The sensory match effect in recognition memory: perceptual fluency or episodic trace?

Abstract

The sensory match effect in recognition memory refers to the finding that recognition is better when the sensory form in which an item is tested is the same as that in which it was studied. This paper examines the basis for the sensory match effect by manipulating whether a studied fragmented picture is tested with the same or a complementary set of fragments in a recognition memory test (Experiment 1) and in a fragment-identification test (Experiment 2). Assuming that fragment identification is a direct measure of perceptual fluency, we expected identical patterns of results across the two tests if perceptual fluency accounted for the sensory match effect in recognition memory. Instead, recognition memory showed a robust overall sensory match effect (the same fragmented image was recognized better than the complementary image), whereas fragment identification showed no overall sensory match effect (the same fragmented image was identified no better than the complementary fragmented image). Experiments 3 and 4 combined the two responses and showed that the basis for the sensory match effect in recognition memory was a subject's ability to recognize the matching fragments in the absence of conceptual information (when the test stimulus could not be identified), supporting the idea that the episodic trace of the sensory code is responsible for the sensory match effect in recognition memory. Experiment 5 demonstrated that subjects are able to use this sensory code as the sole basis for recognition memory.