A distractor-free test of recognition and false recognition

Abstract

Following the presentation of 36 words, one at a time, a distractor-free test of word recognition (a single-item test trial in which the 36 targets were presented prior to the 36 distractors) or a traditional target-distractor discrimination test (a single-item test trial in which the 36 targets and 36 distractors were randomly ordered) was given to 137 college students. Contrary to the long-standing assumption that distractors are necessary in tests of recognition in order “to keep the subject honest,” the distractor-free test resulted in recognition performance (hits and serial-position frequency patterns) almost identical with that of the conventional discrimination test for high-, medium-, and low-frequency words. For the low-frequency words (words presumed to be unfamiliar to the subjects), false recognitions were fewer under the distractor-free test than under the discrimination test.