The electrophysiology of subjectively perceived memory confidence in relation to recollection and familiarity

Subjectively perceived confidence is critically involved in distinguishing recollection from familiarity in episodic memory retrieval. However, the extent to which recollection and familiarity share similar electrophysiological processes associated with subjectively perceived memory confidence remains an open question. In addition, the role of memory encoding in subjectively perceived confidence during retrieval has not yet been investigated. To address these issues, an EEG study was performed in thirty healthy volunteers. During a memory task, participants encoded a subset of words while rating the words on pleasantness. Memory recognition and subjectively perceived confidence concerning these 'old' and additional 'new' words was tested. Results showed that during retrieval, correctly classifying an old item with high subjectively perceived confidence was associated with a parietal ERP and parietal theta power, while frontal theta activity was related to high-confident novelty processing. During the memory encoding phase, a parietal ERP and frontal theta oscillations were related to subsequent subjectively perceived memory confidence. Our findings provide the first evidence that subjectively perceived memory confidence is associated with distinct electrophysiological correlates during both memory encoding and retrieval.