Distinctive items are salient during encoding: delayed judgements of learning predict the isolation effect.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Memory Research

Background:

• The isolation effect describes superior memory for incongruent or odd items within a list.
• Prior research suggests item distinctiveness plays a role in memory recall.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role of encoding salience in predicting the isolation effect.
• To test the hypothesis that encoding salience emerges during encoding and predicts memory for odd items.

Main Methods:

• Three experiments were conducted using item lists (unrelated and categorized).
• An isolation paradigm presented an odd item within a list, varying its position (early/late).
• Delayed judgments of learning (JOLs) and free recall tests were administered.

Main Results:

• Participants demonstrated superior recall for isolated items, irrespective of their position in the list.
• Delayed JOLs accurately predicted the isolation effect across different conditions.
• Experiment 3 indicated that item salience develops as list structure knowledge unfolds.

Conclusions:

• Encoding salience emerges during the study episode and is a key predictor of the isolation effect.
• The findings support the role of developing item salience in memory for incongruent items.
• Judgments of learning are reliable indicators of future memory performance for distinct items.