WHAT IS THE MECHANISM FOR FLUENCY IN SUCCESSIVE RECOGNITION

There are a number of reasons to believe that processing fluency may a ffect successive recognition judgements, but evidence about the mechan ism for these effects is currently lacking. This study used a successi ve task design to examine whether subjective ease might underlie effec ts of fluency on recognition. At study subjects performed lexical deci sions; in a subsequent test with studied and new items, subjects perfo rmed lexical decisions followed immediately by recognition or ease jud gments. In a previous study we used the process dissociation procedure to show that recognition in a similar task was largely based upon flu ency. In the present study, successive recognition judgments interfere d with lexical decision performance to a greater degree than did ease judgments, suggesting that the recognition judgment was not automatic and involved processes additional to the judgment of ease. The data su ggest that the fluency involved in successive recognition is more comp lex than a subjective judgment of ease of processing. One possible mec hanism for fluency in recognition may be based upon reductions in the orientation of attention that accompany item repetition. (C) 1998 Else vier Science B.V. All rights reserved.