CONCEPTUALLY DRIVEN ENCODING EPISODES CREATE PERCEPTUAL MISATTRIBUTIONS

Processing fluency caused by prior encoding of a word is shown to incr ease duration judgments about that word and to decrease brightness con trast 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 treading aloud) and a task that provided no direct visual experience (generation from a s emantic cue). Analysis of judgments conditionalized on correct or fail ed identification of target words indicated that judgments were powerf ully affected by successful identification. Subjective estimates of th e proportion of targets that were previously studied suggested that aw areness of prior occurrence followed as an attribution based on fluent word identification, rather than acting as a causal agent for identif ication or altered perceptual judgments. We conclude that prior percep tual and conceptual encoding episodes can contribute to fluent process ing of target words on a subsequent masked word identification task an d that, regardless of its source, this fluency is experienced in a gen eric form that is susceptible to attribution to various causes, includ ing prior experience (creating a sense of recollection) and current st imulus conditions. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.