The influence of instructions and terminology on the accuracy of remember–know judgments

The remember–know paradigm is one of the most widely used procedures to examine the subjective experience associated with memory retrieval. We examined how the terminology and instructions used to describe the experiences of remembering and knowing affected remember–know judgments. In Experiment 1 we found that using neutral terms, i.e., Type A memory and Type B memory, to describe the experiences of remembering and knowing reduced remember false alarms for younger and older adults as compared to using the terms Remember and Know, thereby increasing overall memory accuracy in the neutral terminology condition. In Experiment 2 we found that using what we call source-specific remember–know instructions, which were intended to constrain remember judgments to recollective experiences arising only from the study context, reduced remember hits and false alarms, and increased know hits and false alarms. Based on these data and other considerations, we conclude that researchers should use neutral terminology and source-specific instructions to collect the most accurate reports of the experiences of remembering and knowing arising from the study context.     

Analysis of RT distributions in the remember—know paradigm

Do remembering and knowing differ qualitatively (reflecting distinct underlying processes) or quantitatively (reflecting different levels of strength)? Broadly speaking, models of remember—know judgments based on these alternatives have been tested by examining the proportion of remember and know responses that are made across conditions or levels of confidence. Here, we consider reaction time (RT) data. We replicate Dewhurst and Conway’s (1994) observation that old judgments followed by remember responses are faster, on average, than those followed by know decisions, but show that this effect is largely due to differing distributions of remember and know responses across confidence levels. In addition, fits of ex-Gaussian distributions of hit RTs followed by either remember or know judgments yield similar parameter values when confidence level is controlled. Thus, these RT data do not provide strong support for the idea that remembering and knowing depend on different processes.     

Automatic processing influences free recall: converging evidence from the process dissociation procedure and remember-know judgments

Dual-process theories of retrieval suggest that controlled and automatic processing contribute to memory performance. Free recall tests are often considered pure measures of recollection, assessing only the controlled process. We report two experiments demonstrating that automatic processes also influence free recall. Experiment 1 used inclusion and exclusion tasks to estimate recollection and automaticity in free recall, adopting a new variant of the process dissociation procedure. Dividing attention during study selectively reduced the recollection estimate but did not affect the automatic component. In Experiment 2, we replicated the results of Experiment 1, and subjects additionally reported remember–know–guess judgments during recall in the inclusion condition. In the latter task, dividing attention during study reduced remember judgments for studied items, but know responses were unaffected. Results from both methods indicated that free recall is partly driven by automatic processes. Thus, we conclude that retrieval in free recall tests is not driven solely by conscious recollection (or remembering) but also by automatic influences of the same sort believed to drive priming on implicit memory tests. Sometimes items come to mind without volition in free recall.     

Recollection-based prospective metamemory judgments are more accurate than those based on confidence: judgments of remembering and knowing (JORKS)

Five experiments were conducted to examine whether the nature of the information that is monitored during prospective metamemory judgments affected the relative accuracy of those judgments. We compared item-by-item judgments of learning (JOLs), which involved participants determining how confident they were that they would remember studied items, with judgments of remembering and knowing (JORKs), which involved participants determining whether studied items would later be accompanied by contextual details (i.e., remembering) or would not (i.e., knowing). JORKs were more accurate than JOLs when remember-know or confidence judgments were made at test and when cued recall was the outcome measure, but not for yes-no recognition. We conclude that the accuracy of metamemory judgments depends on the nature of the information monitored during study and test and that metamemory monitoring can be improved if participants are asked to base their judgments on contextual details rather than on confidence. These data support the contention that metamemory decisions can be based on qualitatively distinct cues, rather than an overall memory strength signal.     

Functional Aspects of Recollective Experience in Face Recognition

This article describes two experiments on awareness in recognition memory for novel faces. Two kinds of awareness, recollective experience and feelings of familiarity in the absence of recollective experience, were measured by "remember" and "know" responses. Experiment 1 showed that "remember" but not "know" responses were reduced by divided attention at study. Experiment 2 showed that massed versus spaced repetition of faces in the study list had the opposite effects on "remember" and "know" responses. Massed repetition increased "know" responses and reduced "remember" responses. Spaced repetition increased "remember" responses and reduced "know" responses. The results of both experiments replicate previous findings from the verbal domain in the domain of face recognition, and hence they increase the ecological validity of this experiential approach to memory and awareness and the generality of its database. These findings are discussed from a rehearsal perspective on factors influencing the two states of awareness and in relation to the alternative "process dissociation" procedure.     

On the validity of remember-know judgments: evidence from think aloud protocols

The use of remember–know judgments to assess subjective experience associated with memory retrieval, or as measures of recollection and familiarity processes, has been controversial. In the current study we had participants think aloud during study and provide verbal reports at test for remember–know and confidence (i.e., sure–probably) judgments. Results indicated that the vast majority of remember judgments for studied items were associated with recollection from study (87%), but this correspondence was less likely for high-confidence judgments (72%). Instead, high-confidence judgments were more likely than remember judgments to be associated with incorrect recollection and a lack of recollection. Know judgments were typically associated with a lack of recollection (62%), but still included recollection from the study context (33%). Thus, although remember judgments provided fairly accurate assessments of retrieval including contextual details, know judgments did not provide accurate assessments of retrieval lacking contextual details.     

Effects of exact and category repetition in true and false recognition memory

Two experiments used the distinction between remembering and knowing to investigate the effects of exact and category repetition in recognition memory. In Experiment 1, exact repetition enhanced remember responses but had no reliable effect on know responses. In Experiment 2, category repetition enhanced correct know responses but had no effect on correct remember responses. Category repetition also increased false positive remember and know responses. It is argued that exact repetition influences the recollection component of recognition memory via the creation of multiple episodic traces, each of which is potentially capable of supporting a remember response, whereas category repetition influences the familiarity component of recognition memory by enhancing the fluency with which test items are processed.     

Walking through doorways differentially affects recall and familiarity

Previous research has reported that walking through a doorway to a new location makes memory for objects and events experienced in the previous location less accurate. This effect, termed the location updating effect, has been used to suggest that location changes are used to mark boundaries between events in memory: memories for objects encountered within the current event are more available than those from beyond an event boundary. Within a computer‐generated memory task, participants navigated through virtual rooms, walking through doorways, and interacting with objects. The accuracy and their subjective experience of their memory for the objects (remember/know and confidence) were assessed. The findings showed that shifts in location decreased accurate responses associated with the subjective experience of remembering but not those associated with the experience of knowing, even when considering only the most confident responses in each condition. These findings demonstrate that a shift in location selectively impacts recollection and so contributes to our understanding of boundaries in event memory.     

Divided attention at retrieval disrupts knowing but not remembering

The view that remember and know responses can be explained within a dual-process framework has recently been questioned (e.g., Gardiner, Konstantinou, Karayianni, & Gregg, 2005). The aims of the present study were to investigate further discrepancies between remember/know (R/K) studies and dual-process models of recognition memory. In two experiments participants were required to make old/new and R/K decisions under full and divided attention conditions. Experiment 1 used a two-step R/K procedure and showed that attention during retrieval reduced overall recognition performance. Experiment 2 used a one-step R/K procedure and showed that dividing attention at retrieval only affected know responses, suggesting that knowing but not remembering relies on controlled retrieval processes. These findings and findings from recent research provide evidence that is inconsistent with the dual-process explanation for R/K research.     

Divided attention at retrieval disrupts knowing but not remembering

The view that remember and know responses can be explained within a dual-process framework has recently been questioned (e.g., Gardiner, Konstantinou, Karayianni, & Gregg, 2005). The aims of the present study were to investigate further discrepancies between remember/know (R/K) studies and dual-process models of recognition memory. In two experiments participants were required to make old/new and R/K decisions under full and divided attention conditions. Experiment 1 used a two-step R/K procedure and showed that attention during retrieval reduced overall recognition performance. Experiment 2 used a one-step R/K procedure and showed that dividing attention at retrieval only affected know responses, suggesting that knowing but not remembering relies on controlled retrieval processes. These findings and findings from recent research provide evidence that is inconsistent with the dual-process explanation for R/K research.     

Emotion and prior knowledge in memory and judged comprehension of ambiguous stories

Abstract

Two experiments investigated the effects of experimentally induced mood states on memory and judged comprehension of stories. The experiments examined the issue of whether induction of a depressed mood would affect prose memory and comprehension and impair the ability of individuals to use prior knowledge, activated by way of a title, in remembering the passage. In Experiment 1, depressed subjects who were given a title for the passage recalled fewer idea units when compared with neutral control conditions, but no depressive deficit in recall occurred in the absence of a title. In Experiment 2 the same pattern of results occurred when subjects learned two successive passages. The depressive deficits obtained were interpreted in terms of a resource allocation model which proposes that emotional states increase the production of irrelevant, competing thoughts that interfere with processes important in remembering the criterion passage. Alternative explanations involving cognitive initiative and schema theory were discussed. Finally, judgments of comprehension predicted passage recall and were better predictors for neutral than depressed mood subjects. A depressed mood state did not affect average judgments of comprehension even when recall was correspondingly impaired.     

Perceptual effects and recollective experience in face recognition

Four experiments were conducted investigating the effect of size congruency on facial recognition memory, measured by remember, know and guess responses. Different study times were employed, that is extremely short (300 and 700 ms), short (1,000 ms), and long times (5,000 ms). With the short study time (1,000 ms) size congruency occurred in knowing. With the long study time the effect of size congruency occurred in remembering. These results support the distinctiveness/ fluency account of remembering and knowing as well as the memory systems account, since the size congruency effect that occurred in knowing under conditions that facilitated perceptual fluency also occurred independently in remembering under conditions that facilitated elaborative encoding. They do not support the idea that remember and know responses reflect differences in trace strength.     

Recognition memory and awareness: A high-frequency advantage in the accuracy of knowing

The well-established advantage of low-frequency words over high-frequency words in recognition memory has been found to occur in remembering and not knowing. Two experiments employed remember and know judgements, and divided attention to investigate the possibility of an effect of word frequency on know responses given appropriate study conditions. With undivided attention at study, the usual low-frequency advantage in the accuracy of remember responses, but no effect on know responses, was obtained. Under a demanding divided attention task at encoding, a high-frequency advantage in the accuracy of know responses was obtained. The results are discussed in relation to theories of knowing, particularly those incorporating perceptual and conceptual fluency.     

Repetition of previously novel melodies sometimes increases both remember and know responses in recognition memory

Recognition memory for previously novel melodies was tested in three experiments in which subjects usedremember andknow responses to report experiences of recollection, or of familiarity in the absence of recollection, for each melody they recognized. Some of the melodies were taken from Polish folk songs and presented vocally, but without the words. Others were taken from obscure pieces of classical music, presented as single-line melodies. Prior to the test, the melodies were repeated for varying numbers of study trials. Repetition of the Polish melodies increased both remember and know responses, while repetition of classical melodies increased remember but not know responses. When subjects were instructed to report guesses, guess responses were inversely related to remember and know responses and there were more guesses to lures than to targets. These findings establish that remembering and knowing are fully independent functionally and, by the same token, they provide further evidence against the idea that response exclusivity causes increases in remembering to force decreases in knowing. The findings also suggest that simultaneous increases in remembering and knowing occurred because the Polish melodies came from a genre for which the subjects had relatively little previous experience.     

Recognition memory and awareness: A high-frequency advantage in the accuracy of knowing

The well-established advantage of low-frequency words over high-frequency words in recognition memory has been found to occur in remembering and not knowing. Two experiments employed remember and know judgements, and divided attention to investigate the possibility of an effect of word frequency on know responses given appropriate study conditions. With undivided attention at study, the usual low-frequency advantage in the accuracy of remember responses, but no effect on know responses, was obtained. Under a demanding divided attention task at encoding, a high-frequency advantage in the accuracy of know responses was obtained. The results are discussed in relation to theories of knowing, particularly those incorporating perceptual and conceptual fluency.     

Feeling of knowing and duration of unsuccessful memory search

Five experiments examined the impact of feeling of knowing on decisions to continue or to terminate the search of memory in question answering. First, two pairs of experiments respectively scrutinized knowledge about (1) ordinary facts and (2) national capitals. The first experiment of each pair extracted normative data: The participants indicated whether they had probably once known the answer to a question (once-knew-it scale), supplied the answer if they knew it, and either judged the likelihood of their recognizing the answer or made other pertinent metacognitive judgments. In these norming experiments, recognition ratings were highly correlated with once-knew-it responses, and both measures were highly predictive of performance. Thisindicated that both measures reflect feeling of knowing judgments. In the second experiment of each pair, different participants were timed as they indicated whether they knew the answer to the same questions. Responselatencies for responding "don't know" were strongly positively correlated with the once-knew-it judgments made by the norming participants. This relationship was corroborated by Experiment 5, which compared the crucial measures within participants. These outcomes suggest that, in this context, feeling of knowing judgments are predictive of how long people will search memory for requested information.     

Phenomenal characteristics of cryptomnesia

Qualitative characteristics of cryptomnesia, or unintentional plagiarism were investigated. In Experiment 1 we compared accurate and inaccurate source attributions in terms of their level of confidence using instructions that did not require a fixed number of responses. Confidence was lower for plagiarised responses than for correct responses. Nevertheless, participants provided high ratings of certainty for a large proportion of their plagiarised responses. In Experiment 2 the phenomenological differences between plagiarised recall and veridical recall were compared by using an adaptation of the memory characteristics questionnaire (Johnson, Foley, Suengas, & Raye, 1988). Correct responses were associated with more experiential detail than plagiarised responses. However, a considerable number of plagiarised responses were accompanied by a confident memory of at least one qualitative characteristic. Results are discussed in terms of the source monitoring framework developed by Johnson, Hashtroudi, and Lindsay (1993).     

Recognition memory and introspective remember/know judgments: Evidence for the influence of distractor plausibility on “remembering” and a caution about purportedly nonparametric measures

One popular technique in the study of human recognition memory involves the elicitation of remember and know judgments and the attribution of those judgments to qualitative states of memory retrieval. An alternative view, reviewed here, implicates quantitative, but not qualitative, differences in evidence as the basis for those two judgments. That theory makes two clear and testable predictions: that of criterion shifts in "remembering" and that of isodiscriminability across different response sets. In this experiment, the makeup of the distractor set in a recognition test is shown to influence overall recognition criterion and also rates of "remember" responses. The second portion of the article demonstrates how A' is a poor choice of a measure to test the prediction of isodiscriminability. When this measure is corrected (Equation 7) to make it more consistent with current knowledge about the receiver-operating characteristic in recognition memory, it reveals that there is no difference in discriminability between "remember" and all positive responses.     

Impact of encoding depth on awareness of perceptual effects in recognition memory

Pictorial stimuli are more likely to be recognized if they are the same size, rather than a different size, at study and at test. This size congruency effect was replicated in two experiments in which the encoding variables were respectively undivided versus divided attention and level of processing. In terms of performance, these variables influenced recognition and did not influence size congruency effects. But in terms of awareness, measured by remember and know responses, these variables did influence size congruency effects. With undivided attention and with a deep level of processing, size congruency effects occurred only in remembering. With divided attention and with a shallow level of processing, size congruency effects occurred only in knowing. The results show that effects that occur in remembering may also occur independently in knowing. They support theories in which remembering and knowing reflect different memory processes or systems. They do not support the theory that remembering and knowing reflect differences in trace strength.     

Recognition memory in amnesia: effects of relaxing response criteria

In two experiments, using the remember/know paradigm, we examined whether recognition memory in amnesic patients can be improved by instructing patients to relax their response criterion. Experiment 1 was modeled after a study by Dorfman, Kihlstrom, Cork, and Misiaszek (1995), in which direct instructions to respond more leniently led to an increase in recognition accuracy in patients with ECT-induced amnesia. We failed to extend this finding to patients with global amnesia, but the manipulation was unsuccessful in control subjects as well. In Experiment 2, response criterion was manipulated indirectly by providing information about the alleged base rate of study items on the recognition test. This manipulation led to a criterion shift in control subjects and enhanced discriminability in amnesic patients. Analysis of “remember” and “know” responses suggests that improved accuracy in amnesia was associated with enhanced familiarity-based recognition.