The relationship between recall and recognition in amnesia: Effects of matching recognition between patients with amnesia and controls

To examine the relationship between recall and recognition memory in amnesi a, the authors conducted 2 experiments in which recognition memory was equa ted between patients with amnesia and control participants. It was then det ermined whether recall was also similar across groups. In Experiment 1, rec ognition was equated by providing amnesic patients with additional study ex posures; in Experiment 2, recognition was equated by testing controls follo wing a longer delay. These different methods of equating recognition across groups led to divergent results because amnesic patients' recall performan ce was lower than controls' recall performance in Experiment I but not in E xperiment 2. These findings are accounted for by considering the differenti al contribution of recollection and familiarity to the performance of amnes ic patients and controls in the 2 experiments.