title: The role of age of acquisition in memory: effects on judgements of learning and recall.
abstract: Judgements of learning (JOLs) are self-made predictions of the likelihood that one will later recall information. The influence of stimulus characteristics on JOLs and recall continues to receive attention, yet there are still a number of unexplored lexical word features that may exert an effect on mnemonic processing. Using a standard cue-target paradigm, we focused on the role of word age of acquisition (AoA) and evaluated the role of both cue and target AoA on responses. We replicated the robust delayed-JOL effect and used a novel items analysis approach to examine the relationship between intrinsic word features and accuracy and reaction times for both JOLs and recall. A consistent effect of target AoA was found, even after controlling for a range of covariates previously shown to impact JOLs and recall. These results expand the role of AoA in word processing and suggest that it is a key variable in memory and metacognition; they also support Koriat's (1997) cue utilization framework.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.
authors.forename: Nathan A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Illman
authors.forename: Catriona M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Morrison
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D010153:Paired-Associate Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult