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Previous research has shown that even when famous people's identities cannot be discerned from faces that have been filtered with monochromatic noise, these unidentifiable famous faces still tend to receive higher familiarity ratings than similarly filtered non-famous faces. Experiment 1 investigated whether a similar face recognition without identification effect would occur among faces whose identification was hindered through the wearing of a surgical mask. Among a mixture of famous and non-famous faces wearing surgical masks and hoods, participants rated how familiar each person seemed then attempted to identify the person. Though surgical masks significantly impaired identification of the famous faces, unidentified masked famous faces received higher familiarity ratings on average than the non-famous masked faces, suggesting that a sense of familiarity could still occur even when identification was impaired by the mask. Experiment 2 compared faces covered by surgical masks with faces covered by sunglasses. Though sunglasses impaired face identification more than surgical masks, the magnitude of the face recognition without identification effect was the same in both cases. This pattern suggests that holistic face processing is not a requirement for the sense of familiarity with a face, and that different facial feature types can contribute.

Among cues that fail to elicit successful recall, participants can still discriminate between cues that do and do not resemble studied items. This ability is referred to as recognition without cued recall (RWCR). We hypothesized that whereas recognition with cued recall is at least partly based on recalled studied information, RWCR results from a feature-matching process whereby cue features are matched with features in memory to produce a variable familiarity signal that is stronger when there is a greater match. To create some degree of feature-match at test, we used non-word cues (e.g., foneheed) that potentially graphemically resembled studied words (e.g., forehead). In Experiments 1 and 2, study word features that were not reinstated in the test cues themselves (study word concreteness and study word emotionality) affected recognition with recall but did not affect RWCR. In Experiment 3, RWCR was shown to be greater when there was a greater degree of match between the features in the cue and those in memory, and differed from recognition with recall in this regard. These results support a feature-matching theory of RWCR. More broadly, they support dual-process theories of recognition in suggesting that there are at least two different bases for recognition memory decisions: recalled information in response to the test item, or a sense of familiarity with the test item brought on by the type of feature-matching process described by global matching models of recognition. (Contains 8 tables.)

Recognition without identification (RWI) is a common day-to-day experience (as when recognizing a face or a tune as familiar without being able to identify the person or the song). It is also a well-established laboratory-based empirical phenomenon: When identification of recognition test items is prevented, participants can discriminate between studied and unstudied test items. The present study demonstrates this finding in the realm of music. A song RWI effect is reported across 4 experiments, despite very low identification rates in each. The effect was found with unidentifiable song fragments (Experiment 1), with song notes removed from their original rhythms (Experiment 2), and with songs unidentifiable from their tapped out rhythms (Experiments 3 and 4). Theoretical implications of these results are relevant to both the study of familiarity-based recognition and the study of music cognition. (Contains 7 footnotes and 2 tables.)

A central feature of our waking mental experience is that our attention naturally toggles back and forth between "external" and "internal" stimuli. In the midst of an externally demanding task, attention can involuntarily shift internally with no clear reason how or why thoughts momentarily shifted inward. In the case of external attention, we are typically exploring and encoding aspects of our external world, whereas internal attention often involves searching for and retrieving potentially relevant information from our memory networks. Cognitive science has traditionally focused on understanding forms of internal and external attention separately, leaving a mystery about what sparks the seemingly automatic shifts between the two. Specifically, what shifts attentional focus from being outward‐directed to being inward‐directed? We present a candidate mechanism: Familiarity‐detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent laboratory study by Cleary and Claxton [2018. Déjà vu: An illusion of prediction. Psychological Science, 29(4), 635–644. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956797617743018] documented a relationship between déjà vu and feelings of premonition. During instances of retrieval failure, participants reported stronger feelings of prediction during déjà vu than non-déjà vu states, despite displaying no actual predictive ability in such instances. The present study further explored the link between déjà vu reports and feelings of prediction. Although feelings of prediction were more likely to occur during reports of déjà vu than non-déjà vu, they were not the sole defining feature of déjà vu, accounting for just over half of all reported déjà vu states. Instances of déjà vu that were accompanied by feelings of prediction were associated with greater feelings of familiarity than instances that were not. This was shown by a greater likelihood of reporting that the scene felt familiar and also by a higher rated intensity of the feeling of familiarity elicited by the scene when it did feel familiar. Though the present study was mainly descriptive in characterising the interrelations between déjà vu, feelings of prediction, and familiarity, the full pattern points toward the possibility that high familiarity intensity may contribute to the feeling of prediction during déjà vu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Déjà vu is beginning to be scientifically understood as a memory phenomenon. Despite recent scientific advances, a remaining puzzle is the purported association between déjà vu and feelings of premonition. Building on research showing that déjà vu can be driven by an unrecalled memory of a past experience that relates to the current situation, we sought evidence of memory-based predictive ability during déjà vu states. Déjà vu did not lead to above-chance ability to predict the next turn in a navigational path resembling a previously experienced but unrecalled path (although such resemblance increased reports of déjà vu). However, déjà vu states were accompanied by increased feelings of knowing the direction of the next turn. The results suggest that feelings of premonition during déjà vu occur and can be illusory. Metacognitive bias brought on by the state itself may explain the peculiar association between déjà vu and the feeling of premonition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cue familiarity that is brought on by cue resemblance to memory representations is useful for judging the likelihood of a past occurrence with an item that fails to actually be retrieved from memory. The present study examined the extent to which this type of resemblance-based cue familiarity is used in future-oriented judgments made during retrieval failure. Cue familiarity was manipulated using a previously-established method of creating differing degrees of feature overlap between the cue and studied items in memory, and the primary interest was in how these varying degrees of cue familiarity would influence future-oriented feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgments given in instances of cued recall failure. The present results suggest that participants do use increases in resemblance-based cue familiarity to infer an increased likelihood of future recognition of an unretrieved target, but not to the extent that they use it to infer an increased likelihood of past experience with an unretrieved target. During retrieval failure, the increase in future-oriented FOK judgments with increasing cue familiarity was significantly less than the increase in past-oriented recognition judgments with increasing cue familiarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Among cues that fail to elicit successful recall, participants can still discriminate between cues that do and do not resemble studied items. This ability is referred to as recognition without cued recall (RWCR). We hypothesized that whereas recognition with cued recall is at least partly based on recalled studied information, RWCR results from a feature-matching process whereby cue features are matched with features in memory to produce a variable familiarity signal that is stronger when there is a greater match. To create some degree of feature-match at test, we used non-word cues (e.g., foneheed) that potentially graphemically resembled studied words (e.g., forehead). In Experiments 1 and 2, study word features that were not reinstated in the test cues themselves (study word concreteness and study word emotionality) affected recognition with recall but did not affect RWCR. In Experiment 3, RWCR was shown to be greater when there was a greater degree of match between the features in the cue and those in memory, and differed from recognition with recall in this regard. These results support a feature-matching theory of RWCR. More broadly, they support dual-process theories of recognition in suggesting that there are at least two different bases for recognition memory decisions: recalled information in response to the test item, or a sense of familiarity with the test item brought on by the type of feature-matching process described by global matching models of recognition. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Recognition without identification (RWI) is old–new discrimination among recognition test items that go unidentified. Recently, the effect has been shown in situations that require pre-experimental connections between unidentified studied items and their test cues, such as when the test cues are general knowledge questions and the unidentified studied items are their answers, or when the test cues are pictures of celebrities and the unidentified studied items are their names. In these cases, RWI demonstrates a peculiar relationship with tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) experiences: Participants give higher recognition ratings when in a TOT state than when not, even though studying an item does not increase the probability of a TOT state for that item. The present study extends these findings to the recognition of scene information. We demonstrate a scene RWI effect with scenes when scene names cannot be retrieved, and replicate the previously reported relationship between TOT states and RWI. In addition, we show that the relationship between RWI and reported TOT states also occurs between RWI and reported déjà vu states with the test scenes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Recognition without identification (RWI) is a common day-to-day experience (as when recognizing a face or a tune as familiar without being able to identify the person or the song). It is also a well- established laboratory-based empirical phenomenon: When identification of recognition test items is prevented, participants can discriminate between studied and unstudied test items. The present study demonstrates this finding in the realm of music. A song RWI effect is reported across 4 experiments, despite very low identification rates in each. The effect was found with unidentifiable song fragments (Experiment 1), with song notes removed from their original rhythms (Experiment 2), and with songs unidentifiable from their tapped out rhythms (Experiments 3 and 4). Theoretical implications of these results are relevant to both the study of familiarity-based recognition and the study of music cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The present study examined the claim that unidentifiable test-pictures are processed and recognized on a perceptual, as opposed to a conceptual, level. Using an extension of the recognition without identification paradigm (e.g., Cleary, A. M. & Greene, R. L. (2000). Recognition without identification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 26, 1063–1069; Peynircioglu, Z. F. (1990). A feeling-of-recognition without identification. Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 493–500), it was observed that when test-pictures were unidentifiable during a masked perceptual identification task, old-new discrimination occurred when the study-list consisted of pictures (Experiments 1–3), but not when the study-list consisted of picture names (Experiment 2) or when picture exemplars served as test-cues (Experiment 3). Results provide converging evidence that a study-test perceptual match is needed for the episodic recognition of unidentified test-pictures. Implications for the present paradigm as a tool for examining the role of perceptual information in recognition-familiarity are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Dual process theories posit that separate recollection and familiarity processes contribute to recognition memory. Previous research, testing recognition memory for words, indicates that event-related brain potentials (ERPs) can be used to dissociate recollection from familiarity. It has been hypothesized that the FN400 ERP old/new effect (300–500 ms) varies with stimulus familiarity, but the parietal ERP old/new effect (400–800 ms) varies with recollection. The results reported here are consistent with this hypothesis, extending it to the recognition of pictures when subjects had to discriminate between studied pictures, highly familiar lures (mirror-reversals of studied pictures), and new pictures. Furthermore, the parietal old/new effect showed significant recollection-related differences only for subjects with good behavioral discrimination between studied items and similar lures. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Familiarizing isolated musical features increased subsequent familiarity for songs. • Separately encoded rhythm and pitch sequences increased familiarity additively. • Multiple exposures to a rhythm increased song familiarity additively. • An additivity principle was found in MINERVA 2's familiarity computations. • Music feature familiarization across traces exhibited MINERVA 2-type additivity. Across three experiments, the present study tested specific hypotheses regarding how the encoding of different isolated musical feature-types (rhythm and pitch) affects perceived familiarity with later piano song clips in which those features are embedded. The results are broadly consistent with global matching approaches to the computation of the familiarity signal for a musical piece. Further, the results suggest that during the global matching process, the feature-match assessments of separately encoded instances of isolated rhythm and isolated pitch information combine additively across memory traces to increase the familiarity of the test song clip in which they are embedded. As we show through simulations, this additive combination of feature-match levels across memory traces adheres to an assumption present in the MINERVA 2 model of familiarity signal computation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Recognition without identification (RWI) refers to people''s ability to discriminate studied from unstudied items when the items themselves fail to be identified, as when people fail to identify words from fragments. We sought to identify the ERP correlates of word fragment RWI in an effort to better understand its underlying mechanisms; in so doing, we also examined the ERP correlates of word identification failure vs. success. We found the ERP correlate of the RWI effect to be the N300; greater negativity was shown for unidentified fragments of studied words than for unidentified fragments of unstudied words between 300–325ms post test fragment onset. We further separated the ERPs according to whether subjects showed the behavioral RWI effect or not; the N300 effect emerged only among those subjects who showed the behavioral effect, suggesting that the N300 is related to the behavioral effect itself. With regard to the ERP correlates of word identification failure vs. success, we found very early indicators of later word identification success vs. failure (starting at 125ms) that were independent of priming. These early effects may be preconscious markers of downstream word identification success vs. failure. We also found a later persistent negativity associated with successfully identified words that we propose to be associated with executive function and possibly the successful suppression of irrelevant words that might initially come to mind when attempting to complete a unique word fragment; word fragment identification failure may sometimes be due to a failure to suppress irrelevant or incorrect words. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]