The two recollections

Recollection is currently modeled as a univariate retrieval process in which memory probes provoke conscious awareness of contextual details of earlier target presentations. However, that conception cannot explain why some manipulations that increase recollection in recognition experiments suppress false memory in false memory experiments, whereas others increase false memory. Such contrasting effects can be explained if recollection is bivariate-if memory probes can provoke conscious awareness of target items per se, separately from awareness of contextual details, with false memory being suppressed by the former but increased by the latter. Interestingly, these 2 conceptions of recollection have coexisted for some time in different segments of the memory literature. Independent support for the dual-recollection hypothesis is provided by some surprising effects that it predicts, such as release from recollection rejection, false persistence, negative relations between false alarm rates and target remember/know judgments, and recollection without remembering. We implemented the hypothesis in 3 bivariate recollection models, which differ in the degree to which recollection is treated as a discrete or a graded process: a pure multinomial model, a pure signal detection model, and a mixed multinomial/signal detection model. The models were applied to a large corpus of conjoint recognition data, with fits being satisfactory when both recollection processes were present and unsatisfactory when either was deleted. Factor analyses of the models' parameter spaces showed that target and context recollection never loaded on a common factor, and the 3 models converged on the same process loci for the effects of important experimental manipulations. Thus, a variety of results were consistent with bivariate recollection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).