The Similarity of Brain Activity Associated with True and False Recognition Memory Depends on Test Format

• Published in: Psychological science Vol. 8; no. 3; pp. 250 - 257
• Main Authors: Johnson, Marcia K., Nolde, Scott F., Mather, Mara, Kounios, John, Schacter, Daniel L., Curran, Tim
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA Cambridge University Press 01.05.1997; SAGE Publications; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Brain; Cerebral hemispheres; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Conceptual frameworks; Electrodes; Experimentation; False memory; Medical imaging; Memory; Positron emission tomography; Recognition memory; Research Reports; Waveforms
• ISSN: 0956-7976; 1467-9280
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00421.x

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were compared for correct recognitions of previously presented words and false recognitions of associatively related, nonpresented words (lures). When the test items were presented blocked by test type (old, new, lure), waveforms for old and lure items were different, especially at frontal and left parietal electrode sites, consistent with previous positron emission tomography (PET) data (Schacter, Reiman, et al, 1996). When the test format randomly intermixed the types of items, waveforms for old and lure items were more similar. We suggest that test format affects the type of processing subjects engage in, consistent with expectations from the source-monitoring framework (Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993). These results also indicate that brain activity as assessed by neuroimaging designs requiring blocked presentation of trials (e.g., PET) do not necessarily reflect the brain activity that occurs in cognitive-behavioral paradigms, in which types of test trials are typically intermixed.