Effect of Target Detection on Recognition

Abstract To explore whether the effect of target detection on memory retrieval is associated with confounding factors and the internal cognitive mechanism and determine whether this difference originates from target detection or distraction inhibition, we conducted three experiments. In Experiment 1, we used target and distractor stimuli with meaningless stimuli and added the full attention (FA) condition as a baseline to compare with the distraction condition. The results showed that the correct identification of old words was significantly higher in target than in distractor trials. By contrast, the correct rejection rate of new words was significantly lower in target than in distractor trials. The correct identification rate of old words in distractor trials was significantly lower than the FA condition, as was the correct rejection rate of new words in target trials. In Experiment 2, the ratio of new to old words in the recognition task was adjusted to 1:1 to eliminate any reaction tendency related to the high ratio of old words. Finally, in Experiment 3, the word presentation time was extended to 1,500 ms or 3,000 ms (depending on the condition) to eliminate the risk of rapid processing in Experiment 1. In both cases, the results from Experiment 1 were replicated. This replication shows that the influence of target detection on recognition comes from both target detection and distraction rejection. Target detection influence on recognition may be due to yoking between the dual tasks.