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Previous research has demonstrated a retrospective memory bias in metacognitive judgments regarding performance on general knowledge questions: Test-takers rate their own performance more optimistically when tests begin with easy questions than when tests begin with hard questions. An anchoring heuristic has been proposed to explain this finding, in which experience with the early questions constrains global performance evaluations of the test. In the current study we report on two experiments using tasks of item recognition and associative recognition to investigate the generality of question order bias. As predicted by an anchoring explanation, participants' estimates of performance were higher for item recognition tests beginning with easy items. However, the effect was reversed in the associative recognition task: Participants' estimates of performance were higher for tests beginning with hard items. Specific recollections, if present, may have a greater impact on test performance perception than more general global impressions.

Two experiments are reported in which, after attempting to identify a briefly flashed, masked test word, participants were asked to rate the likelihood that it had been presented in an earlier study list. Even when people were unable to identify such items, they demonstrated an ability to discriminate between those that were studied and those that were not studied; ratings given to studied items were significantly higher than ratings given to nonstudied items. This effect does not appear to be a data-driven phenomenon. In Experiment 1 it was found when the presentation modality was changed from study to test. In Experiment 2 false memory for unidentified items that were related to studied items was shown.

Two experiments are reported in which the effects of presentation modality on false memory in recall and recognition are studied. False recall and recognition of critical targets are lower for non-presented items related to a study list when that study list is presented visually than when presented auditorily. This pattern of low levels of false memory for critical targets holds even when participants read the visually presented study items aloud. These results suggest that recollection of visual detail plays a role in the prevention of false memory. However, both the hit rates (true memory) and the false-alarm rates to weakly related distractors (non-critical targets) were higher for visual presentation than for auditory presentation, suggesting that more than one mechanism may underlie false recognition.

Recent exposure to general-information facts creates a tendency to claim that the facts had been known prior to their exposure. In Experiment 1, this "illusory knowledge effect" occurred even when participants did not have to demonstrate their knowledge by recalling part of the fact. In Experiment 2, the effect was found for both true and false facts. These findings suggest that the tendency to claim that recently presented facts had been previously known is caused by their enhanced familiarity. Accounts that would attribute this effect entirely to an underestimation of participants' knowledge of the new facts or to participants' intentional inflation of their prior knowledge states are not supported by these results.

Two experiments are reported that studied the effects of vocalisation on situational frequency judgment. Subjects saw lists of words and were later asked to judge frequency of occurrence on the list. In Experiment 1, the word list was learned incidentally, and frequency estimates were higher for words that subjects had read aloud during study than for those that had been read silently. In Experiment 2, an intentional-learning procedure was used; higher estimates for words read aloud than for those read silently were found when pronunciation was manipulated within subjects but not when it was manipulated between subjects. In all cases, pronunciation had no effect on estimates for words that had only been presented once on the study list. These results suggest that multiple processes may underlie frequency estimation.