MEMORABILITY JUDGMENTS FOR HIGH-FREQUENCY AND LOW-FREQUENCY WORDS

Five experiments were conducted in order to examine subjects' judgment s of the memorability of high- (HF) and low-frequency (LF) words in th e context of a recognition memory task. In Experiment 1, the subjects were provided study/test experience with a list of HF and LF words pri or to making memorability judgments for a new list of KF and LF items. The findings were consistent with previous evidence (Greene & Thapar, 1994; Wixted, 1992) suggesting that subjects are not explicitly aware of the greater recognition memorability of LF words. Experiments 2-5 embedded the memorability judgment task within the recognition test it self. In these experiments, the subjects consistently gave higher memo rability ratings to LF items. The contrast between the pattern of resu lts found when the subjects made their judgments at the time of list p resentation (Experiment 1) and that when they made their judgments dur ing the recognition test (Experiments 2-5) is consistent with recent e vidence that even seemingly highly related metamnemonic judgments (e.g ., ease of learning judgments vs, judgments of learning for the same i tems) may be based on very different factors if they occur at differen t points in the study/test cycle. The present findings are also consis tent with the possibility that very rapid retrieval of memorability in formation for HF and LF words may affect recognition decisions and may contribute to the recognition memory word frequency effect.