Associative interference in recognition memory: a dual-process account.

Associative interference from overlapping word pairs (A-B, A-D) reduces recall but has inconsistent effects on recognition. A dual-process account suggests that interference conditions reduce recollection but increase familiarity. This is predicted to increase recognition false alarms but have variable effects on recognition hits, depending on the relative contribution of recollection and familiarity. In three experiments that varied materials (sentences or random nouns) and test type (associative or pair recognition), interference conditions always increased recognition false alarms, but sometimes increased and sometimes decreased recognition hits. However, remember hits always decreased and know hits always increased with interference, patterns predicted of the recollection and familiarity processes, respectively. According to the dual-process view, a manipulation that affects the component processes in opposite ways can produce inconsistent patterns of recognition performance as the relative contribution of recollection and familiarity changes across tasks.