Conceptual automaticity in recognition memory: levels-of-processing effects on familiarity.

Recognition memory can reflect both conscious recollection and automatically generated feelings of familiarity. Previous research has suggested that perceptual factors mediate familiarity. Three experiments show that familiarity can also arise from prior conceptual (meaning-based) processing. Each experiment manipulated level of processing (LoP) and tested recognition memory using two response-signal delays (500 and 1500 ms). In Experiment 1, a modality effect was found for fast, but not slow, responses, thus supporting dual-process theories; the LoP effect was reliable at both points in time. In Experiment 2, recollection was set in opposition to familiarity by telling subjects to accept only test items from a to-be-remembered list which followed the incidental (LoP) study list; fast responses were associated with significantly more "false-alarms" to words encoded semantically than those encoded nonsemantically. Experiment 3 used the process dissociation procedure (Jacoby, 1991) to obtain quantitative estimates of recollection and familiarity. Both estimates were elevated by prior conceptual processing. Moreover, estimates of recollection, but not familiarity, were affected by response-signal delay, suggesting functional independence between the two processes. Relations to implicit memory are discussed.