Metamemory in strategy selection: Evidence for a dissociation in familiarity-based judgments between semantics and item activation strength

Two experiments investigated the metamemorial factors which influence rapid strategy selections (retrieve or calculate) in double-digit mental arithmetic problems. Using the GameShow paradigm (L. M. Reder & F. E. Ritter, 1992; C. D. Schunn et al., 1997) participants first predicted (within 850 ms) which strategy they would use to solve a sum and then solved the sum. Results revealed that predicted strategy selections were accurate, and that selection of the retrieve strategy was positively related to problem familiarity (L. M. Reder & F. E. Ritter, 1992; C. D. Schunn, et al., 1997), but not to the answer’s familiarity (but see C. A. Lebiere & J. R. Anderson 1998; G. D. Logan, 2002). Furthermore, the semantic properties of a problem (e.g., whether both numbers are divisible by 5 or 10) appeared to dictate strategy selection. The evidence presented supports an account of strategy selection in which retrieve and calculate selections are determined by pre-retrieval indications of memorial strength derived from the familiarity of the problem (see also L. M. Reder & F. E. Ritter, 1992; C. D. Schunn et al., 1997) but also from semantic level representations of the problem’s properties