ABSTRACT
A basic question in any classification task has to do with the basis for classification, whether the item to be classified is matched on the basis of physical characteristics (e.g., color, size) or associational characteristics. Posner and his colleagues had suggested a mechanism whereby a physical match was attempted first, which, if not made, was followed by an associational match. An associational match implies a recoding of one item, either the probe or the memorial representation, so that the matching process could occur with both the probe and the memorial representations in a common format. The Lyons and Briggs study was the first attempt to deal specifically with the familiarity variable. A standard Sternberg design was executed using two levels of accuracy (5% and 15% error levels) and two levels of visual noise (no-noise versus checker-board mask superimposed on probe).
