EXPRESS: The Effect of Part-list Cuing on Associative Recognition.

The modulation of part-list cuing on item memory has been well-documented, whereas its impact on associative memory remains largely unknown. The present study explored the effect of part-list cuing on associative recognition, and more specifically, whether this forgetting effect caused by part-list cuing are more sensitive to recollection or familiarity in recognition memory. Experiment 1a & 1b combined the intact/rearranged/new judgement task of associative recognition with the classical part-list cuing paradigm, and the result showed that part-list cuing impaired the recognition accuracy of "intact" and "rearranged" face-scene pairs; Moreover, the discriminability score of relational recognition and item recognition were significantly decreased in part-list cuing condition compared to no-part-list cuing condition. Experiment 2a & 2b further used the Remember/Know/Guess task to explore which recognition processes (recollection vs. familiarity) was sensitive to the presentation of part-list cuing. The results showed that part-list cuing reduced the familiarity of relational recognition, and the recollection and familiarity of item recognition. These findings suggest that part-list cuing was harmful to the recognition of relationship (familiarity) and item (recollection and familiarity) in associative memory.