The long-term consequences of correctly rejecting and falsely accepting target-related foils in visual recognition memory

Abstract

People often falsely recognize items that resemble previously encountered items, particularly when the original items are not offered as response options during a recognition test. The present study examined how falsely recognizing versus correctly rejecting target-related foils in an initial recognition test affects target identification in a second, delayed recognition test. In three experiments, subjects first encoded a large set of target images, and then participated in two recognition tests that were separated by 48h. Experiment 1 revealed that false recognitions of target-related foils in Test 1 did not negatively affect target identifications in Test 2. Surprisingly, however, correct rejections of target-related foils in Test 1 were associated with increased target misses at Test 2. Two follow-up experiments examined possible mechanisms for the increased target misses after correct rejections. Experiment 2 determined that correct rejections in Test 1 did not lead to enhanced foil memory that might have blocked access to memory for target details in Test 2. Experiment 3 showed that target misses persisted when the second recognition test did not involve any comparative judgments and therefore mismatched the format of the first recognition test. Taken together, these findings suggest that subjects can easily recover from false recognitions when provided with the necessary retrieval cues; yet, initial correct rejections bias later memory responses toward rejection, such that over time, rejections generalize to targets.