinctions between the neurocognitive processing responsible for implicit versus explicit memory, tests designed to measure only explicit memory nonetheless often capture implicit memory processing as well. In particular, the evidence described here suggests that investigations of familiarity memory are prone to the accidental capture of implicit memory processing. These findings have considerable implications for neurocognitive accounts of memory, as they suggest that many neural and behavioral measures often accepted as signals of explicit memory instead reflect the distinct operation of implicit memory mechanisms that are only sometimes related to explicit memory expressions. Proper identification of the explicit and implicit mechanisms for memory is vital to understanding the normal operation of memory, in addition to the disrupted memory capabilities associated with many neurological disorders and mental illnesses. We suggest that future progress requires utilizing neural, behavioral, and subjective evidence to dissociate implicit and explicit memory processing so as to better understand their distinct mechanisms as well as their potential relationships. When searching for the neurocognitive mechanisms of memory, it is important to keep in mind that memory involves more than a feeling.

The psychology of intelligence analysis: Drivers of prediction accuracy in world politics.

“…Additionally, we suggest that the probability of correctly selecting a target item with zero confidence varied with the overall difficulty of the particular recognition test, and a concurrent shift in the criterion associated with the subjective feeling of what constitutes a "guess" response. Voss and Paller (2012) suggest that their effects are based on fluency of perceptual processing of the encoded representations, and this seems very reasonable given that the items were complex and relatively meaningless visual patterns. In the present case, the correct selection of the target word when confidence was zero may also be attributable to the greater perceptual fluency of processing targets relative to lures (Jacoby and Whitehouse (1989).…”

“…Such instances were documented both by Voss and colleagues and in the present experiments. Voss and Paller (2010) consider, but reject, the possibility that recognition without awareness is simply based on the processing of relatively weak representations that might otherwise evoke responses of familiarity or recollection (see also Voss, Lucas & Paller, 2012). Their arguments are based partly on different ERP signatures related to implicit memory compared to those associated with familiarity and recollection (Voss et al, 2012), but also to the changes in R, K, and guess responses between conditions in This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.…”

Fluency affects source memory for familiar names in younger and older adults: Evidence from event-related brain potentials

“…Others have suggested that fluency signals are implicit in nature and therefore separate from familiarity, but may (accidentally) contaminate explicit forms of memory, i.e. familiarity-based recognition (for a similar line of argument, see Lucas, Taylor, Henson, & Paller, 2012;Voss, Lucas, & Paller, 2012).…”

Personal semantics: Is it distinct from episodic and semantic memory? An electrophysiological study of memory for autobiographical facts and repeated events in honor of Shlomo Bentin

“…Like the N400, FN400 is a negative deflection which develops between 300 and 500 ms after stimulus onset, but unlike the N400, FN400's maximal amplitude is usually at frontal/ fronto-central sites. The functional significance of this ERP component is still debated, with some investigators contending that it reflects familiarity-based recognition (reviewed in Curran, Tepe, & Piatt, 2006;Rugg & Curran, 2007), but others proposing that it instead reflects conceptual priming (Voss, Lucas, & Paller 2012), similar to the centro-parietal N400 (Voss & Federmeier, 2011) . We included relevant frontal sites in our N400 analyses to explore the potential presence of FN400 and generate hypotheses about its role.…”