The combined contributions of the cue-familiarity and accessibility heuristics to feelings of knowing

A Koriat, R Levy-Sadot

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

A model for the basis of feeling of knowing (FOK) is proposed, which combines 2 apparently competing accounts, cue familiarity (L. M. Reder, 1987), and accessibility (A. Koriat, 1993). Both cue familiarity and accessibility are assumed to contribute asynchronously to FOK, but whereas the effects of familiarity occur early, those of accessibility occur later and only when cue familiarity is sufficiently high to drive the interrogation of memory for potential answers. General information questions were used to orthogonally manipulate cue familiarity and accessibility. As expected, both familiarity and accessibility enhanced FOK judgments, but the effects of accessibility were found mostly when familiarity was high. This interactive pattern was replicated when FOK judgments were delayed but not when they were immediate. The results support the proposed cascaded model of FOK but also imply a differentiation between 2 variants of the accessibility heuristic.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)34-53
Number of pages20
JournalJournal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition
Volume27
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2001

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