Remember Versus Know Judgements

Remember Versus Know Judgements

There is evidence suggesting that different processes are involved in remembering something versus knowing whether it is familiar. It appears that "remembering" and "knowing" represent relatively different characteristics of memory as well as reflect different ways of using memory.

To remember is the conscious recollection of many vivid contextual details, such as "when" and "how" the information was learned. Remembering utilizes episodic memory and requires a deeper level of processing (e.g. undivided attention) than knowing. Errors in recollection may be due to source-monitoring errors that prevent an individual from remembering where exactly a piece of information was received. On the other hand, source monitoring may be very effective in aiding the retrieval of episodic memories. Remembering is a knowledge based and conceptually driven form of processing that can be influenced by many things.

To know is a feeling (unconscious) of familiarity. It is the sensation that the item has been seen before, but not being able to pin down the reason why. Knowing simply reflects the familiarity of an item without recollection. Knowing utilizes semantic memory that requires perceptually based, data-driven processing. Knowing is the result of shallow maintenance rehearsal that can be influenced by many of the same aspects as semantic memory.

Remember and know responses are quite often differentiated by their functional correlates in specific areas in the brain. For instance, during "remember" situations it is found that there is greater EEG activity than "knowing", specifically, due to an interaction between frontal and posterior regions of the brain. It is also found that the hippocampus is differently activated during recall of "remembered" (vs. familiar) stimuli. On the other hand, items that are only "known", or seem familiar, are associated with activity in the rhinal cortex.