RECOLLECTIONS OF FACES - REMEMBERING DIFFERENCES AND KNOWING SIMILARITIES

Components of recollective experience were investigated in 4 experimen ts in which participants studied either similarities or differences am ong faces (relational vs. distinctive processing). Subsequently, when recognizing a face, participants indicated whether their decision was based on explicit recollection (remembering) or assessment of familiar ity (knowing). Type of encoding interacted with judgments of recollect ive experience, so that the incidence of ''remember'' responses was hi gher following distinctive encoding than following relational encoding , whereas the opposite pattern of results was obtained for ''know'' re sponses. Furthermore, recognition of appearance-changed faces was base d on feelings of familiarity, rather than on explicit recollection. Th e results support the dual-component notion of recognition but are inc onsistent with the idea that dissociations between remembering and kno wing merely reflect differences in conceptual and perceptual processin g.