Retrieval Dynamics of Recognition and Frequency Judgments: Evidence for Separate Processes of Familiarity and Recall

Abstract

Three experiments pursued questions concerning the relationship between the recognition-memory and frequency-judgment tasks and the roles played in these tasks by separate processes of familiarity and recall. All three experiments used the response-signal technique to study the dynamics of retrieval. Experiment 1 manipulated test instructions within subjects to compare recognition decisions with frequency decisions using the same experimental paradigm. Similar retrieval functions for recognition and frequency judgments suggested that the primary basis for performance in both tasks is the same. Experiments 2 and 3 compared standard old-new recognition decisions with decisions in which items very similar to old targets had to be rejected as new. False alarm curves for these similar items were biphasic, consistent with the view that familiarity becomes available early, and recalled information becomes available later, in the retrieval episode. These findings, together with those of Hintzman, Curran, and Oppy (1992), support the view that two processes - unidimensional familiarity and specific-item recall - contribute to both the recognition and frequency-judgment tasks. However, familiarity is the primary basis for performance in both tasks, and recall plays a secondary role.