The ROC Toolbox: A toolbox for analyzing receiver-operating characteristics derived from confidence ratings.

Signal-detection theory, and the analysis of receiver-operating characteristics (ROCs), has played a critical role in the development of theories of episodic memory and perception. The purpose of the current paper is to present the ROC Toolbox. This toolbox is a set of functions written in the Matlab programming language that can be used to fit various common signal detection models to ROC data obtained from confidence rating experiments.

Distinguishing between the success and precision of recollection.

Recollection reflects the retrieval of complex qualitative information about prior events. Recently, Harlow and Donaldson developed a method for separating the probability of recollection success from the precision of the mnemonic information retrieved. In the current study, we ask if these properties are separable on the basis of subjective reports-are participants aware of these two aspects of recollection and can they reliably report on them? Participants studied words paired with a location on a circle outline, and at test recalled the location for a given word as accurately as possible.

Source accuracy data reveal the thresholded nature of human episodic memory.

Episodic recollection supports conscious retrieval of past events. It is unknown why recollected memories are often vivid, but at other times we struggle to remember. Such experiences might reflect a recollection threshold: Either the threshold is exceeded and information is retrieved, or recollection fails completely.

Discriminating famous from fictional names based on lifetime experience: evidence in support of a signal-detection model based on finite mixture distributions.

It is widely accepted that signal-detection mechanisms contribute to item-recognition memory decisions that involve discriminations between targets and lures based on a controlled laboratory study episode. Here, the authors employed mathematical modeling of receiver operating characteristics (ROC) to determine whether and how a signal-detection mechanism contributes to discriminations between moderately famous and fictional names based on lifetime experience. Unique to fame judgments is a lack of control over participants' previous exposure to the stimuli deemed "targets" by the experimenter; specifically, if they pertain to moderately famous individuals, participants may have had no prior exposure to a substantial proportion of the famous names presented.

Familiarity for associations? A test of the domain dichotomy theory.

Episodic recognition memory is mediated by functionally separable retrieval processes, notably familiarity (a general sense of prior exposure) and recollection (the retrieval of contextual details), whose relative engagement depends partly on the nature of the information being retrieved. Currently, the specific contribution of familiarity to associative recognition memory (where retrieval of the relationships between pairs of stimuli is required) is not clearly understood. In this study, we tested domain dichotomy theory, which predicts that familiarity should contribute more to associative memory when stimuli are similar (within-domain) than when they are distinct (between-domain).