ON EXPLAINING THE MIRROR EFFECT

Two points are made in relation to the recent article by K. Kim and M. Glanzer (1993). First, the attention-likelihood model is more complex than these authors and others suggest. In particular, 2 kinds of quantities-(a) parameters representing the true state of the subject's memory and (b) the subject's estimates of those parameters-have been referred to using the same symbols. This obscures the essential role of metamemory in the model's predictions. Second, log-likelihood rescaling is not needed to explain the mirror effect. An alternative rescaling scheme is described, which can be added to a variety of memory models. This new rescaling method estimates a test item's learnability by learning it. Simulations show that the method is consistent with Kim and Glanzer's experimental results.