Novelty effects on recollection and familiarity in recognition memory

Recognition memory is better for novel or distinctive items than for non-novel items. However, it is not known whether these effects reflect changes in recollection or in familiarity-based recognition judgments. Some previous results have indicated that recollection should be more sensitive to novelty than to familiarity, whereas other results have suggested the opposite. We used a von Restorff paradigm in which a small proportion of studied items were made novel by presenting them in a color different from that of the majority of the study items. Memory was tested using a remember-know procedure. Across two experiments, stimulus novelty was found to benefit both recollection and familiarity. The effects on familiarity were observed under intentional and incidental encoding conditions, whereas the effects on recollection were significantly reduced, and no longer significant, under incidental as compared with intentional encoding conditions. Thus, both processes benefit from stimulus novelty, but the extent to which recollection benefits from novelty depends on the encoding condition.