The source of feelings of familiarity: The discrepancy-attribution hypothesis.

Many investigators have observed that the feeling of familiarity is associated with fluency of processing. The authors demonstrated a case in which the feeling of familiarity did not result from fluency per se; they argued that it resulted instead from perceiving a discrepancy between the actual and expected fluency of processing (B. W. A. Whittlesea & L. D. Williams, 1998). In this article, the authors extend that argument. They observed that stimuli that are experienced as strongly familiar when presented in isolation are instead experienced as being novel when presented in a rhyme or semantic context. They interpreted that result to mean that in those other contexts, the subjects brought a different standard to bear in evaluating the fluency of their processing. This different standard caused the subjects to perceive their performance not as discrepant, but as coherent in one case and incongruous in the other. The authors suggest that the perception of discrepancy is a major factor in producing the feeling of familiarity. They further suggest that the occurrence of that perception depends on the task in which the person is engaged when encountering the stimulus, because that task affects the standard that the person will apply in evaluating their processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting the future and reconstructing the past: a Bayesian characterization of the utility of subjective fluency

The subjective sense of fluency with which an item can be perceived or remembered is proposed to be a vital cue in making decisions about the future memorability and the nature of our past experience with that stimulus. We first outline a number of cases in which such perceptual or retrieval fluency influences judgments both about our own future performance and our likely past experience, and then present a Bayesian analysis of how judgments of recognition--deciding whether or not a currently viewed item was studied at a particular point in the past--may incorporate information about the perceptual fluency of that item. Using a simple mathematical model, we then provide an interpretation of certain enigmatic phenomena in recognition memory.     

On misattributing good remembering to a happy past: An investigation into the cognitive roots of nostalgia.

Reflections on the past are often accompanied by an experience of nostalgia, or positive sentiments about some prior stage of one's life. In the current study, we provide evidence suggesting that nostalgic experiences may occur because of positive feelings that accompany the act of successful recall, rather than reflecting the true nature of the past. In a series of experiments, we employed an encoding manipulation to cause some words to support more detailed recollections than others. In turn, we measured the effect of these manipulations on judgments of both pleasantness and the emotional valence of a prior stimulus encounter. We demonstrate that recollections rich in meaning are unique in biasing people to judge having previously seen a stimulus in an emotionally positive context. In contrast, pleasantness judgments appear to be guided primarily by perceptual fluency. Overall, our results are consistent with the notion that the subjective experience of nostalgia represents a misattribution of successful remembering to a pleasant past. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conceptually driven encoding episodes create perceptual misattributions

Processing fluency caused by prior encoding of a word is shown to increased duration judgments about that word and to decrease brightness contrast judgments about its mask when the word is presented in a masked word identification task. These effects occurred following an encoding task that involved visual perception of the words (reading aloud) and a task that provided no direct visual experience (generation from a semantic cue). Analysis of judgments conditionalized on correct or failed identification of target words indicated that judgments were powerfully affected by successful identification. Subjective estimates of the proportion of targets that were previously studied suggested that awareness of prior occurrence followed as an attribution based on fluent word identification, rather than acting as a causal agent for identification or altered perceptual judgments. We conclude that prior perceptual and conceptual encoding episodes can contribute to fluent processing of target words on a subsequent masked word identification task and that, regardless of its source, this fluency is experienced in a generic form that is susceptible to attribution to various causes, including prior experience (creating a sense of recollection) and current stimulus conditions.     

The discrepancy-attribution hypothesis: I. The heuristic basis of feelings and familiarity.

B. W. A. Whittlesea and D. L. Williams (see records 1998-02991-002 and 2000-03416-001) proposed the discrepancy-attribution hypothesis to explain the source of feelings of familiarity. By that hypothesis, people chronically evaluate the coherence of their processing. When the quality of processing is perceived as being discrepant from that which could be expected, people engage in an attributional process; the feeling of familiarity occurs when perceived discrepancy is attributed to prior experience. In the present article, the authors provide convergent evidence for that hypothesis and show that it can also explain feelings of familiarity for nonlinguistic stimuli. They demonstrate that the perception of discrepancy is not automatic but instead depends critically on the attitude that people adopt toward their processing, given the task and context. The connection between the discrepancy-attribution hypothesis and the "revelation effect" is also explored (e.g., D. L. Westerman and R. L. Greene, see record 1996-05780-006). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the relationship between recognition familiarity and perceptual fluency: evidence for distinct mnemonic processes

Fluent reprocessing of perceptual aspects of recently experienced stimuli is thought to support repetition priming effects on implicit perceptual memory tests. Although behavioral and neuropsychological dissociations demonstrate that separable mnemonic processes and neural substrates mediate implicit and explicit test performance, dual-process theories of memory posit that explicit recognition memory judgments may be based on familiarity derived from the same perceptual fluency that yields perceptual priming. Here we consider the relationship between familiarity-based recognition memory and implicit perceptual memory. A select review of the literature demonstrates that the fluency supporting implicit perceptual memory is functionally and anatomically distinct from that supporting recognition memory. In contrast to perceptual fluency, recognition familiarity is more sensitive to conceptual than to perceptual processing, and does not depend on modality-specific sensory cortices. Alternative possible relationships between familiarity in explicit memory and fluency in implicit memory are discussed.     

False memory and the discrepancy-attribution hypothesis: The prototype-familiarity illusion.

According to the discrepancy-attribution hypothesis (B. W. A. Whittlesea & L. D. Williams, 1998), people experience a feeling of familiarity when they perceive their processing to be surprising, but for an indefinite reason. This hypothesis has been successful in explaining several illusions of familiarity. Here, it is applied to the prototype-familiarity effect, an illusion of remembering that occurs when people are shown prototype words after studying lists of associates. The experiments showed that studying associates enhances semantic, but not perceptual, processing of prototypes. They also showed that claims of recognizing prototypes can be modified by presenting them in predictive or incongruous contexts at test. The evidence suggests that the effect results from an evaluation process that monitors the coherence of processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recollections of true and false autobiographical memories.

Two diarists recorded true and false events and thoughts over a period of 5 months. In recognition tests taken 7 months later, they discriminated between true and false diary entries and judged their state of memory awareness as recollective experience, feeling of familiarity, or no distinct state of awareness. Correct recognition rates for true events and thoughts were high. Events were associated with recollective experience and thoughts with feelings of familiarity. Incorrect recognition was higher for thoughts than events. False memories were associated with familiarity or no distinct state of awareness. For correct memories of events only, factors influencing encoding (importance, consequentiality, etc.) interacted with state of memory awareness at retrieval. The quality of phenomenal experience, based on the associations between encoding and retrieval, may be critical in leading a remeberer to accept a memory as true. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Naive theories of intelligence and the role of processing fluency in perceived comprehension.

Previous research overwhelmingly suggests that feelings of ease people experience while processing information lead them to infer that their comprehension is high, whereas feelings of difficulty lead them to infer that their comprehension is low. However, the inferences people draw from their experiences of processing fluency should also vary in accordance with their naive theories about why new information might be easy or difficult to process. Five experiments that involved reading novel texts showed that participants who view intelligence as a fixed attribute, and who tend to interpret experiences of processing difficulty as an indication that they are reaching the limits of their ability, reported lower levels of comprehension as fluency decreased. In contrast, participants who view intelligence as a malleable attribute that develops through effort, and who do not tend to interpret experiences of processing difficulty as pertaining to some innate ability, did not report lower levels of comprehension as fluency decreased. In fact, when these participants were particularly likely to view effort as leading to increased mastery, decreases in fluency led them to report higher levels of comprehension. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recollections of faces: remembering differences and knowing similarities

Components of recollective experience were investigated in 4 experiments in which participants studied either similarities or differences among faces (relational vs. distinctive processing). Subsequently, when recognizing a face, participants indicated whether their decision was based on explicit recollection (remembering) or assessment of familiarity (knowing). Type of encoding interacted with judgments of recollective experience, so that the incidence of "remember" responses was higher following distinctive encoding than following relational encoding, whereas the opposite pattern of results was obtained for "know" responses. Furthermore, recognition of appearance-changed faces was based on feelings of familiarity, rather than on explicit recollection. The results support the dual-component notion of recognition but are inconsistent with the idea that dissociations between remembering and knowing merely reflect differences in conceptual and perceptual processing.     

Implicit/explicit memory dissociation in Alzheimer's disease: The consequence of inappropriate processing?

Dual-process theories of recognition posit that perceptual fluency contributes to both familiarity-based explicit recognition and perceptual priming. However, the priming-without-recognition dissociation, as observed through the intact mere exposure effect and impaired recognition in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), might indicate that familiarity and perceptual priming are functionally distinct. This study investigated whether the AD patients' processing strategies at testing may explain this priming-without-recognition dissociation. First, we replicated the priming-without-recognition effect in 16 patients who exhibited intact exposure effects despite null recognition. Second, we showed that, under identical conditions, inducing a holistic processing strategy during recognition testing increased AD patients' recognition--performance was similar for AD patients and healthy control participants. Furthermore, prompting analytic processing during both priming and recognition tasks decreased AD patients' performance in both tasks. These findings suggest that the extent to which AD patients use perceptual fluency in priming and recognition tasks is contingent on their processing approach. The choice of processing strategy may depend on how difficult patients perceive the task to be. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributions of Fluency in Fame Judgments by Younger and Older Adults.

Judgments about stimulus characteristics are affected by enhanced processing fluency that results from an earlier presentation of the stimulus. By monitoring for an episodic source of processing fluency, younger adults can more easily avoid this influence than can older adults. In Experiment 1, older adults discounted the effects of fluency when task demands encouraged the use of analytic judgments based on general knowledge, rather than an appeal to episodic source monitoring. Younger subjects were not reliably affected by these same task demands and their judgments continued to be affected by processing fluency. In Experiment 2, introduction of more stringent demands led younger adults also to discount the effects of fluency. We conclude that the influence of processing fluency on younger and older adults varies, depending on whether memory for source or general knowledge is put forward in place of fluency as a basis for judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual fluency as a cue for recognition judgments in amnesia.

This study investigated the extent to which amnesic patients use fluency of perceptual identification as a cue for recognition. Perceptual fluency was measured by having participants gradually unmask words before making recognition judgments. In Experiment 1, familiarity was the only possible basis for recognition because no words had been presented in the study phase. In Experiment 2, recollection provided an alternative basis for recognition because words had appeared in the study phase. Amnesic patients were as likely as normal controls to use perceptual fluency as a cue for recognition in Experiment 1 but were more likely than controls to do so in Experiment 2. For both groups, perceptual fluency affected judgments for studied and unstudied items to the same extent in Experiment 2. These findings suggest that amnesic patients do use perceptual fluency cues, but reliance on perceptual fluency does not necessarily elevate recognition accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The heuristic basis of remembering and classification: Fluency, generation, and resemblance.

People use 3 heuristics (fluency, generation, and resemblance) in remembering a prior experience of a stimulus. The authors demonstrate that people use the same 3 heuristics in classifying a stimulus as a member of a category and interpret this as support for the idea that people have a unitary memory system that operates by the same fundamental principles in both remembering and nonremembering tasks. The authors argue that the fundamental functions of memory are the production of specific mental events, under the control of the stimulus, task, and context, and the evaluation of the coherence of those events, which controls the subjective experience accompanying performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Warm Glow Heuristic: When Liking Leads to Familiarity.

Five studies demonstrate that the positive valence of a stimulus increases its perceived familiarity, even in the absence of prior exposure. For example, beautiful faces feel familiar. Two explanations for this effect stand out: (a) Stimulus prototypicality leads both to positivity and familiarity, and (b) positive affect is used to infer familiarity in a heuristic fashion. Studies 1 and 2 show that attractive faces feel more familiar than average ones and that prototypicality accounts for only part of this effect. In Study 3, the rated attractiveness of average faces was manipulated by contrast, and their perceived familiarity changed accordingly, although their inherent prototypicaliry remained the same. In Study 4, positive words felt more familiar to participants than neutral and negative words. Study 5 shows that the effect is strongest when recognition is difficult. The author concludes that both prototypicality and a warm glow heuristic are responsible for the "good-is-familiar" phenomenon. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

After the learning is over: Factors controlling the selective application of general and particular knowledge.

People often have general knowledge about a category as well as knowing some of its members. These forms of knowledge and how they are coordinated in dealing with new stimuli were investigated. Ss were trained twice on the same items, coding them as whole units on some trials and analyzing their typical features on others. In generalization tests, Ss used these forms of knowledge selectively, depending on the type of judgment required but also depending on the perceptual organization of the display, the sequence of activities performed in test, and the demands of concomitant tasks. These test factors caused the Ss to organize a new stimulus as a unit or as a collection of features; in turn, this organization of the stimulus cued whichever representations of prior experience were similar. It was concluded that selective utilization of general and specific knowledge is controlled by multiple task factors that determine the initial processing of a stimulus. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conceptual fluency selectively influences knowing.

Research shows that Remember and Know judgments are effective measures of recollective experience. This article shows that Know responses can be selectively affected by fluency of processing that is created using a conceptual manipulation. In a recognition test, studied and nonstudied words were preceded by semantically related or unrelated primes. Participants gave significantly more Know judgments to items with related primes than unrelated primes but Remember responses were unaffected. Know responses are discussed in terms of familiarity assumed to arise from fluency of processing which, in turn, may be created through various sources including conceptual processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The causes, phenomenology, and consequences of hurt feelings.

One hundred sixty-four participants recounted situations in which their feelings had been hurt (victim accounts) or in which they had hurt another person's feelings (perpetrator accounts) and then completed a questionnaire. Hurt feelings were precipitated by events that connoted relational devaluation, and the victims' distress correlated strongly with feelings of rejection. Victims were typically hurt by people whom they knew well, suggesting that familiarity or closeness played a role. Analyses of the subjective experience revealed that hurt feelings are characterized by undifferentiated negative affect that is often accompanied by emotions such as anxiety and hostility. Victims' responses to the event were related to their attributions for the perpetrators' actions, and hurtful episodes typically had negative repercussions for the relationships between perpetrators and victims. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the relation between perceptual priming and recognition memory.

Two experiments evaluated the hypothesis that perceptual fluency is used to infer prior occurrence. Subjects heard (Experiment 1) or saw (Experiment 2) a list of words and then were presented in the same modality with both these and other words twice in succession: first in a more or less impoverished fashion, and then in clear fashion. For the first of these two presentations, the subjects tried to identify the word; for the second, they gave a recognition judgment. As predicted by the perceptual fluency hypothesis, and as has been found in previous research, the recognition judgments were more positive for identified words than for unidentified words. However, degree of impoverishment, by which apparent perceptual fluency was brought under experimental control, did not affect the recognition judgments. The perceptual fluency hypothesis was therefore not supported, and the observed relation between identification and recognition was attributed to an item selection effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reversing the truth effect: Learning the interpretation of processing fluency in judgments of truth.

Repeated statements receive higher truth ratings than new statements. Given that repetition leads to greater experienced processing fluency, the author proposes that fluency is used in truth judgments according to its ecological validity. Thus, the truth effect occurs because people learn that fluency and truth tend to be positively correlated. Three experiments tested this notion. Experiment 1 replicated the truth effect by directly manipulating processing fluency; Experiment 2 reversed the effect by manipulating the correlation between fluency and truth in a learning phase. Experiment 3 generalized this reversal by showing a transfer of a negative correlation between perceptual fluency (due to color contrast) and truth to truth judgments when fluency is due to prior exposure (i.e., repetition). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)