In defense of the signal detection interpretation of remember/know judgments.
Donaldson (1996) argued that remember/know judgments can be conceptualized within a signal detection framework by assuming that they are based on two criteria situated along a strength-of-memory decision axis. According to this model, items that exceed a high criterion receive a remember response, whereas items that only exceed a lower criterion receive a know response. Although a variety of findings have been presented in evidence against this idea, Dunn (2004) recently showed that detection theory is fully compatible with those findings. We present a variety of new results and new analyses that weigh strongly in favor of the detection interpretation. We further show that a dual-process account of recognition memory is compatible with a unidimensional detection model despite the common notion that such a model necessarily assumes a single process. The key assumption of this model is that individual recognition decisions are based on both recollection and familiarity (not on one process or the other).
Wixted
John T
JT
Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0109, USA. jwixted@ucsd.edu
Stretch
Vincent
V
D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008568:Memory; D012372:ROC Curve; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological