Rejecting Similar Stimuli is Different from Rejecting Nonsimilar Stimuli in Item Recognition: Event-Related Potential Evidence

Two crucial elements are necessary to recognize an object: familiarity and recollection (Yonelinas, 2002). Familiarity is generally defined as a fast memory process that supports recognition without detailed information. Recollection refers to an all-or-none, recall-like process that retrieves detailed memories about individual items or episodes. Event-related potentials (ERPs) have largely contributed to distinguish these two memory processes (Rugg & Curran, 2007). A mid-frontal effect, known as the FN400 effect, is generally associated to familiarity because it consistently differs when comparing new items with studied items correctly recognized and new familiar items (i.e., lures) falsely recognized (Curran, 2000; Curran & Cleary, 2003). In contrast, recollection occurs later over parietal regions, and is reflected by greater positive amplitude for recognized studied items than for new items correctly rejected and lures falsely recognized (Curran, 2000).While it is reasonable to argue that familiarity contributes to the false recognition of lures, it is still unclear whether recollection contributes to their correct rejection. In contrast to new items, lures tend to be confounded with other studied or known items. To avoid this confusion, notice the novelty of the lures, and achieve their correct rejection, one must search for differences between the lures and the other items (Gallo, Bell, Beier, & Schacter, 2006). Such search requires a comparison between the perceived lures and the recollected representations from memory of the confounding items. According to a few studies (Johnson et al., 1997; Herzmann, Jin, Cordes, & Curran, 2012) this recall-to-reject (Rotello, Macmillan, & Van Tassel, 2000) or recollection rejection (Matzen, Taylor, & Benjamin, 2011) process is different from recollection leading to recognition of old items, and occurs mainly in frontal regions (Lepage, Brodeur, & Bourgouin, 2003; Gallo, McDonough, & Scimeca, 2009; Slotnick, Moo, Segal, & Hart Jr, 2003).Current studyThe goal of this study was to examine whether rejecting items that are similar to the studied ones differs from the recollection of previously presented items, and whether it activates frontal regions instead of parietal regions. Participants completed two experiments, one where the new items were unrelated to the studied items, thus were neither familiar nor linked to specific memories (Experiment 1), and one where the new items were lures similar to studied items (Experiment 2). The parietal old/new effect was expected to be comparable across experiments and greater old/new effect was expected in the frontal region when new items were lures. The FN400 was also examined.METHODParticipantsSeventeen healthy volunteers (10 female), aged between 20 and 35 years (Mage = 24.3), were recruited by means of classified advertising (e.g., Craigslist). Participants were right-handed, reported no current or previous history of neurologic disease or head trauma causing loss of consciousness, and had no first- degree family member having a history of mental health problems. All participants passed the Pseudoisochromatic Plates Ishihara Compatible Test, meaning that they had intact color perception. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants after a complete description of the study. The ethic review board of the Douglas Mental Health McGill University Institute approved the protocol and the consent form.Stimuli and procedureAll participants participated in two episodic memory experiments (see Figure 1). Eight participants started with Experiment 1 and nine started with Experiment 2. Each experiment comprised of a study phase with 200 stimuli, immediately followed by a recognition phase including 100 old stimuli and 100 new stimuli. Old stimuli were photos of objects presented in the study phase, but depicted from a different angle of view. New stimuli in Experiment 1 represented objects that were seen for the first time and which were unrelated to objects presented at study. …

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