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Abstract:
It has been suggested that the responses on a recognition
memory test can be based on two types of criteria, remember and
know (Tulving, 1985). Remember judgments are made when a person has
conscious recollection of a study event. Know judgments occur when
a person has a sense of familiarity about an item without conscious
recollection of the previous experience. There is some disagreement
as to whether the processes underlying know judgments are similar
to implicit memory processes (Gardiner, 1988; Rajaram, 1993).
Amnesics are useful to study this distinction because their
explicit memory is impaired while their performance on implicit
memory tasks is intact. However, one difficulty comparing amnesics
and controls in past experiments has been differences in overall
recognition performance. In the present study, we equated overall
recognition between amnesics and controls. In Experiment 1, we
assessed memory for words and equated overall recognition by
increasing the delay between study and test for a control group. In
Experiment 2, we assessed memory for pictures instead of words in
addition to including a delay control group. A remember/know test
was used to measure recognition. When overall recognition is
equivalent, the patterns of remember and know responses are similar
for amnesics and controls. This suggests that know responses are
not driven by implicit memory processes, but instead can be seen as
another measure of explicit memory.
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