The process-dissociation procedure and similarity: Defining and estimating recollection and familiarity in recognition memory.

Abstract

In this article, we have two objectives. One aim is to demonstrate that estimates of the contributions of recollection and familiarity to recognition memory judgments obtained with Jacoby's (1991) two-study-list processdissociation (PD) procedure are dramatically affected by the discriminability of the two study lists. Our more grand, theoretical aim is to argue that rather than being viewed as evidence of measurement error in the two-study-list PD procedure, our findings can be interpreted as support for a functionalist approach to recognition memory. The proposed approach combines aspects of dual-process theories (Jacoby & Dallas, 1981; Mandler, 1980) with aspects of global memory models (Gillund & Shiffiin, 1984; Murdock, 1982) and, more generally, with theories in which memory for an event consists of multiple records of the component processes that gave rise to and constituted the experience of that event (e.g., the multiple-entry, modular memory system [MEM] model of Johnson, 1983, 1990, 1992, or the transfer-appropriate processing approach articulated by Roe