The butcher on the bus: A note on familiarity without recollection

In 1980, George Mandler published an article in Psychological Review that has become very influential in the study of memory. As evidence, according to Google Scholar (as of August 17, 2020), this article has been cited 3,391 times. Writing about recognition memory, Mandler made a fundamental distinction between recognition involving familiarity and recognition involving recollection. Mandler introduced what has since become the label for his illustration, saying that "Specific identification of an event is not possible on the basis of its familiarity alone. The butcher-in-the-bus is one intuitive demonstration of such an assertion." The purpose of this note is, ironically, to provide context, in this case historical context. Twenty-seven years before Mandler's (1980) article, Charles Osgood (1953) provided a discussion of retention and interference theory in his book, Method and Theory in Experimental Psychology. Is it possible that Mandler inadvertently borrowed Osgood's illustration, a case of cryptomnesia? (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).