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

A model for the basis of feeling of knowing (FOK) is proposed, which combin es 2 apparently competing accounts, cue familiarity (L. M. Reder, 1987), an d accessibility (A. Koriat, 1993). Both cue familiarity and accessibility a re assumed to contribute asynchronously to FOK but whereas the effects of f amiliarity occur early, those of accessibility occur later and only when cu e 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 familiarit y and accessibility enhanced FOK judgments, but the effects of accessibilit y were found mostly when familiarity was high. This interactive pattern was replicated when FOK judgments were delayed but not when they were immediat e. The results support the proposed cascaded model of FOK but also imply a differentiation between 2 variants of the accessibility heuristic.