CONCEPTUAL AUTOMATICITY IN RECOGNITION MEMORY - LEVELS-OF-PROCESSING EFFECTS ON FAMILIARITY

Recognition memory can reflect both conscious recollection and automat ically generated feelings of familiarity. Previous research has sugges ted that perceptual factors mediate familiarity. Three experiments sho w that familiarity can also arise from prior conceptual (meaning-based ) processing. Each experiment manipulated level of processing (LoP) an d tested recognition memory using two response-signal delays (500 and 1500 ms). In Experiment 1, a modality effect was found for fast, but n ot slow, responses, thus supporting dual-process theories; the LoP eff ect was reliable at both points in time. In Experiment 2, recollection was set in opposition to familiarity by telling subjects to accept on ly test items from a to-be-remembered list which followed the incident al (LoP) study list; fast responses were associated with significantly more ''false-alarms'' to words encoded semantically than those encode d nonsemantically. Experiment 3 used the process dissociation procedur e (Jacoby, 1991) to obtain quantitative estimates-of recollection and familiarity. Both estimates were elevated by prior conceptual processi ng. Moreover, estimates of recollection, but not familiarity, were aff ected by response-signal delay, suggesting functional independence bet ween the two processes. Relations to implicit memory are discussed.