The HED Task Catalog is under development. IDs are not stable until formal release. Comments are welcome at github.com/hed-standard/hed-task/issues.

Remember/Know Task

HED task ID: hedtsk_remember_know

Family: Recall and recognition memory tests

Also known as: R/K Paradigm, Remember-Know

Classify recognition hits as ‘remember’ (vivid recollection) or ‘know’ (familiarity without context); proportions index the relative contributions of recollection and familiarity to recognition memory.

Description

During a recognition memory test, participants classify each item they judge as “old” according to the subjective quality of their memory: “remember” if they can recollect specific contextual details from the encoding episode (e.g., what they were thinking, where the item appeared), or “know” if the item feels familiar but retrieval of contextual details fails. Tulving (1985) introduced this distinction to operationalize the difference between episodic recollection and noetic familiarity. The paradigm has become the primary behavioral tool for dual-process theories of recognition memory and has been extensively validated with neuroimaging, revealing dissociable hippocampal (recollection) and perirhinal (familiarity) contributions.

Inclusion test

An experiment is an instance of this task when its procedure matches, it manipulates at least one of the listed variables, and it records at least one of the listed measures.

Procedure

During a recognition memory test, participants first judge each item as old or new, then classify old responses as ‘remember’ (vivid recollection of encoding context) or ‘know’ (familiarity without recollection).

Manipulation

Encoding depth (deep vs. shallow processing); divided attention at encoding; item type (words, faces, scenes).

Measurement

Proportion remember and know responses for hits and false alarms; estimates of recollection and familiarity (dual-process model parameters).

Variations

Named versions that change what the participant experiences or does. The identifier of a variation is hedvar_<task>__<variation>.

Variation

Description

Justification

Standard Remember/Know

hedvar_remember_know__standard_remember_know

Binary R/K judgment on each recognized item; the canonical version.

Canonical R/K: recollection vs. familiarity distinction

Remember/Know/Guess (RKG)

hedvar_remember_know__remember_know_guess_rkg

Three-way classification adding “guess” to capture below-threshold familiarity.

Third Guess category added; different response scale

Remember/Know with Source Memory

hedvar_remember_know__remember_know_with_source_memory

R/K judgment followed by a source question (e.g., which list, which voice, which location).

Source judgment added to R/K; adds contextual memory component

Associative Remember/Know

hedvar_remember_know__associative_remember_know

Applied to associative recognition (word pairs) rather than item recognition.

R/K for associative pairs; tests recollection of binding

Cognitive processes

This task is designed to engage the following processes:

Key references

  • Tulving, E. (1985). Memory and consciousness. Canadian Psychology, 26(1), 1–12. (DOI)

  • Gardiner, J. M. (1988). Functional aspects of recollective experience. Memory & Cognition, 16(4), 309–313. (DOI, PubMed)

Further references

  • Yonelinas, A. P., Aly, M., Wang, W.-C., & Koen, J. D. (2010). Recollection and familiarity: Examining controversial assumptions and new directions. Hippocampus, 20(11), 1178–1194. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Wixted, J. T., & Mickes, L. (2010). A continuous dual-process model of remember/know judgments. Psychological Review, 117(4), 1025–1054. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Migo, E. M., Mayes, A. R., & Montaldi, D. (2012). Measuring recollection and familiarity: Improving the remember/know procedure. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(3), 1435–1455. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Bastin, C., Besson, G., Simon, J., Delhaye, E., Geurten, M., Willems, S., & Salmon, E. (2019). An integrative memory model of recollection and familiarity to understand memory deficits. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 42, e281. (DOI, PubMed)