Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 20, 2026

Perceptual and Category Processing of the Uncanny Valley Hypothesis' Dimension of Human Likeness: Some Methodological Issues
Published on: June 3, 2013
Does the Butcher-on-the-Bus Phenomenon Require a Dual-Process Explanation? A Signal Detection Analysis
Richard J Tunney1, Timothy L Mullett, Claudia J Moross
1School of Psychology, University of Nottingham Nottingham, UK.
Abstract:
The butcher-on-the-bus is a rhetorical device or hypothetical phenomenon that is often used to illustrate how recognition decisions can be based on different memory processes (Mandler, 1980). The phenomenon describes a scenario in which a person is recognized but the recognition is accompanied by a sense of familiarity or knowing characterized by an absence of contextual details such as the person's identity. We report two recognition memory experiments that use signal detection analyses to determine whether this phenomenon is evidence for a recollection plus familiarity model of recognition or is better explained by a univariate signal detection model. We conclude that there is an interaction between confidence estimates and remember-know judgments which is not explained fully by either single-process signal detection or traditional dual-process models.
Related Concept Videos
Automatic Processing and Automatic Social Behavior
Cognitive Theories: Schachter-Singer Theory of Emotion
Physiological Arousal and Cognitive Labeling
According to this theory, when an individual experiences physiological...
Parallel Processing
Deindividuation
Naturalistic Observations
Reason and Intuition

