title: Relating the content and confidence of recognition judgments.
abstract: The Remember/Know procedure, developed by Tulving (1985) to capture the distinction between the conscious correlates of episodic and semantic retrieval, has spawned considerable research and debate. However, only a handful of reports have examined the recognition content beyond this dichotomous simplification. To address this, we collected participants' written justifications in support of ordinary old/new recognition decisions accompanied by confidence ratings using a 3-point scale (high/medium/low). Unlike prior research, we did not provide the participants with any descriptions of Remembering or Knowing and thus, if the justifications mapped well onto theory, they would do so spontaneously. Word frequency analysis (unigrams, bigrams, and trigrams), independent ratings, and machine learning techniques (Support Vector Machine [SVM]) converged in demonstrating that the linguistic content of high and medium confidence recognition differs in a manner consistent with dual process theories of recognition. For example, the use of "I remember," particularly when combined with temporal or perceptual information (e.g., "when," "saw," "distinctly"), was heavily associated with high confidence recognition. Conversely, participants also used the absence of remembering for personally distinctive materials as support for high confidence new reports ("would have remembered"). Thus, participants afford a special status to the presence or absence of remembering and use this actively as a basis for high confidence during recognition judgments. Additionally, the pattern of classification successes and failures of a SVM was well anticipated by the dual process signal detection model of recognition and inconsistent with a single process, strictly unidimensional approach.
authors: Department of Psychology, Washington University in St. Louis.
authors: Diana
authors: D
authors: Selmeczy
authors: Department of Psychology, Washington University in St. Louis.
authors: Ian G
authors: IG
authors: Dobbins
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003243:Consciousness / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological; D060388:Support Vector Machine; D055815:Young Adult
references: Psychol Rev. 2010 Oct;117(4):1025-54
references: 20836613
references: Psychol Aging. 1991 Dec;6(4):559-68
references: 1777144
references: Conscious Cogn. 1998 Mar;7(1):1-26
references: 9521829
references: J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 1994 Nov;20(6):1341-54
references: 7983467
references: J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2002 Nov;28(6):1083-94
references: 12450334
references: J Exp Psychol Gen. 2012 May;141(2):282-301
references: 21967231
references: Psychon Bull Rev. 2004 Aug;11(4):616-41
references: 15581116
references: Conscious Cogn. 2011 Dec;20(4):1625-33
references: 21963257
references: Spat Vis. 1997;10(4):433-6
references: 9176952
references: Mem Cognit. 1996 Jul;24(4):523-33
references: 8757500
references: Mem Cognit. 2005 Jan;33(1):151-70
references: 15915801
references: Psychol Rev. 2004 Apr;111(2):524-42
references: 15065921
references: J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2012 Mar;38(2):325-39
references: 21967320
references: J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 1998 Sep;24(5):1306-15
references: 9747533
references: Spat Vis. 1997;10(4):437-42
references: 9176953
references: J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2005 Nov;31(6):1186-98
references: 16393039
references: Mem Cognit. 2013 Jul;41(5):625-37
references: 23371792
references: J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 1996 Mar;22(2):365-77
references: 8901341
references: Mem Cognit. 1993 Jan;21(1):89-102
references: 8433652