Unraveling Memory Representations: Interactive Effects of Visual and Conceptual Feature Representations on Memory Decisions

In daily life, we rely on memory to make accurate decisions, such as distinguishing the correct highway exit from similar-looking alternatives. While memories store enough features for such discriminations, how these features influence memory decisions remains unclear. The present study examines the impact of visual and conceptual representations on memory-based decisions. Experiment 1 (N=140) revealed that both types of representations influence the decision process, but only conceptual representations led to memory errors. Experiment 2 (N=253) showed that while subjects are more prone to errors when competing stimuli are conceptually similar, this effect is diminished when such competitors are also visually similar. Experiment 3 (N=315) additionally showed that both types of representations influenced confidence judgments by increasing the feeling of recollecting specific details of the memory. Taken together, our results show that memory-based decisions rely on multiple and interactive stimulus representations.