Sensitivity of Reality Monitoring to Fluency: Evidence from Behavioral Performance and Event-Related Potential (ERP) Old/New Effects

Abstract

BACKGROUND Item memory and source memory are differently processed with both behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) evidence. Reality monitoring, a specific type of source memory, which refers to the ability to differentiate external sources from internal sources, has been drawing much attention. Among factors that have an impact on reality monitoring, fluency has not been well-studied. Therefore, the current study aimed to investigate whether fluency could affect reality monitoring, through observations on both behavioral performance and electrophysiological patterns. MATERIAL AND METHODS Adopting ERP techniques, participants were required either to watch the presentation of a name/picture pair, or to imagine a picture for each displayed name, once (low fluency) or twice (high fluency). Later they completed a reality monitoring task of identifying names as perceived, imagined, or novel items. Behavioral performance was measured, and ERP waveforms were recorded. RESULTS Behaviorally, high fluency items were faster and more accurately attributed to the sources than low fluency items. ERP waveforms revealed that late positive component (LPC) occurred for all 4 types of items, while imagined items of low fluency did not record a robust FN400 or late frontal old/new effect. CONCLUSIONS As results revealed, the factor of fluency does influence reality monitoring in terms of accuracy and responding speed. Meanwhile, for imagined items of low fluency, the absence of FN400 and frontal old/new effect also suggests the sensitivity of reality monitoring to fluency, because these representatives of familiarity-based processing and post-retrieval monitoring are inevitably involved in the process of differentiating internal source from external source.

Figure 1

Flow chart of the experimental procedure and some stimulus exemplars.

Figure 2

Grand average waveforms depicted at selected electrodes for source correctly retrieved names and new ones, respectively. PWLF – perceived with low fluency; PWHF – perceived with high fluency; IWLF – imagined with low fluency; IWHF – imagined with high fluency.

Figure 3

Grand average waveforms over bilateral frontal electrodes separately for source correctly retrieved items and new ones, respectively. The condition descriptions were the same as in Figure 2.

Figure 4

Scalp topographies of FN400, LPC, and the late frontal old/new effect. FN400, also known as the early old/new effect; LPC – late positive component.