Abstract
Donaldson (1996) argued that remember/know judgments can be conceptualized within a signal detection framework by assuming that they are based on two criteria situated along a strength-of-memory decision axis. According to this model, items that exceed a high criterion receive a remember response, whereas items that only exceed a lower criterion receive a know response. Although a variety of findings have been presented in evidence against this idea, Dunn (2004) recently showed that detection theory is fully compatible with those findings. We present a variety of new results and new analyses that weigh strongly in favor of the detection interpretation. We further show that a dual-process account of recognition memory is compatible with a unidimensional detection model despite the common notion that such a model necessarily assumes a single process. The key assumption of this model is that individual recognition decisions are based on both recollection and familiarity (not on one process or the other).
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Wixted, J.T., Stretch, V. In defense of the signal detection interpretation of remember/know judgments. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 11, 616–641 (2004). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196616
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196616