Repetition of previously novel melodies sometimes increases both remember and know responses in recognition memory

Recognition memory for previously novel melodies was tested in three experiments in which subjects used remember and know responses to report experiences of recollection, or of familiarity in the absence of recollection for each melody they recognized. Some of the melodies were taken from Polish folk songs and presented vocally but without the words. Others were taken from obscure pieces of classical music, presented as single-line melodies. Prior to the test, the melodies were repeated for varying numbers of study trials. Repetition of the Polish melodies increased both remember and know responses, while repetition of classical melodies increased remember but not know responses. When subjects were instructed to report guesses, guess responses were inversely related to remember and know responses and there were more guesses to lures than to targets. These findings establish that remembering and knowing are fully independent functionally and, by the same token, they provide further evidence against the idea that response exclusivity causes increases in remembering to force decreases in knowing. The findings also suggest that simultaneous increases in remembering and knowing occurred because the Polish melodies came from a genre for which the subjects had relatively little previous experience.