title: Increasing the salience of fluency cues reduces the recognition memory impairment in amnesia.
abstract: The present study examined whether the recognition memory deficit in amnesia would be attenuated under conditions that increased the salience of study-induced fluency. Studied and unstudied items were drawn either from separate pools of letters (no-overlap condition) or from the same pool of letters (overlap condition). Study-induced fluency was more salient in the no-overlap than in the overlap condition, because in the no-overlap condition, such fluency occurred at the letter level as well as at the word level. The recognition memory impairment in amnesia was smaller in the no-overlap than in the overlap condition. These findings are consistent with the idea that enhancing the salience of fluency cues promotes reliance on a fluency heuristic that ordinarily is not fully engaged in amnesia, and reduces the recognition memory impairment in amnesia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Wellesley College, 106 Central Street, Wellesley, MA 02481, USA. mkeane@wellesley.edu
authors.forename: Margaret M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Keane
authors.forename: Frances
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Orlando
authors.forename: Mieke
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Verfaellie
mesh_terms: D000647:Amnesia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology