Remembering and reconstructing episodic context: an overview of source monitoring methods and behavioral findings

This chapter reviews cognitive-behavioral research on the processes involved in source monitoring, that is, how people determine the episodic context (source) of item information. For example, it is often not only important to know what was said (i.e., the item) but also who said it (i.e., the source) as this is informative about the credibility of the information. Likewise, it is useful to remember where (source) we left our belongings (item), so we can find them. Crucially, we distinguish two core processes of source monitoring: source memory based on remembering context features and reconstructive source guessing. We discuss the distinction between source and item memory and the often systematic knowledge-driven (“educated”) nature of source guessing. We provide an in-depth overview of paradigms to study source-monitoring processes and how estimates of these contributing processes can be derived from cognitive modeling with multinomial processing tree or signal detection models. Finally, we piece apart some basic empirical effects on source monitoring (effects of schema-/stereotype-inconsistency, context reinstatement, and emotions), differentiating the contribution of source memory vs source guessing to these effects. We further discuss the role of these processes in more applied source-monitoring phenomena related to eyewitness memory, aging, and a clinical application in schizophrenia