We examine the role of memory accessibility across two different memory-related judgments: episodic recognition(e.g., ”Was this person’s name presented earlier in the experiment?”) and probabilistic inference (e.g., “How famous do youconsider this person to be?”). For both judgments (episodic recognition and probabilistic inference), we observe the influenceof both pre-experimental exposure, which is approximated by web-frequencies (e.g., Google search results), and experimentalexposure, which is manipulated through an incidental study phase (e.g., a vowel counting task). The results of these experimentsallow for an integrative understanding of how different sources of memory accessibility (experimental vs. pre-experiential) arecombined, and possibly interfere with one another, depending on the type of memory-related judgment.

Within the literature of psychological and decision sciences, there is a critical difference in the way recognition is defined and studied experimentally. To address this difference, the current experiment examines and attempts to disentangle the influence of two recognition judgment sources (from within an experiment and from an individual’s prior life experiences) upon two different recognition judgments. By presenting participants with a set of related stimuli that vary naturally in environmental occurrence and by manipulating exposure within an experimental context, this experiment allows for a broader and more ecologically valid assessment of recognition memory. Contrasting with the typical word- frequency effect, the results reveal an overall bias to judge high-frequency items as studied on an episodic recognition test. Additionally, the results underscore the role of context by showing that a single study exposure increases the probability that individuals will judge stimuli as presented outside the laboratory.