Dual-process models of recognition memory posit a rapid retrieval process that produces a general sense of familiarity and a slower retrieval process that produces conscious recollections of prior experience. The remember/know paradigm has been used to study the subjective correlates of these two processes, with remember judgments assumed to index conscious recollection and know judgments assumed to index familiarity. Recently, a two-criterion signal detection model has been proposed as an alternative account of this paradigm. This model assumes only a single memory process with a criterion separating remember from know responses. This report presents an empirical test of the model's critical prediction that manipulations that influence criterion placement should influence both remember and know judgments. An experiment confirmed this prediction, demonstrating that subjects who were told that 70% of the test items were study items produced more remember and know responses than subjects who were told that 30% of the test items were study items.
This paper considers how the two-criterion signal-detection model can be used to interpret judgements of recollection from the remember-know paradigm. We propose that, among other uses, the model can be applied to discriminate results that provide strong evidence for the influence of multiple memory processes from results that are merely consistent with the assumption of such influences. The specific logic motivating this approach is that results falsifying the two-criterion signal-detection model provide strong evidence for the influence of multiple-memory processes on judgements of recollection. We believe that focusing theory construction on results that provide strong evidence of multiple memory processes will lead to the construction of coherent, parsimonious models of the relationship between memory processes and consciousness. We review recent papers by Conway and Dewhurst (1995), Hirshman andLanning (1999), andConway et al. (2001) to provide examples of the usefulness of using the two-criterion signal-detection model. Conway et al. (2001) present a series of experiments examining the effects of selfjudgement during study on remember-know judgements in recognition memory. A central finding of their experiments is that when hit rates are equated across encoding conditions, self-judgements during study produce more remember responses than control-encoding judgements in later recognition memory. Importantly, this finding occurs when the retention interval is greater than one hour, but not at shorter retention intervals (e.g. 5 minutes). At these shorter retention intervals, the proportion of remember responses tends to be equal across the self-and control-encoding conditions when hit rates are approximately equal across these encoding conditions. Conway et al. emphasize that their findings have important implications for conceptions of the working self, consolidation, and longterm memory.We are extremely pleased to see continuing interest in conceptions of the self and its role in episodic memory. We are also gratified to see a replication of Hirshman and Lanning's (1999) finding that remember responses are approximately equal across the self-and control-encoding conditions at short retention intervals when overall hit rates are equated across these conditions. We concur with Conway et al. that the contrast between the results at long and short retention intervals provides an important constraint on theories
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