Perceptual Fluency and Recognition Judgments

Items seen for the second time in an experiment (old items) can be perceived more readily (fluently) than items seen for the first time (new items) (e.g., Jacoby & Dallas, 1981). We hypothesized that perceptual fluency is used as a cue for discriminating old from new items. In the test phase of a recognition task, each item was gradually clarified until it was identified, at which time subjects made an old/new judgment. We expected that fluently perceived (quickly identified) items would tend to be judged old regardless of their actual old/new status. In Experiment 1, words were more likely to be judged old both if they were quickly identified and, independently of this, if they actually were old. The latter finding implicates a factor (e.g., directed memory search) other than perceptual fluency in recognition judgments. Experiment 2 succeeded in reducing the contribution of this additional factor by using nonwords rather than words. Recognition judgments for nonwords were much more dependent on speed of identification than they were on actual old/new status. We propose that perceptual fluency is the basis of the feeling of familiarity and is one of two important factors that make variable contributions to recognition judgments.