The familiarity/recollection distinction does not illuminate medial temporal lobe function: response to Montaldi and Mayes.

modified source procedure of Kirwan et al. [6] and Wais et al. [7] because source memory is neither necessary nor sufficient for recollection, so the presence of recollection cannot be reliably determined. Therefore, a safe interpretation of these results is not possible. However, if the most confident level of familiarity supports recognition as accurately as that supported by recollection and making the two kinds of judgement is equally rapid, then the strength confound has been avoided. We have argued [3] that in the only published study in which this has been done successfully [8], we found that recollection activated the hippocampus significantly more than strength-matched scene familiarity, whereas familiarity of different strengthsmodulated perirhinal cortex activity but had no differential effect on the hippocampus. The only plausible explanation of this finding is that the hippocampus selectivelymediates recollection, so it is incorrect to claim that nearly all studies controlling for the strength confound indicate that the hippocampus mediates familiarity as well as recollection. However, it remains to be explored to what extent this selectivity is stimulus-dependent.