Increasing the salience of fluency cues reduces the recognition memory impairment in amnesia.
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.
Keane
Margaret M
MM
Department of Psychology, Wellesley College, 106 Central Street, Wellesley, MA 02481, USA. mkeane@wellesley.edu
Orlando
Frances
F
Verfaellie
Mieke
M
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