Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) are susceptible to distortions of memory negatively impacting their independence. It has been proposed that familiarity, in the setting of poor recollection, drives the production of false recognition. Some investigators have argued that the ease with which something is processed, or it's fluency, underlies familiarity. This project will examine the role of fluency in the false recognition of patients with AD. In Experiments 1, 2, and 3 perceptual and conceptual fluency will be manipulated to test the hypothesis that enhanced fluency creates false recognition in patients with AD. Experiments 4 and 5 will test the hypothesis that impaired post-retrieval monitoring in patients with AD results in a diminished capacity to suppress fluency-based false recognition when the source of this fluency is obvious versus obscure. By examining the effect of fluency on ERP correlates of familiarity, Experiment 6 will test the hypothesis that enhanced fluency produces false recognition through the creation of familiarity, and Experiment 7 will compare these ERP correlates with that produced by gist-based familiarity. Overall, these studies should further our understanding of memory distortions in AD by examining the role of fluency on false memory and further define the relationship between familiarity and fluency.
