Context effects on familiarity are familiarity effects of context - an electrophysiological study.

Full Abstract

Within dual-process accounts of recognition memory, familiarity (as opposed to recollection) is often referred to as a rather automatic and context-free process. Thus, in episodic object recognition, familiarity and its electrophysiological ERP signature are supposed to index prior occurrence of an object independent of the context the object was originally encountered in, e.g., [Ecker, U.K.H., Zimmer, H.D., Groh-Bordin, C., in press. Color and context:
An ERP study on intrinsic and extrinsic feature binding in episodic memory. Mem. Cogn.]). Yet, contextual sensitivity of familiarity has also been reported (e.g., [Tsivilis, D., Otten, L.J., Rugg, M.D., 2001. Context effects on the neural correlates of recognition memory:
An electrophysiological study. Neuron 31, 497-505.]). We argue that considering attentional and perceptual factors of target processing is vital in understanding these conflicting results. Presenting target objects on contextual landscape scenes, we introduced a cueing technique designed to focus subjects' attention on target processing. We demonstrate that context effects on familiarity are diminished if the attentional impact of contextual stimuli is experimentally controlled, arguing that contextual influences on object familiarity are indirect and mediated by factors such as salience and attentional capture. Results suggest that salient context stimuli may elicit an independent familiarity signal instead of directly impacting on the familiarity signal of the target object. We conclude that (a) object familiarity is in principle a rather automatic and context-free process, and that (b) the study of episodic memory can profit substantially from adopting a dynamic processing perspective.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Ecker, Ullrich K H (UK); Zimmer, Hubert D (HD); Groh-Bordin, Christian (C); Mecklinger, Axel (A);

Affiliation: Brain and Cognition Unit, Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany. u.ecker(-atsign-)mx.uni-saarland.de

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology (Int J Psychophysiol), published in Netherlands. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-May; vol 64 (issue 2) : pp 146-56

Dates: Created 2007/05/02; Completed 2007/07/11;

PMID: 17331603, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Analysis of Variance
Association Learning - physiology
Attention - physiology
Cerebral Cortex - physiology
Cues
Environment
Evoked Potentials, Visual - physiology

Evoked Potentials, Visual - physiology
Female
Humans
Male
Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology
Photic Stimulation - methods
Recognition (Psychology) - physiology
Reference Values

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.