Psychological Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Is “Remember”-Recognition Faster Than “Know”-Recognition an Experimental Artefact? Revealing Properties of Recollection and Familiarity

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Spring 4-9-2025

Abstract

In published studies using the remember/know judgment paradigm, the remember-based old/new responses (supposed to be slow and effortful) are on average faster than the know-based responses (supposed to be fast and automatic), contrary to the dual-process theories’ view. One widely believed cause of this finding is that it is an experimental artifact, meaning participants are unknowingly influenced by the instruction to first consider the Remember before the Know alternative. In Experiment 1, we hinted to participants to first consider the Know experience. This did not reverse the order of the two response times (RT). In Experiment 2, we explicitly told them to first consider the Familiarity experience. Additionally, we used a decision criterion favoring making quick familiarity responses. These measures significantly lowered the response time, and increased the proportion of the familiarity-based responses. However, they did not change the RT of the recollection-based responses and did not reverse the relative order of the two response times. Based on this finding and participants’ inability to inhibit the retrieval of contextual details, we concluded that the paradoxical RT results are probably not an experimental artifact, and that retrieval of detailed information in recollective recognition might be automatic.

Comments

© 2025 Canadian Psychological Association

Publication Title

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology

DOI

10.1037/cep0000379

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