Recollection and familiarity deficits in amnesia: Convergence of remember-know, process dissociation, and receiver operating characteristic data.

Abstract

Previous studies using the process dissociation and the remember-know procedures led to conflicting conclusions regarding the effects of anterograde amnesia on recollection and familiarity. We argue that these apparent contradictions arose because different models were used to interpret the results and because differences in false-alarm rates between groups biased the estimates provided by those models. A reanalysis of those studies with a dual-process signal-detection model that incorporates response bias revealed that amnesia led to a pronounced reduction in recollection and smaller but consistent reduction in familiarity. To test the assumptions of the model and to further assess recognition deficits in amnesics, we examined receiver operating characteristics (ROCs) in amnesics and controls. The ROCs of the controls were curved and asymmetrical, whereas those of the amnesics were curved and symmetrical. The results supported the predictions of the model and indicated that amnesia was associated with deficits in both recollection and familiarity.

Memory orientation and success: separable neurocognitive components underlying episodic recognition

“…Had they been scored assuming redundancy or independence, the tabled data suggest that a deficit might well have been observed for knowing [54]. Similarly, Yonelinas et al [55] documented small but reliable deficits in familiarity based memory as a consequence of MTL damage when recollection and familiarity are assumed to represent independent processes [55]. In the current study, the selectivity of the success effect to source recognition provides a retrieval complement to recent evidence that the magnitude of hippocampal activation during relational encoding, but not during item-based learning, correlates with subsequent recognition memory [56].…”

Are affective events richly recollected or simply familiar? The experience and process of recognizing feelings past.

“…In contrast, Jacoby, Yonelinas, and their colleagues have argued that the processes of recollection and familiarity are independent (e.g., Jacoby et al, 1997;Yonelinas et al, 1998), rather than mutually exclusive. According to their independence model, whether a given item is recollected does not constrain whether it is familiar: Some items can be exclusively recollected, some exclusively familiar, and some can be both recollected and familiar.…”

“…Thus recollection can be estimated more accurately if one takes into account remember "false alarms ''2 (see Footnote 2 for the equation and Yonelinas et al, 1998 for details). The contribution of familiarity to recognition can be estimated by assuming that each K response is a discriminative judgment modeled well by signal detection theory.…”

“…According to Jacoby et al's (1997) independence model of recognition, familiarity refers to the automatic process that gives rise to this sense of pastness and not the experience itself. Recently, Yonelinas et al (1998) have proposed a further refinement of the independence model by suggesting that the familiarity process draws on many different kinds of automatic signals that together contribute to the experience of knowing. This model incorporates aspects of signal detection theory to account for differences in response bias that can obscure the influence of experimental variables upon both familiarity and recollection.…”

Not all repetition is alike: Different benefits of repetition in amnesia and normal memory

“…Given that the varied-context condition allows for the establishment of multiple retrieval cues, which should aid recollection in memory-intact individuals, we predicted that recollection would be greater following varied-context repetition than following same-context repetition. As for the individuals with amnesia, we predicted that the effects of both same-context and varied-context repetition would be manifest largely in enhanced familiarity, given the severe impairment of recollection in that group (Verfaellie & Treadwell, 1993;Yonelinas et al, 1998). However, to the extent that repetition can enhance recollection in that group at all, we expected that this would be more likely to be evident in the varied-context than in the same-context repetition condition, again, because multiple retrieval cues were potentially available.…”