AN EVENT-RELATED POTENTIAL STUDY OF EXPLICIT MEMORY ON TESTS OF CUED-RECALL AND RECOGNITION

The event-related potential (ERP) correlates of performance on tests b f word-stem curd recall and recognition memory were contrasted. ERPs e licited by stems attracting successful recall exhibited a sustained po sitive-going shift relative to ERPs elicited by stems completed with u nstudied items. This positive shift was maximal at electrode sites on and adjacent to the midline. An equally sustained positive-going ERP m odulation was observed for the recognition memory task in ERPs elicite d by recognised 'old' items relative to ERPs elicited by correctly rej ected 'new' items. The scalp topography of this effect shifted from a parietally distributed asymmetry favouring left hemisphere sites, to a frontally distributed effect maximal over midline and right hemispher e sites. The findings indicate that ERP correlates of explicit memory are task-dependent. The disparate ERP effects are interpreted as refle cting a common explicit retrieval mechanism which is sensitive to the nature of retrieval cues provided at test. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science L td.