Remember/Know Task¶

HED Task ID: hedtsk_remember_know

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¶

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¶

Variation	Description	Justification
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)	Three-way classification adding “guess” to capture below-threshold familiarity.	Third Guess category added; different response scale
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	Applied to associative recognition (word pairs) rather than item recognition.	R/K for associative pairs; tests recollection of binding

Cognitive processes¶

This task engages the following cognitive processes:

Key references¶

{‘authors’: ‘Tulving, E.’, ‘year’: 1985, ‘title’: ‘Memory and consciousness.’, ‘venue’: ‘Canadian Psychology / Psychologie canadienne’, ‘venue_type’: ‘journal’, ‘journal’: ‘Canadian Psychology / Psychologie canadienne’, ‘volume’: ‘26’, ‘issue’: ‘1’, ‘pages’: ‘1-12’, ‘doi’: ‘10.1037/h0080017’, ‘openalex_id’: None, ‘pmid’: None, ‘citation_string’: ‘Tulving, E. (1985). Memory and consciousness. Canadian Psychology, 26(1), 1–12.’, ‘url’: ‘https://doi.org/10.1037/h0080017’, ‘source’: ‘crossref’, ‘confidence’: ‘high’, ‘verified_on’: ‘2026-04-20’}
{‘authors’: ‘Gardiner, J. M.’, ‘year’: 1988, ‘title’: ‘Functional aspects of recollective experience’, ‘venue’: ‘Memory & Cognition’, ‘venue_type’: ‘journal’, ‘journal’: ‘Memory & Cognition’, ‘volume’: ‘16’, ‘issue’: ‘4’, ‘pages’: ‘309-313’, ‘doi’: ‘10.3758/bf03197041’, ‘openalex_id’: None, ‘pmid’: None, ‘citation_string’: ‘Gardiner, J. M. (1988). Functional aspects of recollective experience. Memory & Cognition, 16(4), 309–313.’, ‘url’: ‘https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03197041’, ‘source’: ‘crossref’, ‘confidence’: ‘high’, ‘verified_on’: ‘2026-04-20’}

Recent references¶

{‘authors’: ‘Yonelinas, A. P., Aly, M., Wang, W., & Koen, J. D.’, ‘year’: 2010, ‘title’: ‘Recollection and familiarity: Examining controversial assumptions and new directions’, ‘venue’: ‘Hippocampus’, ‘venue_type’: ‘journal’, ‘journal’: ‘Hippocampus’, ‘volume’: ‘20’, ‘issue’: ‘11’, ‘pages’: ‘1178-1194’, ‘doi’: ‘10.1002/hipo.20864’, ‘openalex_id’: None, ‘pmid’: None, ‘citation_string’: ‘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.’, ‘url’: ‘https://doi.org/10.1002/hipo.20864’, ‘source’: ‘crossref’, ‘confidence’: ‘high’, ‘verified_on’: ‘2026-04-20’}
{‘authors’: ‘Wixted, J. T., & Mickes, L.’, ‘year’: 2010, ‘title’: ‘A continuous dual-process model of remember/know judgments.’, ‘venue’: ‘Psychological Review’, ‘venue_type’: ‘journal’, ‘journal’: ‘Psychological Review’, ‘volume’: ‘117’, ‘issue’: ‘4’, ‘pages’: ‘1025-1054’, ‘doi’: ‘10.1037/a0020874’, ‘openalex_id’: None, ‘pmid’: None, ‘citation_string’: ‘Wixted, J. T., & Mickes, L. (2010). A continuous dual-process model of remember/know judgments. Psychological Review, 117(4), 1025–1054.’, ‘url’: ‘https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020874’, ‘source’: ‘crossref’, ‘confidence’: ‘high’, ‘verified_on’: ‘2026-04-20’}
{‘authors’: ‘Migo, E. M., Mayes, A. R., & Montaldi, D.’, ‘year’: 2012, ‘title’: ‘Measuring recollection and familiarity: Improving the remember/know procedure’, ‘venue’: ‘Consciousness and Cognition’, ‘venue_type’: ‘journal’, ‘journal’: ‘Consciousness and Cognition’, ‘volume’: ‘21’, ‘issue’: ‘3’, ‘pages’: ‘1435-1455’, ‘doi’: ‘10.1016/j.concog.2012.04.014’, ‘openalex_id’: None, ‘pmid’: None, ‘citation_string’: ‘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.’, ‘url’: ‘https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2012.04.014’, ‘source’: ‘crossref’, ‘confidence’: ‘high’, ‘verified_on’: ‘2026-04-20’}
{‘authors’: ‘Bastin, C., Besson, G., Simon, J., Delhaye, E., Geurten, M., Willems, S., & Salmon, E.’, ‘year’: 2019, ‘title’: ‘An integrative memory model of recollection and familiarity to understand memory deficits’, ‘venue’: ‘Behavioral and Brain Sciences’, ‘venue_type’: ‘journal’, ‘journal’: ‘Behavioral and Brain Sciences’, ‘volume’: ‘42’, ‘issue’: None, ‘pages’: None, ‘doi’: ‘10.1017/s0140525x19000621’, ‘openalex_id’: None, ‘pmid’: None, ‘citation_string’: ‘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.’, ‘url’: ‘https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x19000621’, ‘source’: ‘crossref’, ‘confidence’: ‘high’, ‘verified_on’: ‘2026-04-20’}