On Reporting Recollective Experiences and “Direct Access to Memory Systems”

Animacy enhances recollection but not familiarity: Convergent evidence from the remember-know-guess paradigm and the process-dissociation procedure

Words representing living beings are better remembered than words representing nonliving objects, a robust finding called the animacy effect. Considering the postulated evolutionary-adaptive significance of this effect, the animate words' memory advantage should not only affect the quantity but also the quality of remembering. To test this assumption, we compared the quality of recognition memory between animate and inanimate words. The remember-know-guess paradigm (Experiment 1) and the process-dissociation procedure (Experiment 2) were used to assess both subjective and objective aspects of remembering. Based on proximate accounts of the animacy effect that focus on elaborative encoding and attention, animacy is expected to selectively enhance detailed recollection but not the acontextual feeling of familiarity. Multinomial processing-tree models were applied to disentangle recollection, familiarity, and different types of guessing processes. Results obtained from the remember-know-guess paradigm and the process-dissociation procedure convergently show that animacy selectively enhances recollection but does not affect familiarity. In both experiments, guessing processes were unaffected by the words' animacy status. Animacy thus not only enhances the quantity but also affects the quality of remembering: The effect is primarily driven by recollection. The results support the richness-of-encoding account and the attentional account of the animacy effect on memory.

Troubled past: A critical psychometric assessment of the self-report Survey of Autobiographical Memory (SAM)

The Survey of Autobiographical Memory (SAM) was designed as an easy-to-administer measure of self-perceived autobiographical memory (AM) recollection capacity. We provide a comprehensive psychometric evaluation of the SAM in younger and older adults. First, we evaluated the reliability of the SAM as a measure of self-perceived recollective capacity. Next, we tested whether the SAM was a valid measure of episodic and autobiographical memory performance, as assessed with widely used performance-based measures. Finally, we investigated associations between the SAM, cognitive measures and self-reported assessments of psychological functioning. The SAM demonstrated reliability as a self-report measure of perceived recollective capacity. High internal consistency was observed across subscales, with the exception of SAM-semantic. Evidence for independence among the subscales was mixed: SAM-episodic and SAM-semantic items showed poor correspondence with respective subscales. Good correspondence was observed between the future and spatial items and their SAM subscales. The SAM showed limited associations with AM performance as measured by the Autobiographical Interview (AI), yet was broadly associated with self-reported AI event vividness. SAM scores were weakly associated with performance-based memory measures and were age-invariant, inconsistent with known age effects on declarative memory. Converging evidence indicated that SAM-episodic and SAM-semantic subscales are not independent and should not be interpreted as specific measures of episodic or semantic memory. The SAM was robustly associated with self-efficacy, suggesting an association with confidence in domain general self-report abilities. We urge caution in the use and interpretation of the SAM as a measure of AM, pending revision and further psychometric validation.

From simple agents to information sources: Readers' differential processing of story characters as a function of story consistency

The study examined how readers integrate information from and about multiple information sources into a memory representation. In two experiments, college students read brief news reports containing two critical statements, each attributed to a source character. In half of the texts, the statements were consistent with each other, in the other half they were discrepant. Each story also featured a non-source character (who made no statement). The hypothesis was that discrepant statements, as compared to consistent statements, would promote distinct attention and memory only for the source characters. Experiment 1 used short interviews to assess participants' ability to recognize the source of one of the statements after reading. Experiment 2 used eye-tracking to collect data during reading and during a source-content recognition task after reading. As predicted, discrepancies only enhanced memory of, and attention to source-related segments of the texts. Discrepancies also enhanced the link between the two source characters in memory as opposed to the non-source character, as indicated by the participants' justifications (Experiment 1) and their visual inspection of the recognition items (Experiment 2). The results are interpreted within current theories of text comprehension and document literacy.

Different definitions of the nonrecollection-based response option(s) change how people use the "remember" response in the remember/know paradigm

In the remember/know paradigm, a "know" response can be defined to participants as a high-confidence state of certainty or as a low-confidence state based on a feeling of familiarity. To examine the effects of definition on use of responses, in two experiments, definitions of "remember" and "guess" were kept constant, but definitions of "know" and/or "familiar" were systematically varied to emphasize (a) a subjective experience of high confidence without recollection, (b) a feeling of familiarity, (c) both of these subjective experiences combined within one response option, or (d) both of these experiences as separate response options. The confidence expressed in "know" and/or "familiar" definitions affected how participants used response options. Importantly, this included use of the "remember" response, which tended to be used more frequently when the nonrecollection-based middle response option emphasized a feeling of familiarity rather than an experience of "just knowing." The influence of the definitions on response patterns was greater for items that had undergone deep rather than shallow processing, and was greater when deep-encoded and shallow-encoded items were mixed, rather than blocked, at test. Our findings fit with previous research suggesting that the mnemonic traces underlying subjective judgments are continuous and that the remember/know paradigm is not a pure measure of underlying processes. Findings also emphasize the importance of researchers publishing the exact definitions they have used to enable accurate comparisons across studies.

Face Validity of Remembering and Knowing: Empirical Consensus and Disagreement Between Participants and Researchers

Ever since Endel Tulving first distinguished between episodic and semantic memory, the remember/know paradigm has become a standard means of probing the phenomenology of participants’ memorial experiences by memory researchers, neuropsychologists, neuroscientists, and others. However, this paradigm has not been without its problems and has been used to capture many different phenomenological experiences, including retrieval from episodic versus semantic memory, recollection versus familiarity, strength of memory traces, and so on. We first conducted a systematic review of its uses across the literature and then examined how memory experts, other cognitive psychology experts, experts in other areas of psychology, and lay participants (Amazon Mechanical Turk workers) define what it means when one says “I remember” and “I know.” From coding their open-ended responses using a number of theory-bound dimensions, it seems that lay participants do not see eye to eye with memory experts in terms of associating “I remember” responses with recollection and “I know” responses with familiarity. However, there is general consensus with Tulving’s original distinction, linking remembering with memory for events and knowing with semantic memory. Recommendations and implications across fields are discussed.

Illusory Recollection and Dual–Process Models of Recognition Memory

Higham and Vokey (2000, Exps.1 & 3)demonstrated that a slight increase in the display duration of a briefly presented word prior to displaying it in the clear for a recognition response increased the bias to respond “old”. In the current research, three experiments investigated the phenomenology associated with this illusion of memory using the standard remember–know procedure and a new, independent–scales methodology. Contrary to expectations based on the fluency heuristic, which predicts effects of display duration on subjective familiarity only, the results indicated that the illusion was reported as both familiarity and recollection. Furthermore, manipulations of prime duration induced reports of false recollection in all experiments. The results—in particular, the implications of illusory recollection—are discussed in terms of dual–process, fuzzy–trace, two–criteria signal detection models and attribution models of recognition memory.

How "mere" is the mere ownership effect in memory? Evidence for semantic organization processes

Memory is better for items arbitrarily assigned to the self than for items assigned to another person (mere ownership effect, MOE). In a series of six experiments, we investigated the role of semantic processes for the MOE. Following successful replication, we investigated whether the MOE was contingent upon semantic processing: For meaningless stimuli, there was no MOE. Testing for a potential role of semantic elaboration using meaningful stimuli in an encoding task without verbal labels, we found evidence of spontaneous semantic processing irrespective of self- or other-assignment. When semantic organization was manipulated, the MOE vanished if a semantic classification task was added to the self/other assignment but persisted for a perceptual classification task. Furthermore, we found greater clustering of self-assigned than of other-assigned items in free recall. Taken together, these results suggest that the MOE could be based on the organizational principle of a "me" versus "not-me" categorization.

Effects of context on recollection and familiarity experiences are task dependent

The influence of test context on reports of recollection and familiarity depends on how these subjective recognition experiences are conceptualized and measured. Bodner and Lindsay (2003) found that critical items elicited more remember judgments but fewer know judgments in a less (vs. more) memorable context. In contrast, Tousignant and Bodner (2012) found that independent ratings of recollection and familiarity were both higher in a less memorable context. We replicated the dissociative pattern with judgments using recollect/familiar labels (Experiment 1), and in a novel R/F/B task that added a "both" option to eliminate the mutual exclusivity between the recollect and familiar options (Experiment 2). Adding a "guess" option eliminated these context effects (Experiment 3), however whether allowing guesses "cleans up" or "desensitizes" recollection and familiarity judgments remains unclear. Determining which task variants provide appropriate measures of subjective recognition experiences will require an examination of additional dissociations and triangulation with other measures.

An ERP investigation into the strategic regulation of the fluency heuristic during recognition memory

The goal of the present study was to determine whether masked repetition priming affects ERPs differently depending on whether or not participants are biased by task conditions to interpret enhanced perceptual fluency as evidence of prior study. Participants studied a list of words either in the visual modality or in the auditory modality and then performed a visual recognition memory test while ERPs were recorded. During the test, half the stimuli were preceded by a briefly presented matching prime word and half were preceded by a briefly presented non-matching prime word. Unlike in previous behavioral studies, masked repetition priming led to a reduction in positive recognition responses following auditory study, and had no effect following visual study, although post hoc analyses suggest that participants who received the visual study list may have relied on fluency to make some of their recognition decisions. Masked repetition priming also led to positive ERPs during two time windows-an early 300-500 ms window and a later 500-700 ms window. During the later time window, masked repetition priming exhibited a frontal scalp distribution that was most pronounced for participants who received the auditory study list. We suggest that this late frontal effect reflects participants' tendency to reject enhanced perceptual fluency as evidence of prior study.

Recognition memory for pictorial material in subclinical depression

Depression has been associated with impaired recollection of episodic details in tests of recognition memory that use verbal material. In two experiments, the remember/know procedure was employed to investigate the effects of dysphoric mood on recognition memory for pictorial materials that may not be subject to the same processing limitations found for verbal materials in depression. In Experiment 1, where the recognition test took place two weeks after encoding, subclinically depressed participants reported fewer know judgements which were likely to be at least partly due to a remember-to-know shift. Although pictures were accompanied by negative or neutral captions at encoding, no effect of captions on recognition memory was observed. In Experiment 2, where the recognition test occurred soon after viewing the pictures, subclinically depressed participants reported fewer remember judgements. All participants reported more remember judgements for pictures of emotionally negative content than pictures of neutral content. Together, these findings demonstrate that recognition memory for pictorial stimuli is compromised in dysphoric individuals in a way that is consistent with a recollection deficit for episodic detail and also reminiscent of that previously reported for verbal materials. These findings contribute to our developing understanding of how mood and memory interact.

The role of the human hippocampus in familiarity-based and recollection-based recognition memory

The ability to recognize a previously encountered stimulus is dependent on the structures of the medial temporal lobe and is thought to be supported by two processes, recollection and familiarity. A focus of research in recent years concerns the extent to which these two processes depend on the hippocampus and on the other structures of the medial temporal lobe. One view holds that the hippocampus is important for both processes, whereas a different view holds that the hippocampus supports only the recollection process and the perirhinal cortex supports the familiarity process. One approach has been to study patients with hippocampal lesions and to contrast old/new recognition (which can be supported by familiarity) to free recall (which is supported by recollection). Despite some early case studies suggesting otherwise, several group studies have now shown that hippocampal patients exhibit comparable impairments on old/new recognition and free recall. These findings suggest that the hippocampus is important for both recollection and familiarity. Neuroimaging studies and Receiver Operating Characteristic analyses also initially suggested that the hippocampus was specialized for recollection, but these studies involved a strength confound (strong memories have been compared to weak memories). When steps are taken to compare strong recollection-based memories with strong familiarity-based memories, or otherwise control for memory strength, evidence for a familiarity signal (as well as a recollection signal) is evident in the hippocampus. These findings suggest that the functional organization of the medial temporal lobe is probably best understood in terms unrelated to the distinction between recollection and familiarity.

Remember/know judgments probe degrees of recollection

Remembering and knowing are states of awareness that accompany the retrieval of facts, faces, and experiences from our past. Although originally intended to separate episodic from semantic memory, the dominant view today is that recollection-based decisions underlie remember responses, whereas familiarity-based decisions underlie know responses. Many functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies as well as lesion studies have relied on the remember/know procedure to identify the neural correlates of recollection and familiarity. An implicit assumption of this approach is that know responses, which are thought to tap familiarity-based decisions, are devoid of recollection. We investigated this issue by using a source memory procedure and found that the accuracy of source recollection was significantly above chance for studied words that were declared to be old and known. Critically, this held true even when the source decision was made before the old/new decision (i.e., even after successful recollection had just occurred). Our results show that although recollection and familiarity may be different processes, the remember/know paradigm does not probe them directly. As such, dissociations involving remember/know judgments in fMRI studies and in studies involving amnesic patients should not be construed as dissociations between recollection and familiarity.

Interpreting the effects of response bias on remember-know judgments using signal detection and threshold models

In recognition memory experiments, the tendency to identify a test item as "old" or "new" can be increased or decreased by instructions given at test. The effect of such response bias on remember-know judgments is to change "remember" as well as "old" responses. Existing models of the remember-know paradigm (based on dual-process and signal detection theories) interpret this effect as a shift i nresponse criteria, but differ on the nature ofthe dimension along which t he changes take place. W e extendedthe models to account simultaneously for remember-know and confidence rating data and tested them using old-new (Experiment 1) and remember-know (Experiment 2) rating designs. Quantitative fits show that the signal detection models provide the best overall description of the data.

Factors affecting conscious awareness in the recollective experience of adults with Asperger’s syndrome

have shown a small but significant impairment of autonoetic awareness or remembering involved in the episodic memory experiences of adults with Asperger's syndrome. This was compensated by an increase in experiences of noetic awareness or knowing. The question remains as to whether the residual autonoetic awareness in Asperger individuals is qualitatively the same as that of typical comparison participants. Three experiments are presented in which manipulations that have shown differential effects on different kinds of conscious awareness in memory in typical populations are employed with a sample of adults with Asperger's syndrome. The results suggest that the experiences of remembering reported by such individuals, although reduced in quantity, are qualitatively similar to those seen in the typical population. The results are discussed in the context of current theories of awareness in episodic memory.

The Four-States Model of Memory Retrieval Experiences

Abstract. A memory measurement model is presented that accounts for judgments of remembering, knowing, and guessing in old-new recognition tasks by assuming four disjoint latent memory states: recollection, familiarity, uncertainty, and rejection. This four-states model can be applied to both Tulving's (1985) remember-know procedure (RK version) and Gardiner and coworker's ( Gardiner, Java, & Richardson-Klavehn, 1996 ; Gardiner, Richardson-Klavehn, & Ramponi, 1997 ) remember-know-guess procedure (RKG version). It is shown that the RK version of the model fits remember-know data approximately as well as the one-dimensional signal detection model does. In contrast, the RKG version of the four-states model outperforms the corresponding detection model even if unequal variances for old and new items are allowed for.We show empirically that the two versions of the four-statesmodelmeasure the same state probabilities. However, the RKG version, requiring remember-know-guess judgments, provides parameter estimates with smaller standard errors and is therefore recommended for routine use.

The Influence of Criterion Shifts on Electrophysiological Correlates of Recognition Memory

The claim that event-related potentials (ERPs) index familiarity was assessed by acquiring ERPs during a recognition memory task in which participants were instructed to adopt different decision criteria in separate retrieval phases. In one, the instructions were to respond “old” only when confident that this was the correct response, and to respond “new” otherwise (the conservative condition). In the other, the instructions were to respond new only when confident that this was the correct response (the liberal condition). The rationale for this approach was that the level of familiarity licensing an old response would be higher in the conservative than in the liberal condition, and if ERPs index familiarity, this would be reflected in changes to the putative ERP index. This index comprises relatively more positive-going neural activity for correct judgments to old than to new items, which is evident from 300 to 500 msec poststimulus at mid-frontal scalp locations. In keeping with task instructions, participants made more old responses in the liberal than in the conservative condition. There were reliable mid-frontal ERP old/new effects in both conditions, and the ERPs evoked by correct judgments to words in the conservative condition were relatively more positive-going than those in the liberal condition. This finding is consistent with the view that the mid-frontal ERP old/new effect indexes familiarity, and in combination with other ERP findings, provides strong support for dual-process accounts of recognition memory.

Recognition memory and awareness: A high-frequency advantage in the accuracy of knowing

The well-established advantage of low-frequency words over high-frequency words in recognition memory has been found to occur in remembering and not knowing. Two experiments employed remember and know judgements, and divided attention to investigate the possibility of an effect of word frequency on know responses given appropriate study conditions. With undivided attention at study, the usual low-frequency advantage in the accuracy of remember responses, but no effect on know responses, was obtained. Under a demanding divided attention task at encoding, a high-frequency advantage in the accuracy of know responses was obtained. The results are discussed in relation to theories of knowing, particularly those incorporating perceptual and conceptual fluency.

Method for evaluating subjective states of awareness that accompany recognition: adaptation for use in Portuguese-speaking patients with schizophrenia

OBJECTIVE

Memory is composed of several systems and processes, and recognition can be accompanied by two subjective states of consciousness: autonoetic awareness, which characterizes conscious recollection; and noetic (or semantic) awareness, related to feelings of familiarity. The objective of this study was to describe the adaptation to Portuguese of an experiential procedure for investigation of states of awareness that accompany recognition.

METHODS

Development of the material (word list and instructions permitting manipulation of the level of information processing); translation/adaptation of the original instructions to Portuguese; and application of the procedure in healthy volunteers and patients with schizophrenia. Manipulation of the level of processing consisted in requiring, during the learning phase, that subjects form a phrase or count the number of letters of the words presented. The level of processing, documented in healthy volunteers, should be expressed by greater conscious recollection of words used to form phrases than of words for which letters were counted. In addition, there should be no change in the proportion of recognition based on feelings of familiarity.

RESULTS

The procedure was first applied in six healthy volunteers, in whom the processing level effect was clearly reproducible. Subsequently, it was used in patients with schizophrenia, who understood and followed the instructions perfectly. There was also a clear processing level effect in the patient group.

CONCLUSION

The Portuguese version of this method can be used in our milieu, even in patients with schizophrenia, allowing the study of memory alterations accompanying this mental disorder.

Perceptual Effects and Recollective Experience in Face Recognition

Abstract. Four experiments were conducted investigating the effect of size congruency on facial recognition memory, measured by remember, know and guess responses. Different study times were employed, that is extremely short (300 and 700 ms), short (1,000 ms), and long times (5,000 ms). With the short study time (1,000 ms) size congruency occurred in knowing. With the long study time the effect of size congruency occurred in remembering. These results support the distinctiveness/fluency account of remembering and knowing as well as the memory systems account, since the size congruency effect that occurred in knowing under conditions that facilitated perceptual fluency also occurred independently in remembering under conditions that facilitated elaborative encoding. They do not support the idea that remember and know responses reflect differences in trace strength.

Sum-Difference Theory of Remembering and Knowing: A Two-Dimensional Signal-Detection Model

In the remember-know paradigm for studying recognition memory, participants distinguish items whose presentations are episodically remembered from those that are merely familiar. A one-dimensional model postulates that remember responses are just high-confidence old judgments, but a meta-analysis of 373 experiments shows that the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves predicted by this model have the wrong slope. According to the new sum-difference Theory of remembering and knowing (STREAK), old items differ from new ones in both global and specific memory strength: The old-new judgment is based on a weighted sum of these dimensions, and the remember- know judgment is based on a weighted difference. STREAK accounts for the form of several novel kinds of ROC curves and for existing remember-know and item-recognition data.

Recognition memory and decision processes: a meta-analysis of remember, know, and guess responses

A meta-analysis of proportions of remember, know, and guess responses was carried out on observations from 86 experimental conditions in 23 different recognition memory experiments. Unlike remember and know responses, guess responses revealed no memory for the test items that elicited them. A signal detection analysis of these data showed that A' estimates of the strength of the memory trace depended on response criteria. A' estimates increased significantly when know responses were added to remember responses, and decreased significantly when guess responses were added to remember and know responses. It was guessing, rather than knowing, that was most strongly correlated with overall response criteria. Nor were remembering and knowing correlated significantly. These results do not support a quantitative trace strength model according to which these responses merely reflect different response criteria. They support theories that ascribe remembering and knowing to qualitatively distinct memory systems or processes.

The effect of testing procedure on remember-know judgments

Remember-know (R-K) judgments are commonly used to assess conscious recollection of the study episode during recognition. We varied whether participants judged items as R, K, or new (one-step) or first made an old-new judgment and then made the R-K judgment (two-step). The one-step group had a higher R hit rate and K false alarm rate than did the two-step group. In addition, the K responses of the one-step group did not reliably discriminate between old and new items. When a "guess" response category was available, both groups were able to discriminate old and new items using the K response; however, K responses remained more accurate in the two-step condition. R responses appeared to be relatively immune to the effects of testing procedure when the guess category was provided. This suggests that, under some conditions, the R label can reliably indicate a distinct form of recognition memory, suggesting that allowing participants to use a guess response may help them to confine their R-Kjudgments to confidently recognized items. When participants are not given the option of making a guess response, they may use the R-K distinction to indicate the trace strength of the memory.

Episodic memory and autonoetic consciousness: a first-person approach

Episodic memory is identified with autonoetic consciousness, which gives rise to remembering in the sense of self-recollection in the mental re-enactment of previous events at which one was present. Autonoetic consciousness is distinguished from noetic consciousness, which gives rise to awareness of the past that is limited to feelings of familiarity or knowing. Noetic consciousness is identified not with episodic but with semantic memory, which involves general knowledge. A recently developed approach to episodic memory makes use of 'first-person' reports of remembering and knowing. Studies using this approach have revealed many independent variables that selectively affect remembering and others that selectively affect knowing. These studies can also be interpreted in terms of distinctiveness and fluency of processing. Remembering and knowing do not correspond with degrees of confidence in memory. Nor does remembering always control the memory response. There is evidence that remembering is selectively impaired in various populations, including not only amnesic patients and older adults but also adults with Asperger's syndrome. This first-person approach to episodic memory represents one way in which that most elusive aspect of consciousness, its subjectivity, can be investigated scientifically. The two kinds of conscious experiences can be manipulated experimentally in ways that are systematic, replicable and intelligible theoretically.

Dual processes in recognition: does a focus on measurement operations provide a sufficient foundation?

Current theoretical thinking about dual processes in recognition relies heavily on the measurement operations embodied within the process dissociation procedure. We critically evaluate the ability of this procedure to support this theoretical enterprise. We show that there are alternative processes that would produce a rough invariance in familiarity (a key prediction of the dual-processing approach) and that the process dissociation procedure does not have the power to differentiate between these alternative possibilities. We also show that attempts to relate parameters estimated by the process dissociation procedure to subjective reports (remember-know judgments) cannot differentiate between alternative dual-processing models and that there are problems with some of the historical evidence and with obtaining converging evidence. Our conclusion is that more specific theories incorporating ideas about representation and process are required.

The influence of decision criteria upon remembering and knowing in recognition memory

One may recognise an item as 'old' on basis of a recollective experience or by a feeling of familiarity without specific recollection. The former is called a 'remember' judgement; the latter a 'know' judgement. It has been claimed that remember and know responses reflect qualitatively distinct components of recognition memory, and not just derive from gradual differences in perceived trace strength or subjective certainty (i.e. remember judgments include memories of which one is more confident). Nonetheless, the present study examined the possibility that the distinction does relate to decision criteria placed upon a single familiarity axis (see Donaldson, 1996; Hirshman & Master, 1997). To this purpose, two groups of subjects were compared: one, which was instructed to be very conservative in their old-new judgements, while the other group was stimulated to be very lenient instead. Remember hit rates increased with more lenient criteria, whereas know hit rates did not, but false alarm rates did. While remember sensitivity was equal in the two groups, know sensitivity was lower with liberal criteria. Also it correlated with overall response bias. This lends support to the possibility that subjects not only apply an old-new decision criterion, but also set a remember-know criterion, which is affected in a similar way by liberal versus conservative instructions.

Episodic and semantic contributions to older adults' autobiographical recall

The authors examined episodic and semantic contributions to 2 salient features of older adults' autobiographical recall: the reminiscence bump and the retention effect. Forty well-educated and healthy older men (mean age = 72.5 years; SD = 1.1) recalled personal memories in response to a series of cue words. They also categorized each memory as something they remembered from the past (R response) or they knew had happened in the past (K response) and indicated their ages when each memory occurred. The authors assumed that R and K responses reflected the operation of the episodic and semantic memory systems, respectively. Results showed a reminiscence bump and a retention effect for both R and K responses. The authors discuss the implications of this finding concerning the purported bases of the reminiscence bump and the retention effect as well as the notion that aging is more likely to effect episodic memory than semantic memory.

How memory research can benefit from CASM

Research on cognitive aspects of survey methodology (CASM) has helped survey researchers to understand the processes involved in responding to survey questions. The survey situation, and the methods employed by CASM researchers, can also be used to benefit cognitive psychology. In particular, the size and coverage of sample surveys, and the techniques used to examine how respondents understand survey questions, could be of much value for exploring some aspects of memory research. We give some examples where this is being done and urge others to follow suit.

Experiences of remembering, knowing, and guessing

This article presents and discusses transcripts of some 270 explanations subjects provided subsequently for recognition memory decisions that had been associated with remember, know, or guess responses at the time the recognition decisions were made. Only transcripts for remember responses included reports of recollective experiences, which seemed mostly to reflect either effortful elaborative encoding or involuntary reminding at study, especially in relation to the self. Transcripts for know responses included claims of just knowing, and of feelings of familiarity. These transcripts indicated that subjects were often quite confident of the accuracy of their decisions, compared with those for guess responses. Transcripts for decisions associated with guess responses also expressed feelings of familiarity but additionally revealed various strategies and inferences that did not directly reflect memory for studied items. The article concludes with a historical and theoretical overview of some interpretations of the states of awareness measured by these responses.