The Ease-of-Processing Heuristic and the Stability Bias

Judgments about memory are essential in promoting knowledge; they help identify trustworthy memories and predict what information will be retained in the future. In the three experiments reported here, we investigated the mechanisms underlying predictions about memory. In Experiments 1 and 2, single words were presented once or multiple times, in large or small type. There was a double dissociation between actual memory and predicted memory: Type size affected predicted but not actual memory, and future study opportunities affected actual memory but scarcely affected predicted memory. The results of Experiment 3 suggest that beliefs and judgments are largely independent, and neither consistently resembles actual memory. Participants’ underestimation of future learning—a stability bias—stemmed from an overreliance on their current memory state in making predictions about future memory states. The overreliance on type size highlights the fundamental importance of the ease-of-processing heuristic: Information that is easy to process is judged to have been learned well.