Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

In the study of recognition memory, a mirror effect iscommonly observed for word frequency, with low frequencyitems yielding both a higher hit rate and lower false alarm ratethan high frequency items. The finding that LF itemsconsistently outperform HF items in recognition was oncetermed the “frequency paradox”, as LF items are less wellrepresented in memory. However, recognition is known to beinfluenced both by ‘context noise’—the prior contexts inwhich an item has appeared—and ‘item noise’—interferencefrom other items present within the list context. In a typicalrecognition list, HF items will suffer more interference thanLF items. To illustrate this principle, we deliberatelymanipulated both the contexts in which critical items hadbeen encountered prior to study, and the confusability oftargets and distractors. Our results suggest that when noisesources are balanced, the mirror effect disappears.