The Feeling of "Familiarity" as Resonance: A Critique of Contemporary Memory Theories and the ARCHÉ Model as an Explanation of Recognition

The phenomenon of recognition without recollection—familiarity—remains one of the most enigmatic forms of memory. Contemporary cognitive models offer various functional explanations, yet rarely address the subjective, bodily, and affective nature of this experience. This article presents a comparative analysis of leading recognition theories (dual-process theory, signal detection, semantic spreading, predictive coding) and highlights their limitations in accounting for the phenomenon of familiar feeling. As an alternative, we introduce the ARCHÉ model (Artificial Resonant Consciousness and Hedonic Evaluation), in which recognition is explained as a local resonance with stable hedonic patterns. This allows familiarity to be interpreted not as data retrieval, but as a bodily event—a spontaneous synchronization of current excitation with the history of affective responses.