Discrepancy attribution depends on retrieval context: Evidence from the word-frequency mirror effect

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Human Memory Research

Background:

• Relative familiarity is theorized to arise from an attribution process, explaining memory effects.
• This process may underlie the word-frequency mirror effect, where low-frequency words are often falsely recognized more than high-frequency words.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role of attribution processes in relative familiarity.
• To examine how contextual factors influence the relationship between relative familiarity and word frequency effects.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a two-list exclusion task with varying response deadlines.
• Manipulated word frequency (high vs. low) presentation (random vs. blocked) during study and test phases.

Main Results:

• In random conditions, low-frequency words yielded higher hit rates and exclusion errors, supporting relative familiarity's influence.
• Blocking word frequency during study or test eliminated these differences, indicating context dependency.

Conclusions:

• Relative familiarity is driven by an attribution process.
• This attribution process is contingent on contextual factors present during retrieval, not solely on item-specific fluency.