One process involved in recognition memory is familiarity discrimination. Familiarity distinguishes almost immediately after stimulus presentation whether the item was previously encountered (old) or novel. By using a formalism based on attractor neural networks, we discuss different dynamical processes affecting familiarity discrimination. First, we compare two different familiarity discrimina...

Wewould like to thank Christine Bastin and Gabriel Besson for their thoughtful and pertinent comments regarding our recent article entitled “Selective familiarity deficits in otherwise cognitively intact aging individuals with genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease” [1]. The authors correctly note that, for the analysis of our experiment, recollection was estimated from the proportion of correct ...

Separate event-related brain potential (ERP) components have been hypothesized to index familiarity and recollection processes that support recognition memory. A 300- to 500-ms mid-frontal FN400 old/new difference has been related to familiarity, whereas a 500- to 800-ms parietal old/new difference has been related to recollection. Other recent work has cast doubt on the FN400 familiarity hypot...

Does "familiarity breed contempt" or is "to know you is to love you"? In this research, we explore the role of familiarity in music choice. We show that although consumers say they would prefer to listen to unfamiliar music, in actuality familiarity with music positively predicts preference for songs, play lists, and radio stations. Familiarity with music is at least as good, if not a better, p...

Familiarity is a pervasive memory phenomenon that occurs in its most basic form when someone recognizes a repeated stimulus without recollecting other aspects of the requisite prior learning episode. Theoretical controversy currently abounds with respect to both the cognitive and neural characteristics of familiarity. Here, we show that the extant data, particularly brain-potential data, are in...

The familiarity of names produced by their prior presentation can be misinterpreted as fame. We used this false fame effect to separately study the effects of divided attention on familiarity versus conscious recollection. In a first experiment, famous and nonfamous names were presented to be read under conditions of full vs. divided attention. Divided attention greatly reduced later recognitio...

Dual-process theories of recognition memory hypothesize separate underlying familiarity and recollection processes, but the necessity of multiple processes is debated. Previous research has suggested that scalp-recorded event-related brain potentials (ERPs) may index the activity of separate familiarity and recollection processes. Other research indicates that the amnestic drug midazolam impair...