title: Dual-process theory and signal-detection theory of recognition memory.
abstract: Two influential models of recognition memory, the unequal-variance signal-detection model and a dual-process threshold/detection model, accurately describe the receiver operating characteristic, but only the latter model can provide estimates of recollection and familiarity. Such estimates often accord with those provided by the remember-know procedure, and both methods are now widely used in the neuroscience literature to identify the brain correlates of recollection and familiarity. However, in recent years, a substantial literature has accumulated directly contrasting the signal-detection model against the threshold/detection model, and that literature is almost unanimous in its endorsement of signal-detection theory. A dual-process version of signal-detection theory implies that individual recognition decisions are not process pure, and it suggests new ways to investigate the brain correlates of recognition memory.
authors.affiliation: University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. jwixted@ucsd.edu
authors.forename: John T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Wixted
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011582:Psychological Theory; D011584:Psychology / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012372:ROC Curve; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological