Remember/Know Judgments in Recognition Tests¶
An instructed report distinguishing recognition with recollected study detail from an oldness judgment without that detail.
Core Idea¶
In a recognition test, a participant may judge a test item old. A remember/know judgment asks what supports that response. Remember (R) means the person reports consciously recovering some detail of encountering the item during study. Know (K) means the item seems old without such a recovered detail. The experiment records the report; it does not prove that the report is correct or reveal a separate neural process. The same instructed distinction was used with studied words and with faces.[ref-e900b92ebeec][ref-48d7dfbb33fd]
Scope of Application¶
This entry covers R/K judgments attached to human item-recognition tests. The old response may concern a studied target or an unstudied lure mistakenly endorsed as old. Actual study status and the participant's report are different fields. Gardiner discusses earlier R/K use in recall, but recall is outside this deliberately narrower entry.[ref-e900b92ebeec][ref-48d7dfbb33fd]
Clarity¶
Ask two questions in order: Did the participant endorse the item as old? If yes, did they report a detail of its study encounter? R answers yes to the second question; K answers no while still reporting oldness. The criterion is reported recollection, not high versus low confidence. Reder's instructions expressly distinguished R/K from a confidence scale.[ref-e900b92ebeec][ref-48d7dfbb33fd]
Manages Complexity¶
Recording R and K separately lets investigators count how the reported basis of old responses varies by condition. The count must retain target/lure status: a false alarm can also receive R or K. It must not be read directly as an accuracy score or as the probability of a latent memory process. Decision-criterion and response-format accounts can alter the interpretation of R/K rates.[ref-e900b92ebeec][ref-48d7dfbb33fd][ref-73275be9ba48][ref-a31a6727be29]
Abstract Reasoning¶
Treat the response as a small classification: eligible affirmative oldness reports are the entities; the instructed recollected-detail test is the criterion; R and K are the two recorded categories. That rule can be reused across items and conditions. The categories classify reports, not verified memories or natural kinds. Classification is the approved strict parent of this scoped method; it also applies far beyond recognition research.
Knowledge Transfer¶
The method travels from word to face recognition because both present studied and new items, invite an oldness judgment, and record R or K for an affirmative response. Gardiner first had participants circle recognized words and then mark them R or K. Reder presented R, K, and New buttons together. The response rule transfers; their encoding tasks and outcomes need not match.[ref-e900b92ebeec][ref-48d7dfbb33fd]
Example¶
In Gardiner's word experiment, people studied words by generating a semantic associate or a rhyme. Later they circled words they recognized from a mixed target/lure list and marked each circled word R if they recollected part of its earlier occurrence, otherwise K. In Reder's face experiment, people viewed faces in backgrounds and later used R/K/New responses for tested faces. These are unlike stimulus and interface settings with the same instructed branch.[ref-e900b92ebeec][ref-48d7dfbb33fd]
Relationships to Other Abstractions¶
Current abstraction Remember/Know Judgments in Recognition Tests Domain-specific
Parents (1) — more general patterns this builds on
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Remember/Know Judgments in Recognition Tests is a kind of Classification Prime
Every Remember/Know judgment in a recognition test classifies an affirmative oldness report under instructed R/K criteria.
Hierarchy path (1) — routes to 1 parentless root
- Remember/Know Judgments in Recognition Tests → Classification
Neighborhood in Abstraction Space¶
Remember/Know Judgments in Recognition Tests sits in a sparse region of the domain-specific corpus (94th percentile for distinctiveness): few abstractions share its structure, so a faithful description tends to retrieve it precisely.
Family — Memory Encoding & Retrieval Effects (21 abstractions)
Nearest neighbors
- False Fame Effect — 0.78
- Recognition Memory — 0.78
- Computerized adaptive testing — 0.78
- Temporal Distinctiveness — 0.77
- Cue-dependent forgetting — 0.77
Computed from structural-signature embeddings · 2026-10-17
Not to Be Confused With¶
Ordinary old/new recognition lacks the R/K subdivision. Confidence ratings measure certainty, which can vary within either report category. Dual Process Theory and Signal Detection Theory are possible interpretations of response patterns, not necessary instructions for making an R/K judgment. A binary R/K response may obscure overlapping or graded experiences; independent ratings are a related but different method.[ref-48d7dfbb33fd][ref-73275be9ba48][^ref-a31a6727be29]
References¶
[^ref-e900b92ebeec]: Gardiner, John M. (1988). Functional aspects of recollective experience. Memory & Cognition 16(4), 309–313. DOI: 10.3758/BF03197041. Full original publisher PDF inspected, especially printed pp. 310–312. [^ref-48d7dfbb33fd]: Reder, Lynne M., et al. (2013). Why It’s Easier to Remember Seeing a Face We Already Know Than One We Don’t: Preexisting Memory Representations Facilitate Memory Formation. Psychological Science 24(3), 363–372. DOI: 10.1177/0956797612457396. Full publisher-version PDF hosted by authors' Carnegie Mellon laboratory inspected, especially printed pp. 365–367 and note 2 at p. 371. [^ref-73275be9ba48]: Donaldson, Wayne (1996). The role of decision processes in remembering and knowing. Memory & Cognition 24, 523–533. DOI: 10.3758/BF03200940. Original publisher abstract inspected; used only for the alternative decision-criterion interpretation. [^ref-a31a6727be29]: Brown, Aaron A., and Glen E. Bodner (2011). Re-examining dissociations between remembering and knowing: Binary judgments vs. independent ratings. Journal of Memory and Language 65(2), 98–108. DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2011.04.003. Publisher abstract and accessible introduction/discussion excerpts inspected; model and response-format claims are limited to those passages.