Recall, recognition, and the hippocampus: Reply to Yonelinas et al. (2004)

Abstract

Two recent studies disagree about whether recall is more impaired than recognition (and recollection more than familiarity) in patients with damage limited to the hippocampus (Manns, Hopkins, Reed, Kitchener, & Squire, 2003;Yonelinas et al., 2002). Wixted and Squire (2004) pointed out that the disagreement about recall and recognition stems entirely from an outlying recognition score obtained by 1 of 55 control subjects in Yonelinas et al. (2002). In their comment on our paper, Yonelinas et al. (2004) minimize the importance of this result and argue that the role of the hippocampus in recollection and familiarity is best studied using different methods that attempt to measure these processes directly. Here, we argue that the recall versus recognition comparison is the strongest test because it relies on the fewest controversial assumptions, and that the other approaches explored by Yonelinas et al. (2002) rely on questionable, theory-laden assumptions. We also rehearse the reasons for concluding that the patients studied by Manns et al. (2003) have damage limited to the hippocampal region (hippocampus proper, dentate gyrus, and subiculum), and we emphasize that important questions remain about the patients studied by Yonelinas et al. (2002), inasmuch as no neuroanatomical information and minimal neuropsychological information has been provided.

Emotional Autobiographical Memories in Amnesic Patients with Medial Temporal Lobe Damage

“…These results indicate that the recollection of emotional autobiographical memories from the remote past is not dependent on the hippocampus proper. Although the hippocampus may be differentially involved in recollection versus familiarity in the study of recognition memory (Yonelinas et al, 2002) (but see Wixted and Squire, 2004, for a divergent viewpoint), the recollection of remote autobiographical memory is unimpaired after hippocampal damage (Reed and Squire, 1998;Bayley et al, 2003). Results from the current study extend these findings to include the recollection of emotional autobiographical memories.…”

Signal detection with criterion noise: Applications to recognition memory.

“…The recent explosion of work evaluating the exact form of the isosensitivity function in recognition memory under different conditions (Arndt & Reder, 2002; Glanzer, Kim, Hilford, & Adams, 1999; Gronlund & Elam, 1994; Kelley & Wixted, 2001; Matzen & Benjamin, in press; Qin, Raye, Johnson, & Mitchell, 2001; Ratcliff, Sheu, & Gronlund, 1992; Ratcliff, McKoon, & Tindall, 1994; Slotnick, Klein, Dodson, & Shimamura, 2000; Van Zandt, 2000; Yonelinas, 1994, 1997, 1999) and in different populations (Healy, Light, & Chung, 2005; Howard, Bessette-Symons, Zhang, & Hoyer, 2006; Manns, Hopkins, Reed, Kitchener, & Squire, 2003; Wixted & Squire, 2004a, 2004b; Yonelinas, Kroll, Dobbins, Lazzara, & Knight, 1998; Yonelinas, Kroll, Quamme, Lazzara, Suavé, Widaman, & Knight, 2002; Yonelinas, Quamme, Widaman, Kroll, Suavé, & Knight, 2004), as well as the prominent role those functions play in current theoretical development (Dennis & Humphreys, 2001; Glanzer, Adams, Iverson, & Kim, 1993; McClelland & Chappell, 1998; Wixted, 2007; Shiffrin & Steyvers, 1997; Yonelinas, 1999), suggests the need for a thorough reappraisal of the underlying variables that contribute to those functions. Because work in psychophysics (Krantz, 1969; Nachmias & Steinman, 1963) and, more recently, in recognition memory (Malmberg, 2002; Malmberg & Xu, 2006; Wixted & Stretch, 2004) has illustrated how aspects and suboptimalities of the decision process can influence the shape of the isosensitivity function, the goals of this article are to provide an organizing framework for the incorporation of decision noise within TSD, and to help expand the various theoretical discussions within the field of recognition memory to include a role for decision variability.…”