Sharpening the echo: an iterative-resonance model for short-term recognition memory.

We present an iterative-resonance model for recognition memory. On successive iterations, the probe is compared against a feature-by-feature profile of the study set. Yes decisions depend on the similarity of the probe to the profile; No decisions depend on a count of elements in the probe that are not in the profile. Successive iterations sharpen the evidence, and response latency is a function of the number of iterations needed to obtain a sufficiently clear result. The model successfully simulates classic data as well as recent data problematic for alternate models.