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Updated: Jun 3, 2025

A Real-world What-Where-When Memory Test
Published on: May 16, 2017
Context familiarity is a third kind of episodic memory distinct from item familiarity and recollection
Richard J Addante1,2,3, Evan Clise1, Randall Waechter4
1Florida Institute of Technology, Department of Psychology, 150 W. University Dr., Melbourne, FL 32905, USA.
Abstract:
Episodic memory is accounted for with two processes: "familiarity" when generally recognizing an item and "recollection" when retrieving the full contextual details bound with the item. We tested a combination of item recognition confidence and source memory, focusing upon three conditions: "item-only hits with source unknown" ('item familiarity'), "low-confidence hits with correct source memory" ('context familiarity'), and "high-confidence hits with correct source memory" ('recollection'). Behaviorally, context familiarity was slower than the others during item recognition, but faster during source memory. Electrophysiologically, a triple dissociation was evident in event-related potentials (ERPs), which was independently replicated. Context familiarity exhibited a negative effect from 800 to 1200 ms, differentiated from positive ERPs for item-familiarity (400-600 ms) and recollection (600-900 ms). These three conditions thus reflect mutually exclusive, fundamentally different processes of episodic memory, and we offer a new, tri-component model of memory. Context familiarity is a third distinct process of episodic memory.
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