On the nature of associative information in recognition memory

In a typical associative-recognition task, participants must distinguish be tween intact word pairs (both words previously studied together) and rearra nged word pairs (both words previously studied but as part of different pai rs). The familiarity of the individual items on this task is uninformative because all of the items were seen before, so the only way to solve the tas k is to rely on associative information. Prior research suggests that assoc iative information is recall-like in nature and may therefore be an all-or- none variable. The present research reports several experiments in which so me pairs were strengthened during list presentation. The resulting hit rate s and false alarm rates, and an analysis of the corresponding receiver oper ating characteristic plots, suggest that participants rely heavily on item information when making an associative-recognition decision (to no avail) a nd that associative information may be best thought of as a some-or-none va riable.