Perceptual identification task points to continuity between implicit memory and recall

Adopting a continuous identification task (CID-R) with embedded questions about prior occurrence, recent research has proposed that implicit and explicit memory are underpinned by a single memory system, since there is a systematic relationship between implicit memory (measured by identification) and explicit memory (measured subjective report of recognition; for an example, see Berry et al., 2008). We were interested whether this pattern would extend to recall of information from a study phase (Experiment 1) or semantic memory (Experiment 2). We developed a degraded face identification version of the CID-R task using Gaussian blur. We reproduced previous results regarding the relationship between explicit responses on the recognition task (old/new) and stimuli identification, pointing to a continuity between explicit and implicit memory. Critically, we also found that the strength of the implicit effect (i.e., stimuli identification) was predicted by the accuracy in recall (retrieval of context in Experiment 1 and correct responses to general knowledge questions about the face in Experiment 2). Our results support the idea that memory is unidimentional and related to memory trace strength; both for recall and recognition, and interestingly, for semantic and episodic recall.

Perceptual Effects and Recollective Experience in Face Recognition

Four experiments were conducted investigating the effect of size congruency on facial recognition memory, measured by remember, know and guess responses. Different study times were employed, that is extremely short (300 and 700 ms), short (1,000 ms), and long times (5,000 ms). With the short study time (1,000 ms) size congruency occurred in knowing. With the long study time the effect of size congruency occurred in remembering. These results support the distinctiveness/fluency account of remembering and knowing as well as the memory systems account, since the size congruency effect that occurred in knowing under conditions that facilitated perceptual fluency also occurred independently in remembering under conditions that facilitated elaborative encoding. They do not support the idea that remember and know responses reflect differences in trace strength.

Strategies of Source Attribution: Semantic Features and Trace Strength as Cues to the Origin of Memories

Research has suggested that people may use different qualitative cues or one quantitative cue (trace strength, activation) to attribute memories to their source. In an experiment, the diagnosticity of a qualitative cue (semantic features) was manipulated between participants: Distinctness was high when items from source 1 and items from source 2 belonged to different semantic categories, while it was low when both sources contained items from both categories. Depending on the study-test interval (48 hr or 10 min), trace strength of test items was either low or high for all participants. Thus, the quantitative cue was always diagnostic. Participants primarily used semantic cues in source attributions of new items. Also, source identification performance profited from semantic dissimilarity, not from high trace strength. The findings indicate that qualitative cues may play a more prominent role than quantitative cues in source monitoring.