An AnnotatedReading List for Recognition Memory

This is a briefly annotated list of readings on the topic of recognition memory. It is primarily designed for my students, but it should also be useful to others who want a primer on the topic. By now there are a large number of articles and chapters published on the topic and this reading list will perhaps provide you with a nonrandom entry into this fascinating literature.

Old School

Recognition is the discrimination of events that one experienced from events that one has not experienced. There are three basic varieties of recognition tasks. One might be presented a stimulus, for instance, and be asked if it was encountered in specific context. This is referred to as a yes-no or old-new task. A closely related task is a rating task, whereby subjects are asked to provide a scalar judgment that represents his or confidence that a stimulus was studied. Some of these scalar values are usually associated with yes response and the remaining associated with no response, and each represents a different degree of confidence that the stimulus was studied. These can be related to a true-false test, in that the subject is asked to judge whether it is true or false an item occurred or how confident the subject is that an item occurred. A different form of test is a multiple choice test. Accordingly, one might be shown two stimuli and asked which one was presented in a specific context. Psychologists referred to this as a two-alternative forced-choice task.

Recognition accuracy for yes-no and ratings tasks is a function of the probability of responding yes to previously encountered items versus the probability of responding yes to item not previously encountered. In the later case, recognition accuracy is simply probability of choosing the correct alternative.

At first glance, these might seem to be rather mundane tasks. But when one appreciates the variety of different forms of recognition memory tasks and the fact that a given stimulus might have been encountered in thousands of different prior contexts, recognition memory is a remarkable faculty indeed. Not surprisingly, the nature of memory for prior occurrences has been investigated for many years. Some of the earliest published papers on recognition memory are:

  • Achilles, E. M. (1920). Experimental studies in recall and recognition. Archives of Psychology, 27, 1-80.
  • Muller, G. E. (1913). Zur Analyse der Ged~ichtnist/itigkeitund desVorstellungsverlaufes. III. Teil. Zeitschrift fiirPsychologie, Erganzungsband, 8.
  • Strong, E. K., Jr. (1912). The effect of time-interval upon recognition memory. Psychological Review, 20, 339-372.

The Relevance of Recognition Memory Research

The earliest days of human memory research, however, paid little attention to recognition, as the dominate research paradigm utilized recall tasks to assess memory for past events. The investigation of recognition memory increased in popularity in the late 1960’s, towards the end of the “verbal learning” heyday and towards the beginning of the “cognitive revolution” in psychology. Today, investigations of recognition memory are commonly reported in the literature, and the empirical results that they report have proven to place strong constraints on theories of memory.

One of the reasons for the relatively recentuptake in interest in recognition memory is that recognition was viewed as a simpler task than, say, serial recall, pair-associate recall, or free recall, which were the primary tasks that had theoretical importance for the verbal learning researchers. That is, researchers following a reductionist approach believed that more specific questions about the nature of memory could be answered by focusing on what they believed was a simpler task. Today, the massive popularity of recognition investigations is in no small part attributable to the fact that the recognition task in its variety of forms is amenable to the methodologies used to relate brain activity to behavior. Investigating the neurological basis of recall performance is much more difficult utilizing fMRI, PET, or EEG methods. Here are references for several recent reviews of the literature on recognition memory:

  • Clark, S.E.Gronlund, S.D. (1996). Global matching models of recognition memory: How the models match the data. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 3, 37-60.
  • Wixted, J. T. (2004). The psychology and neuroscience of forgetting. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 235-269.
  • Yonelinas, A.P. (2002). The nature of recollection and familiarity: A review of 30 years of research. Journal of Memory and Language, 46, 441-517.

Recognition memory occupies a prominent place in the current zeitgeist of memory research. However, the relevance of many early recognition memory findings to then extant theoretical issueswas called into questionwhen it was rather quickly discovered that recognition and recall were affected in different ways by variety of factors. These interactions between operational factors and memory tasks have subsequently been a primary source of motivation for many who seek a better understanding of episodic memory. Here is but a short list of articles that address the distinction between recognition and recall.

Emotion

  • Hamann, S. Cognitive and neural mechanisms of emotional memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 2001;5: 394-400.
  • Hertel, P. T., & Parks, C. (2002). Emotional episodes facilitate word recall. Cognition and Emotion, 16, 685-694.
  • Windmann, S. Kutas, M. (2001). Electrophysiological correlates of emotion-induced recognition bias. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 13(5), 577-592.

Context variability

  • Cook, G. I., Marsh, R. L., & Hicks, J. L.(2006). The role of recollection and familiarity inthe context variability mirror effect. Memory & Cognition, 34, 240-250.
  • Hicks, J. L., Marsh, R. L., & Cook, G. I. (2005). An observation on the role of context variability in free recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, andCognition, 31, 1160-1164.
  • Steyvers, M. & Malmberg, K. J. (2003). The effect of normative context variability on recognition memory, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 29(5), 760-766.

Word-frequency

  • Balota, D. A., & Neely, J. H. (1980). Text expectancy and word-frequency effects in recall and recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6, 576-587.
  • Deese, J. (1960). Frequency of usage and number of words in free recall: The role of association. Psychological Review, 7, 337-344.
  • Gorman, A. M. (1961). Recognition memory for nouns as a function of abstractness and frequency. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 61, 23-29.
  • Gregg, V. H. (1976). Word frequency, recognition, and recall. In J. Brown (ed.), Recall and recognition. London: Wiley.
  • Schulman, A. I. (1967). Word length and rarity in recognition memory. Psychonomic Science, 9, 211-212.
  • Shepard, R. N. (1967). Recognition memory for words, sentences, andpictures. Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior, 6, 156-163.

Mnemonic Organization

  • Mandler, G. (1967). Organization in memory. In K. W. Spence and J. A. Spence (Eds.) The psychology of learning and motivation, Vol. 1, New York, Academic Press.
  • Mandler, G. Pearlstone, Z., & Koopmans, H. S. (1969). Effects of organization and semantic similarity on recall and recognition.

Aging

  • Balota, D.A., Dolan, P.O., & Duchek, J.M. (2000). Memory Changes in Healthy Older Adults. In Tulving, E. and Craik, F.I.M. (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Memory. (395-409) NY: Oxford.
  • Craik, F.I.M. & McDowd, J.M. (1987). Age differences in recall and recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 13, 474-479.
  • Light, L.L. (1991). Memory and aging: Four hypotheses in search of data. Annual Review of Psychology, 42, 333-376.

Serial Position

  • Murdock, B. B. & Anderson, R. E. (1975). Encoding, storage, and retrieval of item information. In R. L. Solso (Ed.) Information processing and cognition: The Loyola Symposium. Earlbaum: Hillsdale, NJ.

Amnesia

  • Holdstock, J. S., Mayes, A. R., Roberts, N., Cezayirli, E., Isaac, C. L., O'Reilly, R. C., & Norman, K. A. (2002). Under what conditions is recognition spared relative to recall after selective hippocampal damage in humans?Hippocampus, 12, 341-351.

Recognition as Detection of an Internal Signal Embedded in Noise

These articles provide a rich empirical basis for evaluating theories of memory. During the early years of recognition memory research, several researchers developed models that were based on signal detection theory (Green & Swets, 1966; Macmillan & Creelman, 1991). Whereas recall was conceived as a threshold-like process, recognition was assumed to be based on continuous random variable, which was often conceptualized as the strength or familiarity of the test stimulus. These papers are representative of this discussion in the early literature on recognition memory.

  • Banks, W. P. (1970). Signal Detection theory and human memory. Psychological Bulletin, 74, 81-99.
  • Bernbach, H. A. (1970) Decision process in memory. Psychological Review, 74, 462-480.
  • Kintsch, W. (1967). Memory and decision aspects of recognition learning. Psychological Review, 74, 496-504.
  • Lockhart, R. S. and Murdock, B. B., (1970). Memory and theory of signal detection, Psychological Review,74, 100-109.

Global-Matching Models

Signal-detection models made at least two significant contributions to our understanding of recognition memory. The first is an empirical contribution: Signal detection provided a means for independently measuring the sensitivity and the bias of recognition memory performance. Signal detection also provided a framework that considered the basis of a detection task to be evidence that varied along a continuous dimension (e.g., familiarity). Hence, a comprehensive understanding of recognition requires a way describing how the familiarity associated with a stimulus is generated. Signal detection models are not, alas, models of familiarity.

A highly influential class of familiarity models is global-matching models. There are a wide variety of global-matching models. However, they have several common elements. Global-matching models assume that a memory trace is stored for each stimulus studied. These traces may be either holistic or multidimensional representations of the stimulus and the context in which it occurred. At test, global memory models assume that a temporary representation of the test stimulus is constructed. This is referred to as a retrieval cue. The retrieval cue is used to probe memory. The probe consists of a comparison of the retrieval cue to contents of memory, which is assumed to consistent of at least those traces stored during study, and perhaps many more. The interaction between the retrieval cue and memory produces a scalar value, which represents how familiar the retrieval cue seems to be. This value is then compared to a subjectively set criterion. If the familiarity value exceeds the criterion,the recognition response is “yes”; otherwise it is “no”. Generally speaking, the more similar a retrieval cue is to the contents of memory the greater its familiarity value will be.

Here are references for several first-generation global-matching models:

  • Estes, W. K. (1994). Classification and Cognition. New York: Oxford.
  • Gillund, G. & Shiffrin, R. M. (1984). A retrieval model for both recognition and recall. Psychological Review, 91, 1-67.
  • Hintzman, D. L. (1988). Judgments of frequency and recognition memory

in a multiple-trace model. Psychological Review, 95, 528–551.

  • Humphreys, M. S., M. Bain, J. D., & Pike, R. (1989). Different way to cue a coherent memory system: A theory of episodic, semantic, and procedural tasks. Psychological Review, 96, 208-233.
  • Metcalfe, J. (1993). Novelty monitoring, metacognition, and control in a composite holograph associative recall model: Implication for Korsakoff Amnesia. Psychological Review, 100(1), 3-22.
  • Murdock, B. B. (1993). TODAM2: A model for the storage and retrieval of item, associative, and serial-order information. Psychological Review, 100(2), 183-203.

The Effect of Interference in a Global-Matching Framework

A watershed moment in our understanding of recognition memory occurred in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s when researchers noticed that the global-memory models predicted that recognition memory for a given item would be negatively affected to a greater degree when it was studied with other more strongly encoded items than when studied with other more weakly encoded items. This prediction was investigated using a mixed-list pure-list paradigm, whereby subjects studied lists comprised of all strong or all weak items and the performance on these lists was compared to the performance for similar items studied on lists comprised both strong and weak items. This is now referred to as list-strength manipulation, and list strength is another manipulation that has different effects on recognition and recall. Whereas many global memory models predicted that strong items would produce stronger interference than weak items for both recognition and free recall, this prediction was only confirmed for free recall.

Here are several critical articles on the list-strength effect:

  • Murdock, B. B., & Kahana, M. J. (1993a). Analysis of the list-strengtheffect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 19, 689-697.
  • Murdock, B. B., & Kahana, M. J. (1993b). List-strength and list-length effects: Reply to Shiffrin, Ratcliff, Murnane, and Nobel(1993). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 19, 1450-1453.
  • Murnane, K., & Shiffrin, R. M. (1991a). Interference and the representationof events in memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,Memory, and Cognition, 17, 855–874.
  • Murnane, K., & Shiffrin, R. M. (1991b). Word repetitions in sentencerecognition. Memory & Cognition, 19, 119–130.
  • Ratcliff, R., Clark, S. E., & Shiffrin, R. M. (1990). List-strength effect: I.Data and discussion. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,Memory, and Cognition, 16, 163–178.
  • Shiffrin, R. M., Ratcliff, R., Murnane, K., & Nobel, P. (1993).TODAM and the list-strength and list-length effects: Comment onMurdock and Kahana (1993a). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 19, 1445-1449.
  • Tulving, E., & Hastie, R. (1972). Inhibition effects in intralist repetitions infree recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 92, 297–304.
  • Wixted, J. T., Ghadisha, H., & Vera, R. (1997). Recall latency followingpure- and mixed-strength lists: A direct test of the relative strengthmodel of free recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 23, 523–538.

Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) Analyses

The basis for the predicted list-strength effect for recognition memory is the assumption that increasing how well item is encoded results in an increase in the variability of it familiarity when memory is probed with a new item or foil. Many separate-trace global-matching models made this assumption, and therefore they predicted that the slope of the z-transformed receiver operating (zROC) characteristic would systematically affected by a list-strength manipulation. Several important articles on the form of the recognition memory ROC were pulished. They established that slope of recognition memory zROC is less than unity, is affected by item strength, but not affected by list-strength. As a package these findings were difficult for many global-matching models to handle, and the importance of these ROC analyses to the future direction of recognition memory research cannot by over estimated.

  • Heathcote, A. (2003). Item recognition memory and the receiver operating characteristic. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,Memory, & Cognition, 29, 1210-1230.
  • Ratcliff, R., & McKoon, G. (1991). Using ROC data and priming results totest global memory models. In W. E. Hockley & S. Lewandowsky(Eds.),

Relating theory and data; Essays in honor of Bennet B. Murdock(pp. 279–296). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

  • Ratcliff, R., McKoon, G., & Tindall, M. (1994). Empirical generalityof data from recognition memory receiver-operating characteristicfunctions and

implications for the global memory models. Journalof Experimental

Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 20,763-785.

  • Ratcliff, R., Sheu, C.-F., & Gronlund, S. D. (1992). Testing global memorymodels using ROC curves. Psychological Review, 99, 518–535.

Mirror Effects

Bayesian Models of Recognition Memory

Dual-process Models of Recognition Memory

The Retrieval Dynamics of Recognition Memory

Recognition Memory as an Implicit Form of Memory

The Cognitive Neuroscience of Recognition Memory

Aging

Context-dependent Recognition

The Relationship between Recognition and Classification

The Relationship between Recognition and Lexical Decision

The Relationship between Recognition and Perceptual Identification

The Relationship Between Recognition and Source Memory

Recognition Memory versus Memory Scanning