Familiarity supports associative recognition memory for face stimuli that can be unitised: Evidence from receiver operating characteristics |
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| Authors: | Theodor Jäger Axel Mecklinger |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Psychology, Experimental Neuropsychology Unit , Saarland University , Saarbruecken, Germany;2. Department of Neurology , Universit?tsklinikum Mannheim, University of Heidelberg , Mannheim, Germany t.jaeger@gmx.ch;4. Department of Psychology, Experimental Neuropsychology Unit , Saarland University , Saarbruecken, Germany |
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| Abstract: | According to dual-process models, associative recognition memory mainly relies on recollection without benefiting from familiarity. This study investigates the circumstances under which familiarity may support associative recognition judgements by comparing recognition memory for arbitrarily paired items (i.e., pairs of face stimuli depicting two different persons; interitem associations) with recognition memory for pairs of items that are highly overlapping and can be unitised into a coherent whole (i.e., pairs of physically different but very similar face stimuli depicting the same person; intraitem associations). Estimates of familiarity and recollection were derived from receiver operating characteristics. Consistent with the hypothesis that familiarity is able to support associative recognition memory, but only when the to-be-associated stimuli can be unitised, results from two experiments revealed higher familiarity estimates for intra- compared to interitem associations. By contrast, recollection for recombined pairs was higher for inter- compared to intraitem associations. We propose a hypothetical model on how intraitem associations may benefit from familiarity. |
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