Remember/Know judgments in cognitive neuroscience: An illustration of the underrepresented point of view

Abstract

The Remember/Know procedure is designed to easily measure two memory processes (recollection and familiarity) that are thought to serve as the basis for recognition memory decisions. This procedure is widely used in both neuroimaging studies and in studies involving amnesic patients in an effort to identify the brain structures that subserve these two memory processes. An alternative interpretation of this procedure, based on signal-detection theory, holds that Remember judgments and Know judgments are not "process pure" and are instead indicative of different degrees of memory strength (e.g., high degrees of recollection and familiarity vs. low degrees of recollection and familiarity, respectively). In the discipline of experimental psychology, the signal-detection view is widely regarded as a viable (or even preferable) alternative to the process-pure view. In the neuroscience literature, by contrast, the signal-detection interpretation is rarely given serious (or even any) consideration. Because conclusions about the neuroanatomical basis of recollection and familiarity are dependent on one specific interpretation of the Remember/Know procedure, ignoring a viable alternative interpretation may be counterproductive.