An alternative conceptualization to memory "strength" in reality monitoring

Recently, H. G. Hoffman (1997) has proposed that reality-monitoring judgments can be made using average differences in the strength of 2 classes of studied items. The support for this claim was that the inferred recognition hit rate differed for the 2 classes of items. Hoffman argued that misattributions of new items to an old source were more frequent to the source that was weaker in memory strength. The authors of the present study have demonstrated chat source misattribution biases of this sort can arise when the inferred recognition hit rate does not differ between classes of items. Their argument is that different source-monitoring situations may require different weightings of source-monitoring decision criteria and that these can provide a valid account of both their own and Hoffman's data. Arguments concerning when strength might and might not be used in tasks involving source monitoring versus unconscious plagiarism are clarified.