Recognizing : The Judgment of Previous Occurrence

Several suggestions for a class of theories of recognition memory have been proposed during the past decade. These models address predictions about judgments of prior occurrence of an event, not the identification of what it is. The history and current status of one of these models is discussed. The model postulates the detection of familiarity and the utilization of retrieval mechanisms as additive and separate processes. The phenomenal experience of familiarity is assigned to intraevent organizational integrative processes; retrieval depends on interevent elaborative processes. Other current theoretical options are described, and relevant supportive data from the literature are reviewed. New tests of the model involving both free recall and word pair paradigms are presented. The dual process model is extended to the word frequency effect and to the recognition difficulties of amnesic patients.