Predicting the future and reconstructing the past: A Bayesian characterization of the utility of subjective fluency

The subjective sense of fluency with which an item can be perceived or remembered is proposed to be a vital cue in making decisions about the future memorability and the nature of our past experience with that stimulus. We first outline a number of cases in which such perceptual or retrieval fluency influences judgments both about our own future performance and our likely past experience, and then present a Bayesian analysis of how judgments of recognition - deciding whether or not a currently viewed item was studied at a particular point in the past - may incorporate information about the perceptual fluency of that item. Using a simple mathematical model, we then provide an interpretation of certain enigmatic phenomena in recognition memory. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.