One might assume that familiarity with a scene or previous encounters with objects embedded in a scene would benefit subsequent search for those items. However, in a series of experiments we show that this is not the case: When participants were asked to subsequently search for multiple objects in the same scene, search performance remained…

Participants studied naturalistic pictures presented for varying brief durations and then received a recognition test on which they indicated whether each picture was old or new and rated their confidence. In 1 experiment they indicated whether each "old"/"new" response was based on memory for a specific feature in the picture…

The present research was aimed at investigating recognition memory and recollective experience for a text in adolescents with and without learning difficulties. Adolescents (age 15 to 19) with learning difficulties were selected based on their performance on a standardized test for text comprehension and on the teachers' evaluations of their…

Reports of superior memory for novel relative to familiar material have figured prominently in recent theories of memory. However, such "novelty effects" are incongruous with long-standing observations that familiar items are remembered better. In 2 experiments, we explored whether this discrepancy was explained by differences in the…

Recognition memory based on familiarity judgments is a form of declarative memory that has been repeatedly associated with the anterior medial temporal lobe. It has been argued that this region sustains familiarity-based recognition not only by retrieving item-specific information but also by coding for those semantic aspects of an event that…

It is well established that the memory strength of studied items is more variable than the strength of new items on tests of recognition memory, but the reason why this occurs is poorly understood. One account for this old "item variance effect" is based on single-process theory, which proposes that this effect is due to variability in how well…

The current study compared the neural correlates of associative retrieval of compound (unitized) stimuli and unrelated (non-unitized) stimuli. Although associative recognition was nearly identical for compounds and unrelated pairs, accurate recognition of these different pair types was associated with activation in distinct regions within the…

Recollection has long been thought to play a key role in associative recognition tasks. Evidence that associative recollection might be a threshold process has come from analyses of the associative recognition receiver operating characteristic (ROC). Specifically, the ROC is not as curvilinear as a signal detection theory requires. In addition,…

Source memory depends on our ability to recollect contextual information--such as the time, place, feelings, and thoughts associated with a past event. It is acknowledged that the medial temporal lobe (MTL) plays a critical role in binding such episodic features. Yet, controversy exists over the nature of MTL binding--whether it contributes…

We hypothesise that of the two processes underlying declarative memory, recollection is impaired in high-functioning autism (HFA) whereas recollection and familiarity are impaired in low-functioning autism (LFA). Testing these hypotheses necessitates assessing recollection and familiarity separately. However, this is difficult, because both…

In two experiments, participants studied word pairs and later discriminated old (intact) word pairs from foils, including recombined word pairs and pairs including one or two previously unstudied words. Rather than making old/new memory judgments, they chose one of five responses: (1) Old-Old (original), (2) Old-Old (rearranged), (3) Old-New, (4)…

People are generally skilled at using a confidence scale to rate the strength of their memories over a wide range. Specifically, low-confidence recognition decisions are often associated with close-to-chance accuracy, whereas high-confidence recognition decisions can be associated with close-to-perfect accuracy. However, using a 20-point rating…

This study examines the effects of task familiarity through the use of subtitled videos on negotiation of meaning in an online task-based language learning (TBLL) environment. It explores the amount of negotiation of meaning produced by non-native speakers (NNSs) aimed at improving input comprehension to enhance second language acquisition. Ten…

One widely acknowledged way to improve our memory performance is to repeatedly study the to be learned material. One aspect that has received little attention in past research regards the context sensitivity of this repetition effect, that is whether the item is repeated within the same or within different contexts. The predictions of a…

According to the dual criterion account of early linguistic judgment (Merriman & Lipko, 2008), preschool-aged children who possess more efficient object memory processes should also be more accurate judges of whether various objects have known names. In support of this claim, both the accuracy of object recognition and the speed of object…