Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition
Fluency Effects in Recognition Memory: Are Perceptual
Fluency and Conceptual Fluency Interchangeable?
Meredith Lanska, Justin M. Olds, and Deanne L. Westerman
Online First Publication, September 2, 2013. doi: 10.1037/a0034309
CITATION
Lanska, M., Olds, J. M., & Westerman, D. L. (2013, September 2). Fluency Effects in
Recognition Memory: Are Perceptual Fluency and Conceptual Fluency Interchangeable?.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. Advance online
publication. doi: 10.1037/a0034309
Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition
2013, Vol. 39, No. 6, 000
© 2013 American Psychological Association
0278-7393/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0034309
Fluency Effects in Recognition Memory: Are Perceptual Fluency and
Conceptual Fluency Interchangeable?
Meredith Lanska, Justin M. Olds, and Deanne L. Westerman
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Binghamton University
On a recognition memory test, both perceptual and conceptual fluency can engender a sense of familiarity
and elicit recognition memory illusions. To date, perceptual and conceptual fluency have been studied
separately but are they interchangeable in terms of their influence on recognition judgments? Five
experiments compared the effect of perceptual and conceptual fluency on recognition. The results suggest
that under standard intentional encoding instructions participants were influenced by conceptual and
perceptual fluency manipulations to a similar degree (Experiments 1a and 1b). When the perceptual
features of the stimuli were emphasized during encoding, the perceptual fluency manipulation had a
stronger influence on recognition memory decisions than the conceptual fluency manipulation (Experiment 2). Enhanced conceptual processing at encoding served to nullify the influence of both perceptual
and conceptual fluency on the test (Experiment 3). The nature of the test instructions also influenced the
relative contribution of perceptual versus conceptual fluency manipulations to the recognition judgment.
In Experiment 4, the influence of conceptual fluency was larger when the recognition instructions were
meaning based (a synonym recognition test) than with standard recognition instructions. Collectively, the
results suggest that the relative contribution of perceptual and conceptual fluency depends on both
encoding and test factors.
Keywords: recognition memory, processing fluency, perceptual fluency, memory illusions
There are a variety of techniques that have been used to investigate fluency in the lab, many of which depend on enhancing the
speed of perception (perceptual fluency). To enhance perceptual
fluency experimentally, stimuli have been presented in higher
contrast (Reber et al., 1998; Unkelbach, 2006), with greater perceptual clarity (Whittlesea et al., 1990) or with easier-to-read
typography (Jacoby & Hayman, 1987; Roediger & Blaxton, 1987;
for a review, see Alter & Oppenheimer, 2009). The most common
method of enhancing perceptual fluency is through perceptual
priming. This method, first used by Jacoby and Whitehouse
(1989), interleaves a priming phase between each test trial on the
recognition test. Each test item is preceded by a brief presentation
of a masked prime. Sometimes the prime matches the test word
that is to follow, and sometimes it does not. When the prime
matches the test word, the test word is processed more fluently
(i.e., the phenomenon of repetition priming), and participants are
more likely to judge that item as being “old” compared to when the
masked stimulus does not match the test word (e.g., Gallo, Perlmutter, Moore, & Schacter, 2008; Huber, Clark, Curran, &
Winkeilman, 2008; Jacoby & Whitehouse, 1989; Kurilla, 2011;
Kurilla & Westerman, 2008; Westerman, 2001, 2008; Westerman
et al., 2002; Westerman, Miller, & Lloyd, 2003).
Fluency can also be enhanced through more conceptual means.
The most common technique involves presenting the test word as
the final word of a predictive sentence. After studying a list of
words, participants see each test word as the completion of a
predictive or nonpredictive sentence stem. For example, a recognition test word such as “BOAT” could be presented after the stem,
“The stormy sea rocked the . . .” (a predictive stem) or after “She
saved her money to buy a . . .” (a nonpredictive stem). In such
experiments, test words that complete predictive stems are pro-
Processing fluency, which is typically defined as the speed and
ease with which a stimulus is processed, has been linked to many
types of subjective judgments. Stimuli that are processed fluently
are judged to be more pleasing (Reber, Winkielman, & Schwarz,
1998), longer in duration (Jacoby & Dallas, 1981), more valid
(Reber & Schwarz, 1999; Kelley & Lindsay, 1993), and more
familiar (Brown & Marsh, 2009; Jacoby & Whitehouse, 1989;
Westerman, 2008; Whittlesea, 1993) when compared to less fluent
stimuli. The link between fluency and recognition memory has
been especially well researched, as there are a multitude of studies
that have shown that fluent stimuli tend to be judged as being more
familiar (or “old”) on a recognition test (Jacoby & Whitehouse,
1989; Olds & Westerman, 2012; Kurilla & Westerman, 2008;
Westerman, 2001; Westerman, Lloyd, & Miller, 2002; Whittlesea,
2002; Whittlesea, Jacoby, & Girard, 1990). This increased sense of
familiarity occurs for stimuli that are old and also for stimuli that
are novel, which has been interpreted as an illusion of recognition
memory and as a possible laboratory demonstration of déjà-vu
(Brown & Marsh, 2009).
Meredith Lanska, Justin M. Olds, and Deanne L. Westerman, Department of Psychology, Binghamton University.
The authors would like to thank Ashley Thorne, Jaclyn Kanusher,
Winnie Lee, Alexander Lamperelli, Jake Majansky, Christina Jarosch,
Sharder Islam, and Justin Gogan for their help conducting the research.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Deanne
L. Westerman, Department of Psychology, State University of New York,
Binghamton, P.O. Box 6000, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000. E-mail:
[email protected]
1
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2
LANSKA, OLDS, AND WESTERMAN
cessed more fluently and are more likely to be classified as “old”
on the recognition test (Kurilla, 2011; Kurilla & Westerman, 2008;
Miller, Lloyd, & Westerman, 2008; Westerman, 2008; Whittlesea,
1993, 2002; Whittlesea & Williams, 2001).
In spite of the numerous superficial differences in the methods
that are used to manipulate perceptual and conceptual fluency, they
appear similar in terms of their impact on recognition judgments.
Both perceptual and conceptual fluency manipulations increase
hits and false alarms on a recognition memory test (e.g., Jacoby &
Whitehouse, 1989; Whittlesea, 1993), and this is true for both
younger and older adults (Thapar & Westerman, 2009). It is also
the case that both types of illusions depend on a within-subject
manipulation of fluency (such that some test words are presented
with enhanced fluency and others are not; Westerman, 2008), and
both are sensitive to the ratio of fluent and nonfluent trials (i.e.,
there is a negative linear relationship between the magnitude of the
effect of fluency and the proportion of fluent test trials; Westerman, 2008). Beyond recognition, perceptual fluency and conceptual fluency have been found to have a similar impact on affective
judgments (Lee & Labroo, 2004; Winkielman, Schwarz, Farendeiro, & Reber, 2003).
In spite of the similarities between the effects of perceptual and
conceptual fluency on recognition, there is some evidence that
these two types of fluency are not treated the same by participants.
The primary evidence for that conclusion is that only perceptual
fluency has been found to be sensitive to the presentation match
between the study and test phases of the experiment. For instance,
if the stimuli presented in the study phase and the test phase are not
in the same sensory modality or the same perceptual form, enhanced perceptual fluency at test has no impact on recognition
responses (Gallo, Weiss, & Schacter, 2004; Miller et al., 2008;
Thapar & Westerman, 2009; Westerman et al., 2002, 2003). Although the mechanism responsible for this modulation is not
entirely clear, recent evidence points to a discounting of perceptual
fluency in the cross-modality conditions (Kurilla & Gonsalves,
2012). Critically, this finding suggests that there are differences in
the processing experiences that are created by the manipulations
that are used to enhance perceptual and conceptual fluency and
differences in the situations in which the fluency produced by
these different manipulations is translated into a sense of familiarity.
In spite of the numerous experiments that used perceptual or
conceptual means to enhance fluency, rarely have both types of
fluency been manipulated within the same experiment. To our
knowledge there is only one study to have done this. Lee and
Labroo (2004) investigated the effect of both perceptual and conceptual fluency on affective judgments to words and consumer
products. Across a series of experiments in which either perceptual
fluency or conceptual fluency (or both) was enhanced, the bulk of
the results showed evidence that both types of fluency increased
affective ratings (one experiment showed clear effects for conceptual fluency but only a nonsignificant numerical trend for the
perceptual fluency condition). However, it is difficult to draw
conclusions about the relative size of the effects, as there were not
separate control groups for the perceptually fluent and conceptually fluent conditions.
Taken together, the studies reviewed above raise the question of
whether the manipulations that have typically been used to enhance the experience of perceptual and conceptual fluency are
interchangeable and equally weighted if they occur in the same
recognition context. The current set of experiments aims to try to
answer this straightforward question. Because this is an initial
investigation into these questions, we used just one manipulation
of perceptual fluency (perceptual priming) and one manipulation
of conceptual fluency (predictive sentence stems) in this study. We
chose these particular manipulations because they are the two
methods that appear most commonly in the literature.1 However,
we acknowledge that the answers to these questions will be somewhat preliminary given the diversity of techniques that have been
used to manipulate processing fluency.
Another facet of research on fluency effects that makes comparison difficult is that, although some of the boundary conditions
described in the introduction strongly suggest that there are differences in the way that participants experience fluency produced
by perceptual priming and fluency produced by a predictive sentence stems (Miller et al., 2008; Thapar & Westerman, 2009;
Westerman et al., 2002, 2003), we do not imagine that each
procedure represents a pure manipulation of perceptual or conceptual fluency. (However, for reference ease we refer to the types of
fluency as perceptual fluency and conceptual fluency throughout
this article.) Rather, it seems prudent to assume that there is
overlap in the attributes enhanced by each manipulation. It has
been found, for instance, that even very briefly presented repetition
primes can activate the meaning of a word (e.g., Abrams, Klinger,
& Greenwald, 2002). As such, the priming manipulation that is
commonly used in fluency studies may serve to enhance the
processing of both perceptual and conceptual attributes. Likewise,
activation of orthographic features has been found for words that
are strongly predicted by the context (Laszlo & Federmeier, 2009).
To the extent that there is overlap in the type of fluency produced
by each manipulation, it will impede our ability to detect differences in the way that participants interpret perceptual and conceptual fluency. However, if we do find differences in the effects
produced by each manipulation, it will lend credence to the idea
that these manipulations create distinct processing experiences.
Five experiments were conducted: In Experiment 1a, perceptual
and conceptual fluency were manipulated between subjects to
establish the magnitude of the effects when only one type of
fluency was artificially enhanced during test. Experiment 1b used
a within-subject manipulation of perceptual and conceptual fluency to determine whether both types of fluency would be used to
the same extent on the same recognition test. We reasoned that
reliance on perceptual versus conceptual fluency at test might
depend, in part, on how the items were encoded during the study
phase. Therefore, in Experiments 2 and 3, we manipulated the type
1
Our impression that these manipulations are the most common was
supported by a review of the literature. Articles were found by searching
“perceptual (or conceptual) fluency and recognition memory.” The articles
that were included in the review were those that manipulated fluency
during the test phase. A review of 30 articles on recognition memory and
perceptual fluency published between 1989 and 2012 revealed that 53%
used matched and mismatched primes. The use of sentence stems were also
the most commonly used, with a review of 13 articles on conceptual
fluency published between 1993 and 2012 showing that 57% used predictive and nonpredictive sentence stems. The remaining articles described
studies that used various other types of perceptual and conceptual fluency
manipulations (e.g., typography, clarity, and semantically similar word
primes).
FLUENCY EFFECTS IN RECOGNITION MEMORY
of processing carried out during study to see if that would increase
reliance on either perceptual or conceptual processing on the test.
In Experiment 4 the test instructions were manipulated to try to
affect the perceived diagnosticity of perceptual versus conceptual
fluency as a cue to recognition.
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Experiments 1a and 1b
Although there are many demonstrations of the effects of perceptual and conceptual fluency on recognition, to our knowledge,
these effects have never been compared directly in the same
experiment within recognition memory. As a first step, we chose
repetition priming and predictive sentence stems to manipulate
perceptual and conceptual fluency, respectively. In Experiments 1a
and 1b, participants studied a list of words and then were given a
recognition memory test for the words on the list. During the test,
half of the words were made more fluent through repetition priming (a perceptually based fluency manipulation) or by presenting
the words as the terminal word of a predictive sentence stem (a
conceptually based fluency manipulation). The type of fluency
enhancement was manipulated between-subjects in Experiment 1a
and within-subjects in Experiment 1b. These experiments will help
to establish the magnitude of the effects of perceptual and conceptual fluency, and the within-subject design of Experiment 1b
will help to determine whether participants will interpret both
types of fluency as familiarity within the same recognition context.
Clearly, there are many differences between these two ways of
manipulating fluency apart from their differential emphasis on
perceptual versus conceptual fluency. We believe that over the
course of the experiments that follow, our pattern of results render
most of the differences a nonissue in terms of interpreting the key
findings. However, we were concerned at the outset that these two
types of manipulations may produce different amounts of fluency.
Because fluency is typically operationalized as the speed and ease
of processing, we conducted a pilot study to equate the amount of
facilitation in processing speed that is produced by each type of
manipulation.2 A description of the pilot study is included in the
methods section of Experiments 1a and 1b below.
Method
Participants. Undergraduate students at State University of
New York (SUNY), Binghamton participated in exchange for
partial credit toward a course requirement. Participants were all
native English speakers and were tested individually. There were
80 participants in Experiment 1a and 96 participants in Experiment
1b.
Design. The design of Experiment 1a was a 2 (test status: old
vs. new) ⫻ 2 (condition: fluent vs. control) ⫻ 2 (fluency type:
perceptual vs. conceptual) mixed-factorial design. Test word status
and condition were within-subject variables and fluency type was
a between-subjects variable. The design of Experiment 1b was a 2
(test status: old vs. new) ⫻ 2 (condition: fluent vs. control) ⫻ 2
(fluency type: perceptual vs. conceptual) repeated-measures design.
Materials. A total of 134 words were used as study and test
stimuli. Each study list consisted of 70 words. Thirty-two words
were used as targets and 32 were untested fillers. In addition, three
untested buffers were presented as the first and last three words on
3
each list. The recognition test consisted of the 32 targets as well
as 32 lures that had not appeared on the earlier study list. All of
the words were selected because they formed completions for the
predictive and neutral sentence stems used in prior studies. The
words had a mean word frequency of 57 per one million, according
to the Kucera and Francis (1967) norms, and ranged from four to
nine letters in length. Participants in the perceptual fluency group
were exposed to an additional 32 words as primes in the unmatched prime condition (described below). Participants in the
conceptual fluency condition saw each test word as the completion
of a predictive or neutral sentence. The sentences were identical to
those used in the studies by Kurilla and Westerman (2008); Kurilla
(2011) and were mostly the same sentences as those used in studies
reported by Whittlesea and Williams (2001) and by Westerman
(2008).
Procedure. Participants were seated in front of a 17-in.
(43.18-cm) color computer monitor and a keyboard. Both experiments consisted of a study phase and a test phase. The study phase
was the same for all participants. Participants were informed prior
to study that they would later have a memory test, the nature of
which was unspecified. Participants saw 64 words, 32 target, and
32 fillers, which were presented for 2 s each with an interstimulus
interval of 1 s. A recognition memory test immediately followed
the study list. In Experiment 1a, participants were randomly assigned to either the perceptual fluency condition or the conceptual
fluency condition (Ns ⫽ 40). In Experiment 1b, the type of fluency
(perceptual or conceptual) was manipulated within-subjects. For
both Experiments 1a and 1b, the recognition test consisted of 64
test words (half were old and half were new). Orthogonal to old
and new status, the fluency of half of the test words was enhanced.
Additionally, in Experiment 1b fluency was enhanced by both
perceptual and conceptual means; therefore, 16 words (eight old
and eight new) were preceded by matched primes, 16 by unmatched primes, 16 by predictive sentence stems, and 16 by
neutral sentence stems. The order of perceptually and conceptually
fluent trials was random. The target/lure status, fluency condition
(fluent or neutral) and type of fluency (perceptual or conceptual)
were counterbalanced.
In the conceptual fluency condition, each test word served as the
final word in the sentence and always completed it coherently. For
example, the test item PERMIT could be preceded by the stem
“You can only drive after obtaining a learner’s . . .” (predictive) or
“I had to go to the other room to get my . . .” (nonpredictive). At
the start of each experimental test trial either a predictive or a
nonpredictive sentence stem was presented in the center of the
computer screen and remained on the screen until the participant
finished reading it and pressed the spacebar. After this, the screen
went blank for 250 ms and then the test word (e.g., “PERMIT”)
was presented in capital letters in the center of the screen along
with the question, “Was this word on the list?” Participants were
instructed to respond “Y” for yes and “N” for no.
2
Although we felt it was important to measure and equate the absolute
amount of facilitation produced by these manipulations, we were mindful
of the evidence that absolute fluency levels (as measured by facilitation)
often do not translate directly into a feeling of familiarity for a stimulus.
Rather, a set of stimulus, contextual, and subject-specific variables seem to
inform the attributional process that is thought to mediate the link between
fluency and familiarity (for a review, see Kelley & Rhodes, 2002).
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LANSKA, OLDS, AND WESTERMAN
In the perceptual fluency condition, a masked prime was presented just prior to the presentation of the test word. This prime
either matched or did not match the test word that followed. A
forward and a backward mask, which consisted of number signs,
appeared for 250 ms before and after the prime, which lasted for
100 ms. The 100-ms prime duration was selected through a pilot
study conducted to try to equate the amount of facilitation produced in the perceptual and conceptual fluency test conditions
(details of the pilot study are below). After the backward mask was
presented, the screen remained blank for 500 ms and then the test
word appeared along with the question, “Was this word on the
list?” Participants pressed “Y” for yes and “N” for no. A different
random order of study and test trials was used for each participant.
Target/lure status and fluency condition (fluent or control) were
counterbalanced so that, across participants, a given word was
equally likely to be a target or a lure and in the fluent or control
conditions.
Pilot experiment. A pilot experiment was conducted to try to
equate the absolute level of fluency produced by the perceptual
and conceptual primes. Because fluency is typically operationalized as facilitation in processing speed, we measured the amount of
facilitation produced by the perceptual and conceptual conditions
in a lexical decision task. We initially tried a 34-ms prime duration, which is a duration that has been reported in many studies
(Kurilla & Westerman, 2008; Lloyd & Miller, 2011; Miller et al.,
2008; Thapar & Westerman, 2009; Westerman et al., 2002); however, at this duration we found greater facilitation on a lexical
decision task from the predictive sentences than from the perceptual primes. To try to achieve comparable levels of fluency in the
perceptual and conceptual conditions, we took the strategy of
increasing the prime duration instead of altering the sentences used
in the conceptual fluency condition for several reasons. First, past
research has shown that prime durations of 16 ms (Jacoby &
Whitehouse, 1989, Experiment 2), 34 ms, and 100 ms (Huber et
al., 2008) will increase hits and false alarms on a recognition test,
so we knew that a range of prime durations can be used to produce
perceptual-fluency based illusions of recognition. Second, the
amount of facilitation that results from perceptual priming rises
and falls (an inverted-U-shaped function) with a peak at about 250
ms (Zago, Fenske, Aminoff, & Bar, 2005). This led us to believe
that it would be a straightforward matter to increase facilitation by
increasing prime duration. Third, since our goal was to try to
equate fluency levels, it seemed wiser (in terms of statistical
power) to try to increase the facilitation of the perceptual prime
condition, rather than dampen the facilitation produced by the
conceptual primes (e.g., by making the stems less predictive).
Participants in the pilot study saw an equal number of words and
nonwords one at a time in a random order and judged whether a
letter string was a word or a nonword. Their responses were
recorded on a response box. The words were preceded by either a
perceptual prime or a conceptual prime following the procedures
described above, which would be used to enhance fluency in the
recognition test. The two types of trials (perceptually primed or
conceptually primed) were presented in blocks and the order of the
blocks and the type of fluency manipulation (perceptual or conceptual) were counterbalanced. After running several groups with
different prime durations for the perceptual prime, we found that
the 100-ms masked prime showed a level of facilitation comparable to that found with the predictive sentence stems (N ⫽ 24, M
facilitation for perceptual ⫽ 22.04, SD ⫽ 35.75, and M facilitation
for conceptual ⫽ 29.85, SD ⫽ 47.66; t(23) ⫽ 0.64, p ⫽ .526;
reaction time data were trimmed following methods recommended
by Ratcliff, 1993). Of course, with a 100-ms prime duration, the
primes would be supraliminal for most subjects, which is in
contrast to much previous work that has used subliminal primes
(Jacoby & Dallas, 1981; Jacoby & Whitehouse, 1989; Kurilla &
Westerman, 2008; Lloyd & Miller, 2011; Miller et al., 2008;
Thapar & Westerman, 2009; Westerman et al., 2002). However, a
recent study by Huber et al. (2008) found that a prime displayed
for 100 ms still produced the illusion of recognition memory that
is found with shorter prime durations, so there is precedence for
the use of this longer prime duration.
Results
The results of Experiments 1a and 1b are summarized in
Table 1.
Experiment 1a. The proportion of “yes” (old) responses on
the recognition test were analyzed by using a 2 (test status: old vs.
new) ⫻ 2 (condition: fluent vs. control) ⫻ 2 (fluency type:
perceptual vs. conceptual) mixed-factor analysis of variance
(ANOVA), with prime and test status as within-subject variables
and fluency type as a between-subjects variable. A two-tailed
significance criterion of .05 was used to interpret all results reported in this article. The ANOVA revealed a significant main
effect of status, F(1, 78) ⫽ 540.64, p ⬍ .001, MSE ⫽ 0.036, ␩p2 ⫽
.874; participants gave more “yes” responses to old words than to
new words. A main effect of condition was also found, F(1, 78) ⫽
10.08, p ⫽ .002, MSE ⫽ 0.013, ␩p2 ⫽ .114. More “yes” responses
were given to fluent test words than to control test words. There
was no interaction between status and condition, F(1, 78) ⫽ 1.20,
p ⫽ .276, MSE ⫽ 0.012, ␩p2 ⫽ .015. There was not a significant
main effect of fluency type (perceptual or conceptual; F ⬍ 1).
Additionally, there was no interaction between test item status and
fluency type (F ⬍ 1). Nor was there an interaction between
condition and fluency type (F ⬍ 1), there was no difference in the
Table 1
Mean Proportions of “Old” Responses Given to Targets (Old
Items) and Lures (New Items) as a Function of Prime Condition
and Study List for Experiments 1a–1b
Variable
Targets (hits)
Lures (false alarms)
Experiment 1a
Perceptual fluency
Matching prime
Mismatching prime
Conceptual fluency
Predictive stem
Neutral stem
.75
.72
.25
.22
.75
.72
.28
.21
Experiment 1b
Perceptual fluency
Matching
Mismatching
Conceptual fluency
Predictive stem
Neutral stem
Note.
.75
.75
.24
.18
.77
.72
.26
.22
Standard errors ranged from .02 to .04.
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FLUENCY EFFECTS IN RECOGNITION MEMORY
effect of fluency between the perceptual fluency condition and the
conceptual fluency condition. However, we note that the magnitude of the effect is stronger for the conceptual fluency condition
(d ⫽ 0.54) compared to the perceptual fluency condition (d ⫽
0.23).
Experiment 1b. The proportion of “yes” (old) responses on
the recognition test was analyzed by using a 2 (test status: old vs.
new) ⫻ 2 (condition: fluent vs. control) ⫻ 2 (fluency type:
perceptual vs. conceptual) repeated-measures ANOVA. The
ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of status, F(1, 95) ⫽
845.51, p ⬍ .001, MSE ⫽ 0.062, ␩p2 ⫽ .899; participants gave more
“yes” responses to old words than to new words. There was a main
effect of condition, F(1, 95) ⫽ 8.76, p ⫽ .004, MSE ⫽ 0.030, ␩p2 ⫽
.084. Overall, participants responded “yes” to fluent items more
than control items. There was no interaction between status and
condition, F(1, 95) ⫽ 1.65, p ⫽ .202, MSE ⫽ 0.019, ␩p2 ⫽ .017.
There was not a significant main effect of fluency type (perceptual
or conceptual), F(1, 95) ⫽ 1.88, p ⫽ .174, MSE ⫽ 0.022, ␩p2 ⫽
.019. There was no interaction between condition and fluency type
(F ⬍ 1), with no significant difference in the effect of fluency
between the perceptual fluency condition (d ⫽ 0.23) and the
conceptual fluency condition (d ⫽ 0.31). Additionally, there was
no interaction of status and fluency type, F(1, 95) ⫽ 1.65, p ⫽
.202, MSE ⫽ 0.019, ␩p2 ⫽ .017.
Discussion
The results replicated past findings showing that enhanced fluency at test creates a tendency to respond “old” on a recognition
memory test. This was true when the fluency manipulations were
varied between-subjects in Experiment 1a and within-subject in
Experiment 1b. The results of Experiment 1b additionally show
that participants can be influenced by different types of manipulations in the same recognition context. Although a comparison of
the effect sizes suggests a slightly larger effect of the predictive
sentence manipulation compared to the repetition priming manipulation in both experiments, the magnitudes of these effects were
statistically comparable.
The results suggest one of two possibilities: (a) Participants are
flexible in terms of the qualities that they view as diagnostic of
past experience, and these manipulations lead to comparable effects.3 (b) The manipulations—although intended to enhance perceptual or conceptual fluency—actually activate both types of
information to a degree that their influence on recognition responses is comparable. As mentioned in the introduction, we
assume that there is some overlap in the attributes enhanced by
each manipulation; after all, the repetition prime previews both the
perceptual and conceptual attributes of a word. This may be
especially likely given the relatively long prime durations (100 ms)
used in this study. It is possible that such overlap in processing
facilitation is responsible for the comparable effects that were
found in terms of the perceptual and conceptual fluency effects. In
other words, perhaps these manipulations, although they have
traditionally been categorized as “perceptual” and “conceptual,”
actually activate both types of information to the extent that they
have the same influence on recognition responses. This possibility
is one of the issues addressed in Experiment 2.
5
Experiment 2
The results of Experiments 1a and 1b showed that manipulations
that were intended to enhance perceptual and conceptual fluency
influenced participants’ judgments to a similar extent. This could
be because participants are flexible in the cues that they interpret
as evidence of past experience of a stimulus, or it could be because
perceptual priming and predictive sentence stems have similar
effects on target processing, as outlined above. In previous studies,
it has been found that participants modulate their use of perceptual
fluency depending on the extent to which perceptual fluency is
viewed as being diagnostic of past experience with a stimulus (e.g.,
Gallo et al., 2004; Lloyd, Westerman, & Miller, 2003; Miller et al.,
2008; Thapar & Westerman, 2009; Westerman et al., 2002, 2003).
In Experiment 2, we reasoned that if participants engaged in a
perceptually oriented task during study, they may later regard
perceptual fluency as more diagnostic (than conceptual fluency) of
a test item’s presence on the study list. Experiment 2 was identical
to Experiment 1b except that participants’ attention was drawn to
the perceptual attributes of each word during encoding by having
them count the number of curved letters within each word. If the
degree to which participants are affected by the perceptual versus
conceptual fluency manipulation depends on the attributes that
seem more diagnostic of recognition (as has been found in previous studies), then perceptually focused encoding may encourage
participants to rely more on perceptual fluency than conceptual
fluency when making recognition decisions. On the other hand, if
participants do not take information about encoding processes into
account, if perceptual fluency cannot be distinguished from conceptual fluency, or if the two fluency manipulations actually produce the same influence on target processing (i.e., a similar level
of activation of both perceptual and conceptual information), then
we should find that perceptual and conceptual fluency have the
same impact on recognition responses.
Method
Participants. Ninety-six undergraduate students at SUNY
Binghamton were participants, receiving partial credit toward a
course requirement in exchange for their participation. Participants
were all native English speakers and were tested individually.
Design. The design was a 2 (test status: old vs. new) ⫻ 2
(condition: fluent vs. control) ⫻ 2 (fluency type: perceptual vs.
conceptual) repeated-measures design.
Materials and procedure. During study, participants were
instructed to count the number of curved letters in order to draw
their attention to the perceptual features of the words (e.g.,
PERMIT has two curved letters, the P and the R). Participants
were instructed to respond out loud (with a number). They were
told that they were being recorded, and a microphone was placed
next to the keyboard. Each study word appeared on the screen in
capital letters for 3 s, with 1 s between each word. As in the
previous studies, participants were informed that they would have
3
Even though we use the word “flexible,” we are not assuming that that
participants operate at a conscious level. Although there is evidence that
the effect of fluency on recognition memory is complex and appears to
operate in a strategic manner (e.g., Kurilla & Gonsalves, 2012; Thapar &
Westerman, 2009; Westerman et al., 2002), most researchers have presumed that the effect of fluency is unconscious.
LANSKA, OLDS, AND WESTERMAN
6
a memory test. The test phase of Experiment 2 was identical to
Experiment 1b, with perceptual and conceptual primes being intermixed randomly during the test phase.
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Results
The results are summarized in Table 2. The proportion of “yes”
(old) responses on the recognition test was analyzed by using a 2
(test status: old vs. new) ⫻ 2 (condition: fluent vs. control) ⫻ 2
(fluency type: perceptual vs. conceptual) repeated-measures
ANOVA. The ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of
status, F(1, 95) ⫽ 406.52, p ⬍ .001, MSE ⫽ 0.063, ␩p2 ⫽ .811;
participants gave more “yes” responses to old words than to new
words. There was a main effect of condition, F(1, 95) ⫽ 18.77,
p ⬍ .001, MSE ⫽ 0.029, ␩p2 ⫽ .165. Participants gave more “yes”
responses to fluent than control words. There was no interaction
between status and fluency condition, F(1, 95) ⫽ 2.01, p ⫽ .159,
MSE ⫽ 0.026, ␩p2 ⫽ .021. There was a significant main effect of
fluency type (perceptual or conceptual), F(1, 95) ⫽ 6.15, p ⫽ .015,
MSE ⫽ 0.039, ␩p2 ⫽ .061. Overall, more “yes” responses were
given to words presented in conceptual trials than perceptual trials.
There was no interaction between status and fluency type (F ⬍ 1).
The major prediction was that the perceptual fluency effect would
be stronger than the conceptual fluency effect. This prediction was
supported by the significant interaction that was found between
condition and fluency type, F(1, 95) ⫽ 4.49, p ⫽ .037, MSE ⫽
0.028, ␩p2 ⫽ .045. As can be seen in Table 2, the interaction reveals
a stronger effect for the perceptual fluency condition, t(95) ⫽ 3.96,
p ⬍ .01, d ⫽ 0.50 than the conceptual fluency condition, t(95) ⫽
1.94, p ⫽ .055, d ⫽ 0.19.
Discussion
Experiment 2 demonstrated that when attention was drawn to
the perceptual features of the words during study, participants were
more strongly influenced by the repetition priming manipulation
than the predictive sentence stem manipulation. This result can be
contrasted with the results of Experiment 1b, which was identical
Table 2
Mean Proportions of “Old” Responses Given to Targets and
Lures as a Function of Fluency Type and Fluency Condition,
Experiments 2–3
Variable
Targets (hits)
Lures (false alarms)
Experiment 2
Perceptual fluency
Matching
Mismatching
Conceptual fluency
Predictive stem
Neutral stem
.70
.63
.34
.26
.70
.70
.36
.30
Experiment 3
Perceptual fluency
Matching
Mismatching
Conceptual fluency
Predictive stem
Neutral stem
.82
.81
.23
.18
.82
.82
.21
.19
Note. Standard errors ranged from .02 to .04.
to Experiment 2 except for the encoding instructions and showed
comparable effects of these manipulations (with a numerical trend
in the opposite direction). This suggests that the type of processing
carried out during encoding affects the degree to which perceptual
or conceptual fluency is relied on during test. As predicted, a
perceptually focused encoding task resulted in a larger perceptual
fluency effect than conceptual fluency effect. These results dovetail with previous studies that show that the degree to which
participants rely on perceptual fluency during the test depends on
what is experienced during encoding (e.g., Miller et al., 2008;
Westerman et al., 2002, 2003).
The results of Experiment 2 also support the notion that, as
assumed, the manipulations of perceptual and conceptual fluency
that were used do load more heavily on perceptual and conceptual
factors, respectively. If the two fluency manipulations actually
enhance the processing of the same attributes to the same extent,
we should have found comparable effects for perceptual and
conceptual fluency in this experiment.
Experiment 3
In Experiments 2, participants’ attention was drawn to the
perceptual attributes of study words during encoding and later the
manipulation of perceptual fluency influenced their recognition
judgments more than the manipulation of conceptual fluency.
Experiment 3 followed a similar logic and had a similar design. In
Experiment 3, we tried to boost participants’ reliance on conceptual fluency by drawing attention to the meaning of the word
during study. In the current experiment, participants were asked
whether each study word fit within a particular category (e.g., “Is
this a type of dwelling?”). Like Experiment 2, the test included
both perceptual fluency and conceptual fluency. Our goal was to
see if we could increase participants’ reliance on conceptual fluency by boosting conceptual processing during study.
We admit that we had reservations about this goal for several
reasons. The first is that this sort of conceptual encoding task is
considered a “deep” level of processing, which generally produces
high levels of discrimination and increases recollection-based responding (e.g., Gardiner, 1988; Gardiner, Java, & RichardsonKlavehn, 1996; Gardiner & Richardson-Klavehn, 2000). Unfortunately, for the goal of our study, prior research has shown that
when discrimination is high during recognition, participants rely
less on fluency compared to when discrimination is low (Wolk,
Gold, Signoff, & Budson, 2009). We also know that fluency is not
used on recognition memory tests that are predominately based on
recollection, such as associative recognition (Westerman, 2001).
Therefore, we thought that there was a strong possibility that
fluency would not impact recognition decisions if the conceptual
attributes of the words were strengthened during study. With these
issues in mind, we designed the study phase to boost conceptual
processing, but at the same time try to limit the amount of recollection that would be possible. For instance, although participants
made a conceptual yes/no judgment for each study word, they said
“yes” to very few of the study words in total and only to filler
items (this was done because memory is generally better for words
given “yes” responses than “no” responses to questions asked
during encoding; e.g., Craik & Tulving, 1975). We also asked the
same question for every study word to try to exploit the effect of
cue-overload (Watkins & Watkins, 1975).
FLUENCY EFFECTS IN RECOGNITION MEMORY
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Method
Participants. Thirty-two undergraduate students at SUNY
Binghamton who were all native English speakers were participants. Participants received partial credit toward a course requirement and were individually tested.
Design. The design was a 2 (test status: old vs. new) ⫻ 2
(condition: fluent vs. control) ⫻ 2 (fluency type: perceptual vs.
conceptual) repeated-measures design.
Materials and procedure. Experiment 3 was identical to
Experiment 2 except for the encoding phase, which was designed
to enhance conceptual processing. Participants were asked for each
study word “Is this a type of dwelling?” in order to draw their
attention to the conceptual meaning of the word (e.g., CONDO is
a type of dwelling). As in Experiment 2, participants were instructed to answer out loud to every word and were told that their
responses were being recorded in order to ensure attention to the
task. For the reasons mentioned above, there were only two filler
words that required a response of “yes” to the encoding question.
The question appeared on every trial for 2 s followed by the study
word also displayed for 2 s, with 1 s between each question/study
word pair. To try to reduce the amount of elaboration that participants engaged in (with the goal, again, to reduce the amount of
recollection possible on the recognition test), participants were not
informed that they would later have a memory test but instead
were told that we were interested in how people categorize words.
Following the study phase, participants were given a recognition
memory test, which was identical to that of Experiments 1b and 2.
7
As mentioned above, we anticipated this possibility given past
results that have shown similar effects when discrimination is high
and/or when recollection-based responding is likely on a recognition memory test. Although we did not try to assess recollection in
this experiment, we note the higher accuracy in this experiment
(d= ⫽ 1.74) compared to the other experiments in this study
(Experiment 1a, d= ⫽ 1.39; Experiment 1b, d= ⫽ 1.43; Experiment
2, d= ⫽ .96) is consistent with the possibility that participants were
able to recollect more of the items from the study list, which may
have reduced their reliance on fluency on the test. However, to say
for certain that this was due to an increase of recollection would
require further experimentation.
Experiment 4
Discussion
In Experiment 2, we found that participants place more weight
on perceptual fluency than conceptual fluency after a perceptually
oriented encoding task. We reasoned that there should be situations
in which participants view conceptual fluency as more relevant
than perceptual fluency to the recognition decision, and this was
the rationale for Experiment 3. However, in Experiment 3, the
conceptually focused study phase nullified all fluency effects,
which may have been due to an increased contribution of recollection to the recognition decisions (Westerman, 2001; Wolk et al.,
2009). The goal of Experiment 4 was to try again to create a
situation in which the relevance of conceptual fluency to the
recognition decision was elevated. To achieve this, we altered the
recognition instructions such that some participants were asked
either to recognize previously presented words (which we term
verbatim recognition; it is the standard recognition task) and others
were asked to recognize words that conveyed the same meaning as
one of the test words (synonym recognition). The prediction was
that participants would rely more heavily on conceptual fluency in
the synonym recognition test than in the verbatim recognition test.
There was one other key change in this experiment: participants
were told that the study list was presented subliminally. In actuality, only visual noise was presented (a similar method has been
used by Frigo, Reas, & LeCompte, 1999; Lloyd et al., 2003;
Miller, 2010; Verfaellie & Cermak, 1999; Westerman et al., 2002,
2003). The purpose of this “counterfeit” study list was to create a
situation in which participants were not able to base their responses on recollection (as reviewed above, the results of Experiment 3, as well as prior studies, suggest that the effect of processing fluency on recognition memory is diminished when
responses are based on recollection).
Participants were told that they were in an experiment investigating the effect of subliminal perception on memory. They were
told that the words were presented subliminally and if they kept
their eyes on the screen they would be able to register the words
unconsciously. However, there were no words presented, only
visual noise. After the counterfeit list was presented, a recognition
test was given that was identical to Experiments 1b–3 with one
Enhanced conceptual processing at study nullified the effect of
both perceptual and conceptual fluency on the recognition test.
Given the null effects, a consideration of power is needed. A
power analysis using the effect size from Experiment 2 and an
alpha level of .05, showed that we had adequate power (1 ⫺ ␤ ⫽
.83) to detect an effect of fluency in the current experiment.4
4
We replicated this experiment using a size judgment task during
encoding to increase conceptual processing. Participants answered bigger,
smaller, or NA to the question, “Is this bigger or smaller than a shoe box?”
We found the same general pattern: Higher discrimination compared to
previous experiments, and neither the perceptual nor conceptual fluency
manipulation affected recognition responses.
Results
The results are summarized in Table 2. The proportion of “yes”
(old) responses on the recognition test was analyzed using a 2 (test
status: old vs. new) ⫻ 2 (condition: fluent vs. control) ⫻ 2 (fluency
type: perceptual vs. conceptual) repeated-measures ANOVA. The
ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of status, F(1, 31) ⫽
128.22, p ⬍ .001, MSE ⫽ 0.191, ␩p2 ⫽ .805; participants gave more
“yes” responses to old words than to new words. There was no
effect of condition, F(1, 31) ⫽ 1.04, p ⫽ .316, MSE ⫽ 0.026, ␩p2 ⫽
.032. There was also no interaction between status and condition,
F(1, 31) ⫽ 1.11, p ⫽ .301, MSE ⫽ 0.009, ␩p2 ⫽ .035. Additionally,
there was no significant effect of fluency type (perceptual or
conceptual; F ⬍ 1). There was also no interaction between fluency
type and status (F ⬍ 1), nor was there an interaction between status
and condition, F(1, 31) ⫽ 1.11, p ⫽ .301, MSE ⫽ 009, ␩p2 ⫽ .035.
The major prediction in this experiment was that the conceptual
fluency effect would be stronger than the perceptual fluency effect.
This prediction was not supported, as shown by the lack of an
interaction between condition and fluency type (F ⬍ 1; perceptual
fluency: d ⫽ 0.14; conceptual fluency: d ⫽ 0.09).
8
LANSKA, OLDS, AND WESTERMAN
exception. Participants were given recognition instructions that
asked them to try to pick out the words that were on the study list
(verbatim recognition) or instructions that asked them to pick out
words that shared the same meaning as a word from the study list
(synonym recognition). We predicted that participants would find
conceptual fluency more relevant to the recognition decision following instructions for a synonym recognition task compared to a
verbatim recognition task.
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Method
Participants. Forty-eight undergraduate students at SUNY
Binghamton, who were all native English speakers, were participants. They received partial credit toward a course requirement in
exchange for their participation.
Design. The design was a 2 (condition: fluent vs. control) ⫻ 2
(fluency type: perceptual vs. conceptual) ⫻ 2 (recognition instruction: verbatim vs. synonym) mixed-factorial design. Condition and
fluency type were within-subject variables, while instruction was a
between-subjects variable.
Materials and procedure. The experiment consisted of a
study phase and a test phase. The study phase was the same for all
participants. Participants were told the cover story that the purpose
of this experiment was to examine the effect of subliminal perception on memory and the study phase would be presented
subliminally. They were told that the words presented “subliminally” could be encoded unconsciously into their memory provided they kept their eyes on the screen. To make the subliminal
study phase more believable, participants went through a series of
11 “calibration” trials purportedly to find their perceptual threshold. During the calibration phase, participants saw words that were
masked but were, at first, easy to read. On subsequent trials, the
words were displayed successively faster until there were no words
actually presented (just the visual masks). During the calibration
phase, participants were instructed to say each masked word out
loud and to guess if they were unsure. Following the calibration
phase, the speed for the counterfeit study phase was supposedly
tailored for each subject based on the results of the calibration
phase. In reality, only visual noise was displayed, and the display
was the same for all participants. Participants were instructed to
keep their eyes on the screen and watch the “subliminal word,”
although no words were actually presented.
The counterfeit study list was a series of visual masks, consisting of five different rectangles (each rectangle was approximately
6 cm ⫻ 5 cm) that were made up of a combination of number
signs, percent signs, and X’s. In order to make the subliminal study
phase seem dynamic, as if there were really words embedded in the
flashed primes, each rectangle of the mask was presented sequentially (the first array was presented for 35 ms, the second and third
for 15 ms, the fourth for 30 ms, the fifth for 35 ms). Each sequence
of the mask was presented 60 times, preceded by a 1-s cross hair
and followed by a 3-s delay.
A recognition memory test immediately followed the counterfeit
study list. The recognition test instructions were manipulated between subjects. Participants were randomly assigned to either the
verbatim recognition condition or the synonym recognition condition (Ns ⫽ 24). In the verbatim condition participants were told
that half of the words presented on the recognition test had been
presented on the subliminal study list. In the synonym condition
participants were told that half the words presented during test
were synonyms of the words presented on the subliminal study list
(e.g., if the word HAPPY was presented subliminally than they
might see the word GLAD during test). Other than these instructions, the recognition memory test that followed was the same as
Experiment 1b–3, with perceptually and conceptually fluent trials
randomly intermixed. Participants were told that it was okay to
guess but were encouraged, if guessing, to respond “yes” half of
the time and “no” half of the time, as has been done in other studies
that have used this technique.
Results
The results are summarized in Table 3. The proportion of “yes”
(old) responses on the recognition test were analyzed using a 2
(condition: fluent vs. control) ⫻ 2 (fluency type: perceptual vs.
conceptual) ⫻ 2 (recognition instruction: verbatim vs. synonym)
mixed-factor ANOVA, with condition and fluency type as withinsubject variables and instruction as a between-subjects variable.
The ANOVA revealed a main effect of condition, F(1, 46) ⫽
50.15, p ⬍ .001, MSE ⫽ 0.047, ␩p2 ⫽ .522. More “yes” responses
were given to fluent test words than to control test words. There
was no main effect of fluency type (F ⫽ 3.66, p ⫽ .062), MSE ⫽
0.032, ␩p2 ⫽ .074. There was, however, a significant interaction
between fluency type and condition, F(1, 46) ⫽ 20.04, p ⬍ .001,
MSE ⫽ 0.029, ␩p2 ⫽ .303, with perceptual fluency having a larger
effect (M fluent ⫽ .63, M nonfluent ⫽ .30) than conceptual fluency
(M fluent ⫽ .57, M nonfluent ⫽ .46). There was also a main effect
of recognition instruction, F(1, 46) ⫽ 4.07, p ⫽ .049, MSE ⫽
0.027, ␩p2 ⫽ .081. Overall participants said “yes” more often in the
synonym recognition task than the verbatim recognition task.
There were no interactions of condition by instruction (F ⬍ 1), or
fluency type by instruction, F(1, 46) ⫽ 2.93, p ⫽ .094, MSE ⫽
0.032, ␩p2 ⫽ .060. The key result for the predictions of this
experiment was a significant three-way interaction of condition by
fluency type by instruction, F(1, 46) ⫽ 6.54, p ⫽ .014, MSE ⫽
0.029, ␩p2 ⫽ .125. This means that the size of the perceptual and
conceptual fluency effects differed depending on the test instructions. In the verbatim recognition group, the effect of perceptual
fluency (the difference between the fluent and the nonfluent conditions collapsed across old and new test items) was very large
(d ⫽ 2.08) and was significantly larger than the effect of conceptual fluency (d ⫽ 0.37), t(23) ⫽ 4.56, p ⬍ .011. In the synonym
Table 3
Mean Proportions of “Old” Responses Given to Targets and
Lures as a Function of Fluency Type and Fluency Condition,
Experiment 4
Recognition instructions
Variable
Perceptual fluency
Matching
Mismatching
Conceptual fluency
Predictive stem
Neutral stem
Verbatim
Synonyms
.67
.26
.59
.34
.50
.43
.64
.48
Note. Standard errors ranged from .03 to .04.
FLUENCY EFFECTS IN RECOGNITION MEMORY
recognition group, however, the effects of perceptual and conceptual fluency were more comparable, t(23) ⫽ 0.51, p ⫽ .146.
Compared to the verbatim recognition condition, the effect of
perceptual fluency was attenuated (d ⫽ 1.28), and the effect of
conceptual fluency was increased (d ⫽ 1.01).
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Discussion
The results of Experiment 4 show that recognition test instructions influence the way that each type of fluency is interpreted. The
perceptual fluency manipulation had a larger effect with verbatim
recognition than with meaning-based instructions and the effect of
the conceptual fluency manipulation had a larger effect with meaning based instructions than verbatim instructions.
The fluency effects were much larger in this experiment than in
the previous experiments in this study. This is consistent with
previous experiments that have used the counterfeit study technique and is not surprising, given that participants could not rely
on their memory for the stimuli presented in the study phase. The
lack of true memory left only a sense of familiarity, biases, and
guessing as a basis for responding on the recognition test. The
effects of perceptual fluency were especially dramatic in this
experiment (although less so in the synonym instruction group),
perhaps this was because the cover story regarding subliminal
perceptual and the nature of the calibration phase led all of the
subjects to interpret the experience created by the perceptual prime
to lead to a strong sense of familiarity. The large fluency effects in
this experiment are also consistent with the notion that the effect of
fluency on recognition is inversely related to the amount of recollection that occurs on the recognition test. In this case, true
recollection of any of the test words was not possible, and accordingly the effects of fluency were very pronounced.
General Discussion
Many experiments have shown that manipulations of perceptual
and conceptual fluency can create a sense of familiarity and elicit
recognition memory illusions (Jacoby & Dallas, 1981; Jacoby &
Whitehouse, 1989; Kurilla & Westerman, 2008; Miller et al.,
2008; Whittlesea, 1993). The present experiments are, we believe,
the first to examine the effect of perceptual and conceptual manipulations of fluency in the same recognition context. Experiment
1a replicated past results showing that when manipulated separately, both types of manipulations increased positive responses to
recognition test items. In Experiment 1b, perceptual fluency and
conceptual fluency were varied within-subjects, and participants
were influenced by both perceptual fluency and conceptual fluency. In Experiment 2, participants attended to the perceptual
features of the study words and perceptual fluency influenced
recognition responses more than conceptual fluency. These results
suggests that what happens during the encoding phase determines
whether participants’ view perceptual fluency or conceptual fluency as diagnostic of the test word’s presence on the earlier study
list. In Experiment 3, the boosting of conceptual processing during
encoding resulted in no effect for either perceptual or conceptual
fluency on the recognition test. The results of Experiment 3 were
not entirely surprising given that previous findings have established that fluency plays less of a role in recognition memory when
participants show a high level of discrimination (Wolk et al., 2009)
9
and/or when recollection driven retrieval is likely (Westerman,
2001), as was likely the case in Experiment 3 given the deep level
of processing during encoding (however, we emphasize that this
interpretation is purely speculative at this point). In Experiment 4
participants were given a counterfeit subliminal study list and then
took a recognition test for either the words that they supposedly
saw or their synonyms. An interaction was found between the type
of fluency and the recognition instructions. The perceptual fluency
manipulation had a larger effect with verbatim recognition than
with meaning-based instructions and the effect of the conceptual
fluency manipulation had a larger effect with meaning based
instructions than verbatim instructions.
Although we do not believe that the manipulations used in this
study are “pure” manipulations of perceptual or conceptual fluency, the results do suggest that the type of fluency produced by
each manipulation is somewhat distinct. They also suggest that the
attribution of these different types of fluency varies depending on
the type of processing carried out during encoding and the type of
information that is deemed as relevant during the recognition test.
The results are consistent with past research that has found that
perceptual fluency effects on recognition depend on a presentation
match between study and test. Previous studies have found that
when study and test conditions are in different sensory modalities
or different perceptual forms, the effect of perceptual fluency, but
not conceptual fluency, is attenuated, suggesting that participants
understand (at a presumably tacit level) that perceptual fluency is
less relevant as a sign of recognition when test and study conditions are perceptually mismatched (Westerman et al., 2002, 2003).
These results, which demonstrate encoding and retrieval interactions bring to mind the principle of transfer appropriate processing
(TAP; Morris, Bransford, & Franks, 1977), a framework that
emphasizes a match between encoding and retrieval conditions.
More specifically, we believe that they support an approach that
was more recently articulated by Nairne (2002), which emphasizes
the diagnosticity of retrieval cues over an encoding-retrieval
match. This approach can be summarized as follows, “when we
think about the encoding-retrieval match, it is not the match per se
that is of main theoretical value; instead it is the diagnostic value
of the retrieval environment that matters most” (Nairne, 2002, p.
394). The present results suggest that participants understand (in
some form) that the diagnostic value of perceptual and conceptual
fluency may differ depending on the attributes that were emphasized during an earlier encoding context as well as in the test
instruction.
Reconciling Current Results With Theoretical
Accounts of Fluency Effects
There are two broad theories about why fluency affects recognition. The first is an attributional account (Jacoby, Kelley, &
Dywan, 1989) that assumes that fluency is a neutral experience
that is interpreted differently depending on the expectations created by the current circumstance (for review, see Kelley & Rhodes,
2002). The attribution process has been described as “unconscious
attribution resting on an intuitive theory of memory and perception
that is used to interpret their effects on performance” (Whittlesea
et al., 1990, p. 730). After fluency is experienced, it is then applied
to whatever judgment is at hand (e.g., recognition, fame, liking,
perceptual clarity, and so forth) unless an alternate interpretation is
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10
LANSKA, OLDS, AND WESTERMAN
more obvious (Jacoby et al., 1989; Kelley & Rhodes, 2002). The
interpretation of fluency as familiarity is particularly robust and
resistant to other interpretations (Olds & Westerman, 2012), which
is not surprising when one considers that stimuli that have been
experienced previously are indeed more fluently processed compared to novel stimuli. Therefore, a lifetime of learning supports
the association between fluency and familiarity.
A second perspective is termed the hedonic marking hypothesis
(Winkielman et al., 2003). This hypothesis was initially proposed
to account for the effect of fluency on affective judgments. This
account asserts that fluent processing produces a positive emotional state, which is why fluently processed stimuli are viewed
more positively than less fluent stimuli. The hedonic marking
hypothesis has been applied to recognition judgments as well. In
this view, the effect of fluency on recognition judgments is also
mediated by a positive emotional response to fluency. A key
assumption here is that a sense of familiarity is not emotionally
neutral, but rather is an inherently positive experience, possibly
because familiarity signifies safety (de Vries, Holland, Chenier,
Starr, & Winkielman, 2010). In this view, fluency creates a positive emotional reaction, and this positivity creates a sense of
familiarity, which leads to more “old” responses on a recognition
test.
The current experiments were not designed to compare these
two theories, yet we note that the results seem more easily reconciled with the attributional account. In the attributional account it
is presumed that the link between fluency and recognition is
mediated by a person’s learning history (learning over the course
of one’s lifetime that old things tend to be more fluent than new
things). The results of the current study show that the qualities of
the learning episode and the test goals modulate the differential
impact of perceptual and conceptual fluency on recognition.
Therefore, the current results are easily incorporated into such an
attributional account, as it would predict that participants would
use or discount fluency to the extent to which it would be viewed
as a valid sign of past experience. If the type of fluency at test is
similar to the type of processing carried out at encoding or the type
of fluency that is deemed to be diagnostic based on the goal of the
recognition task, then fluency should be weighed more heavily, as
was found in the current experiments. It is less obvious how to
reconcile the present results with a theory based on the hedonic
properties of fluency. It is not clear why participants would respond differently depending on the type of fluency, nor why the
role of perceptual and conceptual fluency would interact with the
learning episode, test instruction, or the nature of fluency of other
test items.
In summary, the results show some differences in the way that
perceptual and conceptual fluency influence recognition responses.
They also suggest that what happens in the encoding phase does
not stay in the encoding phase. Rather, it impacts the type of
fluency that is later interpreted as a sign of familiarity. In the same
way, the instruction given regarding the nature of the recognition
test also influences the extent to which different types of fluency
are interpreted as a sign of past experience. These findings add to
previous results suggesting the attribution of fluency is a sophisticated process that takes into account the degree to which different
cues are diagnostic of past experience with a stimulus.
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Received May 23, 2012
Revision received July 24, 2013
Accepted July 30, 2013 䡲