Using ERPs to dissociate recollection from familiarity in picture recognition.

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.