Memory-based similar lure rejections promote subsequent memory for relative recency

Abstract

Memory updating requires detecting changes between similar events and preserving information about their relative order. Two experiments examined whether memory-based rejection of similar lures in the Mnemonic Similarity Task supports subsequent temporal memory. Participants studied objects, completed a modified recognition test including repeated targets, similar lures, and novel foils, and then performed a relative recency test in which they selected which of two versions of the same object appeared during the previous recognition test. Recency judgments for lures were most accurate when they were correctly rejected as “similar,” suggesting that retrieval-based comparison processes during recognition supported subsequent memory updating. Conditional analyses showed that this benefit was enhanced when participants also reported the subjective experience of remembering that both objects had appeared in the experiment, indexing memory for change. Subjective reports of retrieving studied objects before seeing lures were associated with more accurate lure decisions, and clearer subjective retrieval was associated with more frequent reports indicating memory for change. Together, these findings suggest that retrieval and comparison processes engaged during mnemonic discrimination encode information that supports distinguishing earlier and later events. This study provides a step toward integrating cognitive accounts of temporal memory with complementary neural accounts of episodic memory updating.