Familiarity In Recognition Memory Research Articles

The effect of part-list cuing on associative recognition.

The modulation of part-list cuing on item memory has been well-documented, whereas its impact on associative memory remains largely unknown. The present study explored the effect of part-list cuing on associative recognition and, more specifically, whether this forgetting effect caused by part-list cuing is more sensitive to recollection or familiarity in recognition memory. Experiments 1a and 1b combined the intact/rearranged/new judgement task of associative recognition with the classical part-list cuing paradigm, and the result showed that part-list cuing impaired the recognition accuracy of "intact" and "rearranged" face-scene pairs. Moreover, the discriminability score of relational recognition and item recognition was significantly decreased in the part-list cuing condition compared to the no-part-list cuing condition. Experiments 2a and 2b further used the Remember/Know/Guess task to explore which recognition processes (recollection vs. familiarity) were sensitive to the presentation of part-list cuing. The results showed that part-list cuing reduced the familiarity of relational recognition and the recollection and familiarity of item recognition. These findings suggest that part-list cuing was harmful to the recognition of relationships (familiarity) and items (recollection and familiarity) in associative memory.

Sense of agency may not improve recollection and familiarity in recognition memory

Sense of agency (SoA) is a feeling of controlling one’s own action. Recognition memory can improve for stimuli that involve SoA perhaps because of the self-reference effect. Recognition memory consists of recollection (i.e., detailed memory of stimuli) and familiarity (i.e., a feeling that stimuli are in memory). The self-reference effect is often observed in the recollection. Here, we investigated whether SoA particularly improves the recollection process. Participants pressed a key to produce an outcome (i.e., box movement followed by word presentation in Experiment 1 or word presentation in Experiment 2) and rated their SoA over the outcome. The outcome was spatially congruent or incongruent with the action. The participants learned the words intentionally (Experiment 1) or incidentally (Experiment 2). Performances of recollection and familiarity were assessed using the remember/know procedure. Our results suggest that the participants’ SoA was successfully manipulated. However, contrary to our hypothesis and previous findings, we found no effects of voluntary action and action–outcome congruence on recollection and familiarity processes of recognition memory, regardless of the latency of word presentation and learning strategies. Further studies are needed to replicate and elucidate the relationship between the SoA and recognition memory.

Talker-familiarity benefit in non-native recognition memory and word identification: The role of listening conditions and proficiency.

Native listeners benefit from talker familiarity in recognition memory and word identification, especially in adverse listening conditions. The present study addresses the talker familiarity benefit in non-native listening, and the role of listening conditions and listeners' lexical proficiency in the emergence of this benefit. Dutch non-native listeners of English were trained to identify four English talkers over 4 days. Talker familiarity benefit in recognition memory was investigated using a recognition memory task with "old" and "new" words produced by familiar and unfamiliar talkers presented either in the clear or in noise. Talker familiarity benefit in word identification was investigated by comparing non-native listeners' performances on the first and the last day in identifying words in different noise levels, produced by either a trained (included in the voice recognition training) or by an untrained talker (not included in the voice recognition training). Non-native listeners demonstrated a talker familiarity benefit in recognition memory, which was modulated by listening conditions and proficiency in the non-native language. No talker familiarity benefit was found in word identification. These results suggest that, similar to native listening, both linguistic and indexical (talker-specific) information influence non-native speech perception. However, this is dependent on the task and type of speech recognition process involved.

The effect of focal cortical frontal and posterior lesions on recollection and familiarity in recognition memory

Recognition memory can be subdivided into two processes: recollection (a contextually rich memory) and familiarity (a sense that an item is old). The brain network supporting recognition encompasses frontal, parietal and medial temporal regions. Which specific regions within the frontal lobe are critical for recollection vs. familiarity, however, are unknown; past studies of focal lesion patients have yielded conflicting results. We examined patients with focal lesions confined to medial polar (MP), right dorsal frontal (RDF), right frontotemporal (RFT), left dorsal frontal (LDF), temporal, and parietal regions and matched controls. A series of words and their humorous definitions were presented either auditorily or visually to all participants. Recall, recognition, and source memory were tested at 30 min and 24 h delay, along with “remember/know” judgments for recognized items. The MP, RDF, temporal and parietal groups were impaired on subjectively reported recollection; their intact recognition performance was supported by familiarity. None of the groups were impaired on cued recall, recognition familiarity or source memory. These findings suggest that the MP and RDF regions, along with parietal and temporal regions, are necessary for subjectively-reported recollection, while the LDF and right frontal ventral regions, as those affected in the RTF group, are not.

Repetition-lag memory training is feasible in patients with chronic stroke, including those with memory problems

ABSTRACTPrimary objective: Repetition-lag memory training was developed to increase individuals’ use of recollection as opposed to familiarity in recognition memory. The goals of this study were to examine the feasibility of repetition-lag training in patients with chronic stroke and to explore whether the training might show suggestions of transfer to non-trained tasks.Research design: Quasi-experimental.Methods and procedures: Patients (n = 17) took part in six repetition-lag training sessions and their gains on the training and non-trained tasks were compared to those of age-matched healthy controls (n = 30).Main outcomes and results: All but two patients completed the training, indicating that themethod is feasible with a wide range of patients with stroke. The amount patients gained on the training task was similar to that of healthy controls (that is, the Group × Time interactions were by-and-large not significant), suggesting that patients with stroke might benefit to the same degree as healthy adults from this training. Both groups showed some indication of transfer to the non-trained backward digit span task and visuospatial memory.Conclusions: These findings show that repetition-lag memory training is a possible approach with patients with stroke to enhance recollection. Further research on the method’s efficacy and effectiveness is warranted.

FALSE ALARMS, RECOLLECTION, FAMILIARITY, AND CONFIDENCE IN RECOGNITION MEMORY IN HEALTHY ELDERLY INDIVIDUALS: ASSOCIATIONS WITH HIPPOCAMPAL VOLUMES

FALSE ALARMS, RECOLLECTION, FAMILIARITY, AND CONFIDENCE IN RECOGNITION MEMORY IN HEALTHY ELDERLY INDIVIDUALS: ASSOCIATIONS WITH HIPPOCAMPAL VOLUMES

The multiple neural networks of familiarity: A meta-analysis of functional imaging studies.

Recent research has demonstrated the critical role of the feeling of familiarity in recognition memory. Various neuroimaging paradigms have been developed to identify the brain regions that sustain the processing of familiarity; however, there is still considerable controversy about the functional significance of each brain region implicated in familiarity-based retrieval. Here, we focused on the differences between paradigms that assess familiarity, with or without the encoding phase. We used the activation likelihood estimation (ALE) algorithm to conduct a whole-brain meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies that involved a familiarity task. Sixty-nine studies, performed in healthy subjects to determine the specific functions of the identified regions in familiarity processing, were finally selected. Distinct subanalyses were performed according to the experimental procedures used in the original studies. The ALE clusters that were highlighted revealed common activations for paradigms with and without encoding in the prefrontal cortex and in the parietal cortex. Additionally, supplementary activations related to specific familiarity (i.e., without the encoding phase) were observed in the limbic system (i.e., the amygdala, hippocampus, cingulate cortex, and insula) and in the associative sensory areas. The differences in the reported findings for different procedures are possibly due to differences in the concept of familiarity. To aid the exploration of the neural correlates of familiarity in future studies, the strengths and weaknesses of these experimental procedures are critically discussed.

Assessing the dissociability of recollection and familiarity in recognition memory.

Recognition memory is often modeled as constituting 2 separate processes, recollection and familiarity, rather than as constituting a single process mediated by a generic latent strength. One way of stating evidence for the more complex 2-process model is to show dissociations with select manipulations, in which one manipulation affects recollection more than the second and the second affects familiarity more than the first. One of the best paradigms for assessing such dissociations is the confidence-ratings paradigm, because within it criterial and mnemonic effects may be separately estimated. There is, unfortunately, a relative lack of easily interpretable dissociation experiments in the confidence ratings paradigm, and those that exist do not show clear evidence for dissociations. We report the results of 3 experiments with conventional manipulations designed to maximally dissociate recollection and familiarity. To provide valid assessment, without recourse to aggregation over items or participants, we develop a hierarchical version of Yonelinas' (1994) dual-process model and a novel test of dissociability for state-trace plots. The data do not provide evidence that recollection and familiarity are dissociable. Instead, estimates of recollection and familiarity are positively related across conditions and experiments. On balance, performance is more parsimoniously accounted for by a single mnemonic process that drives both recollection and familiarity estimates.

Could masked conceptual primes increase recollection? The subtleties of measuring recollection and familiarity in recognition memory

We begin with a theoretical overview of the concepts of recollection and familiarity, focusing, in the spirit of this special issue, on the important contributions made by Andrew Mayes. In particular, we discuss the issue of when the generation of semantically-related information in response to a retrieval cue might be experienced as recollection rather than familiarity. We then report a series of experiments in which two different types of masked prime, presented immediately prior to the test cue in a recognition memory paradigm, produced opposite effects on Remember vs. Know judgments. More specifically, primes that were conceptually related to the test item increased the incidence of Remember judgments, though only when intermixed with repetition primes (which increased the incidence of Know judgments instead, as in prior studies). One possible explanation—that the fluency of retrieval of item–context associations can be experienced as recollection, even when the source of that fluency is unknown—is counter to conventional views of recollection and familiarity, though it was anticipated by Andrew in his writings nearly two decades ago.

Recollection can be weak and familiarity can be strong.

The remember-know procedure is widely used to investigate recollection and familiarity in recognition memory, but almost all of the results obtained with that procedure can be readily accommodated by a unidimensional model based on signal-detection theory. The unidimensional model holds that remember judgments reflect strong memories (associated with high confidence, high accuracy, and fast reaction times), whereas know judgments reflect weaker memories (associated with lower confidence, lower accuracy, and slower reaction times). Although this is invariably true on average, a new 2-dimensional account (the continuous dual-process model) suggests that remember judgments made with low confidence should be associated with lower old-new accuracy but higher source accuracy than know judgments made with high confidence. We tested this prediction--and found evidence to support it--using a modified remember-know procedure in which participants were first asked to indicate a degree of recollection-based or familiarity-based confidence for each word presented on a recognition test and were then asked to recollect the color (red or blue) and screen location (top or bottom) associated with the word at study. For familiarity-based decisions, old-new accuracy increased with old-new confidence, but source accuracy did not (suggesting that stronger old-new memory was supported by higher degrees of familiarity). For recollection-based decisions, both old-new accuracy and source accuracy increased with old-new confidence (suggesting that stronger old-new memory was supported by higher degrees of recollection). These findings suggest that recollection and familiarity are continuous processes and that participants can indicate which process mainly contributed to their recognition decisions.

Amygdala lesions selectively impair familiarity in recognition memory

A major controversy in the study of memory concerns whether there are distinct medial temporal lobe (MTL) substrates of recollection and familiarity. Studies using Received Operating Characteristics (ROC) analyses of recognition memory indicate that the hippocampus is essential to recollection but not familiarity. We report the converse pattern wherein amygdala damage impairs familiarity while sparing recollection. Combined with previous findings, these results dissociate recollection and familiarity by selective MTL damage.

Monkeys Recall and Reproduce Simple Shapes from Memory

If you draw from memory a picture of the front of your childhood home, you will have demonstrated recall. You could also recognize this house upon seeing it. Unlike recognition, recall demonstrates memory for things that are not present. Recall is necessary for planning and imagining, and it can increase the flexibility of navigation, social behavior, and other cognitive skills. Without recall, memory is more limited to recognition of the immediate environment. Amnesic patients are impaired on recall tests [1, 2], and recall performance often declines with aging [3]. Despite its importance, we know relatively little about nonhuman animals' ability to recall information; we lack suitable recall tests for them and depend instead on recognition tests to measure nonhuman memory. Here we report that rhesus monkeys can recall simple shapes from memory and reproduce them on a touchscreen. As in humans [4, 5], monkeys remembered less in recall than recognition tests, and their recall performance deteriorated more slowly. Transfer tests showed that monkeys used a flexible memory mechanism rather than memorizing specific actions for each shape. Observation of recall in Old World monkeys suggests that it has been adaptive for over 30 million years [6] and does not depend on language.

Multiple ways to the prior occurrence of an event: An electrophysiological dissociation of experimental and conceptually driven familiarity in recognition memory

Recent research has shown that familiarity contributes to associative memory when the to-be-associated stimuli are unitized during encoding. However, the specific processes underlying familiarity-based recognition of unitized representations are still indefinite. In this study, we present electrophysiologically dissociable early old/new effects, presumably related to two different kinds of familiarity inherent in associative recognition tasks. In a study–test associative recognition memory paradigm, we employed encoding conditions that established unitized representations of two pre-experimentally unrelated words, e.g. vegetable–bible. We compared event-related potentials (ERP) during the retrieval of these unitized word pairs using different retrieval cues. Word pairs presented in the same order as during unitization at encoding elicited a parietally distributed early old/new effect which we interpret as reflecting conceptually driven familiarity for newly formed concepts. Conversely, word pairs presented in reversed order only elicited a topographically dissociable early effect, i.e. the mid-frontal old/new effect, the putative correlate of experimental familiarity. The late parietal old/new effect, the putative ERP correlate of recollection, was obtained irrespective of word order, though it was larger for words presented in same order. These results indicate that familiarity may not be a unitary process and that different task demands can promote the assessment of conceptually driven familiarity for novel unitized concepts or experimentally-induced increments of experimental familiarity, respectively.

Perceptual and semantic familiarity in recognition memory: an event-related potential study

Putative event-related potential correlates of perceptual and semantic bases of familiarity in recognition memory were examined with a categorized pictures recognition test. Our participants were presented, at study, with pictures of categorized objects and, at test, with either the very same pictures presented at study, different pictures of studied objects, pictures of new objects belonging to studied categories, or pictures of completely new-uncategorized objects. We found evidence for a parallel evaluation, within familiarity process, of both perceptual and semantic information. We also found new and interesting evidence for the existence of some common neural circuits involved in the FN400 effect, frontal component typically associated to familiarity, and the N400 effect, centro-parietal component typically elicited by 'semantically unexpected' linguistic stimuli.

Recollection and familiarity in recognition memory: Evidence from ROC curves

Does recognition memory rely on discrete recollection, continuous evidence, or both? Is continuous evidence sensitive to only the recency and duration of study (familiarity), or is it also sensitive to details of the study episode? Dual process theories assume recognition is based on recollection and familiarity, with only recollection providing knowledge about study details. Single process theories assume a single continuous evidence dimension that can provide information about familiarity and details. We replicated list (Yonelinas, 1994) and plural (Rotello, Macmillan, & Van Tassel, 2000) discrimination experiments requiring knowledge of details to discriminate targets from similar non-targets. We also ran modified versions of these experiments aiming to increase recollection by removing non-targets that could be discriminated by familiarity alone. Single process models provided the best trade-off between goodness-of-fit and model complexity and dual process models were able to account for the data only when they incorporated continuous evidence sensitive to details.

Electrophysiological correlates of familiarity in recognition memory and exclusion tasks

ERPs were acquired in the test phases of three memory experiments, where three classes of word were presented. These were: (i) words encountered in a prior study phase ( studied words), (ii) words presented at test for the first time ( new words), and (iii) new words repeated after a lag of 7–9 intervening words ( repeated test words). In experiments 1 and 2, participants were asked to respond on one key to studied words and on another to new as well as to repeated test words. In experiment 3, a binary response was again required, but in this case repeated test and studied words were assigned to the same key. In each experiment, the principal focus for analysis was on the differences between the ERPs at mid-frontal electrode locations from 300 to 500 ms post-stimulus that were associated with incorrect responses to studied words (misses) and correct responses to new words. It has been proposed that relatively greater positivity for studied than for new words at this locus reflects the greater familiarity of studied than of unstudied words. ERPs elicited by misses were reliably more positive-going than those elicited by correct rejections in experiments 1 and 2 only. These findings support the link between this modulation of the electrical record and familiarity in so far as the designs of the experiments lead to the prediction that the average level of familiarity associated with misses should be higher in the first two experiments than in the third. In combination with findings in other studies, these data support dual-process accounts of recognition memory.

Recollection and familiarity in recognition memory: Adult age differences and neuropsychological test correlates.

Dual process theories account for age-related changes in memory by proposing that old age is associated with deficits in recollection together with invariance in familiarity. The authors evaluated this proposal in recognition by examining recollection and familiarity estimates in young and older adults across 3 process estimation methods: inclusion/exclusion, remember/know, and receiver operating characteristics (ROC). Consistent with a previous literature review (Light, Prull, LaVoie, & Healy, 2000), the authors found age invariance in familiarity when process estimates were derived from the inclusion/exclusion method, but the authors found age differences favoring the young when familiarity estimates were derived from the remember/know and ROC methods. Recollection estimates were lower for older adults in all 3 methods. Recollection and familiarity had variable relationships with frontal- and temporal-lobe measures of neuropsychological functioning in older adults, depending on which method was used to generate process estimates. These data suggest that although recollection deficits appear to be the rule in aging, not all estimates of familiarity show age invariance.

Supplemental Material for Recollection and Familiarity in Recognition Memory: Adult Age Differences and Neuropsychological Test Correlates

Supplemental Material for Recollection and Familiarity in Recognition Memory: Adult Age Differences and Neuropsychological Test Correlates

Separating the Brain Regions Involved in Recollection and Familiarity in Recognition Memory

The neural substrates of recognition memory retrieval were examined in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study designed to separate activity related to recollection from that related to continuous variations in familiarity. Across a variety of brain regions, the neural signature of recollection was found to be distinct from familiarity, demonstrating that recollection cannot be attributed to familiarity strength. In the prefrontal cortex, an anterior medial region was related to recollection, but lateral regions, including the anterior and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, were related to familiarity. Along the lateral parietal cortex, two functionally distinct regions were also observed: a lateral parietal/temporal region related to recollection and a more superior parietal region involved in familiarity. Similarly, in medial parietal regions, the posterior cingulate was related to recollection, whereas the precuneus was related to familiarity. The hippocampus was related to recollection, but also exhibited an inverse relationship to familiarity-driven recognition confidence. The results indicate that recollection and familiarity rely on different networks of brain regions and provide insights into the functional roles of different regions involved in episodic recognition memory.

Novelty effects on recollection and familiarity in recognition memory.

Recognition memory is better for novel or distinctive items than for non-novel items. However, it is not known whether these effects reflect changes in recollection or in familiarity-based recognition judgments. Some previous results have indicated that recollection should be more sensitive to novelty than to familiarity, whereas other results have suggested the opposite. We used avon Restorff paradigm in which a small proportion of studied items were made novel by presenting them in a color different from that of the majority of the study items. Memory was tested using a remember-know procedure. Across two experiments, stimulus novelty was found to benefit both recollection and familiarity. The effects on familiarity were observed under intentional and incidental encoding conditions, whereas the effects on recollection were significantly reduced, and no longer significant, under incidental as compared with intentional encoding conditions. Thus, both processes benefit from stimulus novelty, but the extent to which recollection benefits from novelty depends on the encoding condition.