We removed a key uncertainty in the Deese/Roediger/McDermott (DRM) illusion. The mean backward associative strength (MBAS) of DRM lists is the best-known predictor of this illusion, but it is confounded with semantic relations between lists and critical distractors. Thus, it is unclear whether associative relations, semantic relations, or both…

We implemented a new approach to measuring the relative speeds of different cognitive processes, one that extends multinomial models of memory and reasoning from discrete decisions to latencies. We applied it to the dual-process prediction that familiarity is faster than recollection. Relative to prior work on this prediction, the advantages of…

We report the 1st example of a true complementarity effect in memory development--a situation in which memory for the "same event" simultaneously becomes more and less accurate between early childhood and adulthood. We investigated this paradoxical effect because fuzzy-trace theory predicts that it can occur in paradigms that produce…

Recent research on the overdistribution principle implies that episodic memory is infected by conjunction illusions. These are instances in which an item that was presented in a single context (e.g., List 1) is falsely remembered as having been presented in multiple contexts (e.g., List 1 and List 2). Robust conjunction illusions were detected in…

We investigated the development of dual-retrieval processes with a low-burden paradigm that is suitable for research with children and neurocognitively impaired populations (e.g., older adults with mild cognitive impairment or dementia). Rich quantitative information can be obtained about recollection, reconstruction, and familiarity judgment by…

Advances in dual-retrieval models of recall make it possible to use clinical data to test theoretical hypotheses about mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's dementia (AD), the most common forms of neurocognitive impairment. Hypotheses about the nature of the episodic memory declines in these diseases, about decline versus sparing of…

When recognition probes seem familiar but their presentation cannot be recollected, dual-process models predict that they will be attributed to too many presentation contexts--most dramatically, to multiple contexts that are mutually contradictory. This is the phenomenon of episodic over-distribution. In the conjoint-recognition and…

One of the most extensively investigated topics in the adult memory literature, dual memory processes, has had virtually no impact on the study of early memory development. The authors remove the key obstacles to such research by formulating a trichotomous theory of recall that combines the traditional dual processes of recollection and…

Reviews some limiting properties of the process-dissociation model as it applies to the study of dual-process conceptions of memory. A second-generation model (conjoint recognition) is proposed to address these limitations and supply additional capabilities. Worked applications to data are provided. (Author/GCP)

Two remembering phenomenologies, vivid recollection and vague familiarity, have been extensively studied in adults using introspective self-report tasks, such as rememberknow. Because such tasks are beyond the capabilities of young children, there is no database on how these phenomenologies first develop and what factors affect them. In…