Recollection and Familiarity
Dual-process theories of recognition memory hold that the recognition of previously encountered items can be based on conscious recollection of past events and/or assessments of familiarity. Familiarity is thought to be a fast, relatively automatic process that relates to the experience of having previously encountered someone or something in the absence of memory for the specific context (e.g., where, when) in which the previous encounter occurred. Recollection, on the other hand, is thought to be a slower, more effortful process that involves conscious access to contextual information about a previous encounter. In addition to these functional distinctions, recollection and familiarity are also thought to be dissociable at the neural level, with recollection depending primarily on the hippocampus and familiarity depending more on parahippocampal structures and cortical processing mechanisms. We are investigating the development of recollection and familiarity using ERPs and non-verbal behavioral tasks known to dissociate these processes in adults and experimental animals.