Are you sure you forgot? Feeling of knowing in directed forgetting.

One significant issue in metamemory is how variables increasing memorability affect metamemory. Previous research has produced inconsistent results. The effect of directed forgetting on the magnitude and accuracy of feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgments was investigated. Participants were presented with word pairs, some to be remembered and some to be forgotten, and then were asked to recall all target words regardless of initial instructions. For unrecalled items, they were asked to give FOK judgments about performance in a future memory task: a cued stem-completion task (Experiment 1) or a recognition test (Experiment 2). This encoding manipulation increased both the memory performance and the magnitude of FOK judgments. However, no such effect on the accuracy of FOK judgments was observed.

Flashbulb memories for a negative and a positive event: news of Desert Storm and acceptance to college.

37 college students answered questions regarding the circumstances in which they first heard about two events that took place approximately two years prior: the beginning of Operation Desert Storm and the news of their acceptance to college. The number of details recalled about their own circumstances for both events was very high and not different for the two events. However, they reported having stronger emotional reactions (as measured by a 5-point rating scale) for the news of acceptance to college. Only for the news of Desert Storm was rated intensity of emotional reaction related to the number of details recalled. Sex differences were found in the intensity of emotional reactions and frequency of rehearsal but not in recall.

Name or hum that tune: feeling of knowing for music.

This is the first reported research that explores the feeling of knowing (FOK) for musical stimuli. Subjects attempted to recall melodies and titles of musical pieces, made FOK ratings when recall failed, and then had a recognition test. With instrumental music (Experiment 1), more titles were recalled when melodies were given as cues than vice versa. With songs whose lyrics were not presented (Experiment 2), however, more melodies were recalled than were titles. For nonrecalled items, although the overall levels of recognition did not differ, FOK ratings were higher for titles than for melodies in Experiment 1, and the opposite pattern occurred in Experiment 2. In both experiments, the FOK ratings predicted melody recognition more accurately than they did title recognition.