Fluency Heuristic: A Model of How the Mind Exploits a By-Product of Information Retrieval

Abstract

Boundedly rational heuristics for inference can be surprisingly accurate and frugal for several reasons. They can exploit environmental structures, co-opt complex capacities, and elude effortful search by exploiting information that automatically arrives on the mental stage. The fluency heuristic is a prime example of a heuristic that makes the most of an automatic by-product of retrieval from memory, namely, retrieval fluency. In 4 experiments, the authors show that retrieval fluency can be a proxy for real-world quantities, that people can discriminate between two objects' retrieval fluencies, and that people's inferences are in line with the fluency heuristic (in particular fast inferences) and with experimentally manipulated fluency. The authors conclude that the fluency heuristic may be one tool in the mind's repertoire of strategies that artfully probes memory for encapsulated frequency information that can veridically reflect statistical regularities in the world.

What makes icons appealing? The role of processing fluency in predicting icon appeal in different task contexts

“…This heuristic utilizes the ease with which we carry out mental tasks to make fast and effective judgments by capturing information that 'automatically arrives on our mental stage' (Hertwig et al, 2008(Hertwig et al, , p. 1191. Our working assumption, therefore, was that the ease or difficulty with which we are able to interact with icons on an interface would be reflected, not only in measures of performance (RT, accuracy) but also in our evaluations of their appeal (see Figure 1).…”

“…It may be particularly useful when other information is absent and when quick decisions require frugal automatic, rather than effortful, processing (Hertwig et al, 2008;Marewski & Schooler, 2011). Research to date suggests that a range of other factors are likely to come into play when individuals interact with an interface over time when more considered and conscious decision-making takes place (see Hartmann et al, 2008;Sonderegger & Sauer, 2010;Sonderegger et al, 2012;Thielsch et al, 2013).…”

Reconsidering “evidence” for fast-and-frugal heuristics

“…in random order) and were asked to indicate, as speedily as possible, whether they recognized a city or not by pressing one of two keys. Participants' recognition judgments and the corresponding latencies were used to compute the discrimination rate, validity, and success rate of the recognition heuristic and fluency heuristic, respectively (Hertwig, Herzog, Schooler, & Reimer, 2008). The results and comparison with the AH can be found in Table 1.…”

“…In this set, the AH actually had a validity of .68, which is relatively large, although once more below the mean recognition validity (.78). To assess the heuristic's use, the proportion of choices in line with its predictions was computed-that is, the adherence or accordance rate (e.g., Hertwig et al, 2008;Pachur & Hertwig, 2006). Across participants, the AH explained M 5 60% (SE 5 1%) of choices.…”

Is external memory memory? Biological memory and extended mind

“…Since records are not stored as a consequence of endorsement by the agent, and due to the constructive character of encoding, consolidation, and retrieval, records are not endorsed automatically upon retrieval-metamemory processes rather intervene to determine endorsement/rejection of retrieved records, e.g., on the basis of source monitoring judgements (judgements about the probable origins of records given their level of detail, relation to other information, etc.) or fluency processing (use of fluency as a cue for accuracy) (Arango-Muñoz, 2011;Hertwig, Herzog, Schooler, & Reimer, 2008;Koriat, 2002;Mitchell & Johnson, 2000Nelson & Narens, 1994, 1990Proust, 2010).…”