Explored how the ease or difficulty with which material can be brought into mind in a free recall task influences more general metamemory judgments by manipulating recall difficulty. It was predicted that Ss would rate their memory as worse after successfully retrieving many childhood events than after retrieving a few events, in contrast to what… Continue reading The role of ease of retrieval and attribution in memory judgments: Judging your memory as worse despite recalling more events
Keyword: Recall (Learning)
The availability heuristic revisited: Experienced ease of retrieval in mundane frequency estimates
Conducted an experiment with 28 undergraduates in which misattribution approach was used to isolate the impact of the phenomenal experience to test the availability heuristic, which proposes that the phenomenal experience of ease of recall serves as a source of information in making frequency or probability judgments. As expected, Ss provided the lowest frequency estimates… Continue reading The availability heuristic revisited: Experienced ease of retrieval in mundane frequency estimates
The availability heuristic revisited: Ease of recall and content of recall as distinct sources of information
Addresses the ambiguity of whether the subjective experience of ease or difficulty of recall has an impact on our judgments distinct from the impact of the content that comes to mind. Topics discussed in this chapter include the following: the interplay of declarative and experiential information, experienced ease of recall as a source of information,… Continue reading The availability heuristic revisited: Ease of recall and content of recall as distinct sources of information
When debiasing backfires: Accessible content and accessibility experiences in debiasing hindsight
Two studies demonstrated that attempts to debias hindsight by thinking about alternative outcomes may backfire and traced this to the influence of subjective accessibility experiences. Participants listed either few (2) or many (10) thoughts about how an event might have turned out otherwise. Listing many counterfactual thoughts was experienced as difficult and consistently increased the… Continue reading When debiasing backfires: Accessible content and accessibility experiences in debiasing hindsight
Constructing perceptions of vulnerability: Personal relevance and the use of experiential information in health judgments
The perceived self-relevance of a health issue determined whether participants relied on recalled content or experienced ease of recall in assessing risk. Participants recalled either three or eight behaviors that increase or decrease risk of heart disease. Although recalling three risk factors was relatively easy, people had difficulty recalling eight risk factors. When heart disease… Continue reading Constructing perceptions of vulnerability: Personal relevance and the use of experiential information in health judgments
Mnemonic training for the acquisition of skilled digit memory
Two young adults (aged 19 and 23 yrs) with initial average digit- and word-span memory were trained to memorize and reproduce strings of 80-90 digits presented at 10- to 1-sec rates. The instruction and training program, based on W. G. Chase and K. A. Ericsson's (1981) theory of skilled memory, focused on 3 components: acquisition… Continue reading Mnemonic training for the acquisition of skilled digit memory
On the locus and process of magnification of age differences during mnemonic training
The focus of this study was on developmental reserve capacity in old age as revealed by testing-the-limits. Examined were (1) the time course of training-related magnification of age differences in serial word recall and (2) predictability of training gains by pretest individual differences in cognitive abilities. In 20 sessions, young (n = 18) and old (n = 19) adults… Continue reading On the locus and process of magnification of age differences during mnemonic training
Beliefs influence information processing strategies: Declarative and experiential information in risk assessment
To assess their risk in a particular domain, individuals may review domain-relevant behaviors. Thinking about these behaviors renders two sources of information available: the recalled behaviors and the subjective experience of ease of recall. Two studies (n = 1,177 students) demonstrate that individuals' beliefs about the domain can influence which source of information they use. Women high… Continue reading Beliefs influence information processing strategies: Declarative and experiential information in risk assessment