This article was downloaded by: [Fordham University], [Mitchell Rabinowitz]

On: 20 October 2014, At: 12:18

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer
House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of Cognitive Psychology

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/pecp21

The effects of ease of processing on the use and

perception of strategies
a b
Mitchell Rabinowitz & Robert McAuley
a
Graduate School of Education, Fordham University, Bronx, NY, USA
b
Department of Biomedical Sciences, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA
Published online: 15 Oct 2014.

To cite this article: Mitchell Rabinowitz & Robert McAuley (2014): The effects of ease of processing on the use and
perception of strategies, Journal of Cognitive Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/20445911.2014.969272

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2014.969272

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”)
contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors
make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability
for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions
and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of
the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of
information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands,
costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or
indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or
systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution
in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
 Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2014.969272

The effects of ease of processing on the use and

perception of strategies

Mitchell Rabinowitz1 and Robert McAuley2

Downloaded by [Fordham University], [Mitchell Rabinowitz] at 12:18 20 October 2014

1
Graduate School of Education, Fordham University, Bronx, NY, USA
2
Department of Biomedical Sciences, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

In this experiment, the interaction between access to knowledge and strategy use was investigated.
Participants were taught how to use the link mnemonic and then given a list of words to remember. The
link mnemonic involves the construction of interactive images that connects pairs of successive words.
Access to knowledge was varied in a between-subject fashion on the basis of a norming study that asked
people to judge how easy it was to construct interactive images for pairs of words. Of interest was how
this manipulation affected the efficacy and participants’ perceptions of the strategy. After the
participants recalled the items and their perceptions of the strategy were assessed, a second list of
words was then presented and maintenance of strategy use was assessed. The data showed that variations
in accessibility to relevant knowledge had a significant effect on the efficacy of the strategy and on
participants’ perceptions of effort and usefulness. It also affected participants’ maintenance of strategy
use – participants who first received the list where accessibility to relevant knowledge was more
challenging were less likely to use the strategy again. We conclude by discussing how ease of accessibility
might conflict with the design principles of desirable difficulties in that tasks that increase the difficulty of
the utilisation of cognitive strategies might lead to negative perceptions about the strategy itself and thus,
less use of the strategy in the future.

Keywords: Ease of processing; Memory strategies; Mnemonics.

Strategies are often defined as intentional, goal-
oriented processes that people invoke to aid
performance on a given task (Brown, Bransford,
Ferrara, & Campione, 1983; Rabinowitz, 1984).
Strategies can be weak in that they can be
employed generally on a variety of tasks or strong
in that they are ideally suited for a specific task
(Newell, 1979). What is interesting about strat-
egies is that for any given task, there is large
variation as to how people will strategically
approach it (Rittle-Johnson & Siegler, 1999) and
in most situations there is a causal relation
between strategy choice and performance; people
who choose the use effective strategies perform
significantly better that people who choose inef-
fective or poor strategies.
Recently, there has been a considerable amount
of research investigating the relation between
people’s metacognitive awareness of what affects
strategy use, the effectiveness of a strategy and
their judgements of knowing and perceptions of
strategies (Dunlowsky & Lipko, 2007; Metcalfe,
2009; Metcalfe & Finn, 2013). The premise behind
much of this research is that metacognitive aware-
ness is essential for people to take effective control
of their processing. Research has shown that

Correspondence should be addressed to Mitchell Rabinowitz, Graduate School of Education, Fordham University, 113 W. 60th
Street, New York, NY 10023, USA. E-mail: mrabinowitz@fordham.edu
The authors would like to thank Bill Whitten, Janet Metcalfe, Jun Li, and Nina Proestler, John, Dunlosky and an anonymous
reviewer for comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. We would also like to thank Jaclin Gerstel-Friedman with help with
the data analyses.

© 2014 Taylor & Francis

 2 RABINOWITZ AND MCAULEY
people do not always know which strategies are
effective and do not often make good strategy
choices (Bjork, 1994; Metcalfe, 1998). There has
also been research that investigates how experi-
ence with the use of specific strategies affects
later strategy choice (Brigham & Pressley, 1988;
DeWinstanley, & Bjork, 2004; Donlosky &
Hertzog, 2001).
In the current study, we were interested in
investigating how variations in the ease of processing
(Hertzog, Dunlosky, Robinson, & Kidder, 2003) of
relevant information might affect the use and per-
Downloaded by [Fordham University], [Mitchell Rabinowitz] at 12:18 20 October 2014
ception of an explicit memory strategy. There are
many different examples of research investigating
explicit memory strategies in the literature, e.g.,
mnemonics (Bellezza, 1981, 1982; Yates, 1966), the
development of exceptional memory skills (Ceci &
Liker, 1986; Chase & Ericsson, 1982), elaboration
(Rohwer, Rabinowitz, & Dronkers, 1982) and
rehearsal (Ornstein & Naus, 1985). Ease of proces-
sing refers to the speed and ease to which people
can access information relevant to the use of a
cognitive strategy.
In the current study we taught and instructed
participants to use a mnemonic strategy, the link
mnemonic, to memorise a list of words. With the
link mnemonic, participants are asked to make use
of visual imagery to construct interactive images
between adjacent words in a list. An integral
component of using the link mnemonic is the
ease of access to the knowledge that enables the
ability to form the interactive images. Our hypo-
thesis is that ease of processing differences affects
the efficacy of using the link mnemonic, partici-
pants’ perceptions of the value of the mnemonic
and also their tendency to use it again, given the
opportunity. Ease of processing was operationa-
lised in this study by asking people to rate how
easy or difficult it is to form interactive images
between pairs of words.
Previous research (Hertzog et al., 2003) has
suggested that ease of processing was related to
judgements of learning, quality of encoding ratings
and sometimes recall with a paired associate
learning task. While paired associate learning is
an integral component of the link mnemonic task,
there is reason to suspect that such effects may not
generalise to the link mnemonic. The link mne-
monic is a very effective strategy. People’s mem-
ory performance usually increases substantially
when the link mnemonic is used. It might be that
the link mnemonic is such a strong and effective
memory strategy that it would cover up any
potential influence of ease of processing. Also,
the Hertzog et al. (2003) study investigated judge-
ments, perceptions and recall of individual pairs of
items. In the current study, we were interested in
perceptions and efficacy of a specific strategy.
The goal of this study was to manipulate ease of
access of relevant knowledge for creating and
interactive image and to assess what effect this
would have on the efficacy, perception and
decision to use the strategy again. In this experi-
ment, initial experience with using the mnemonic
was manipulated by varying the ease in which
interactive images could be formed between suc-
cessive pairs of words on a memorisation list. In an
initial norming study, 24 words were chosen and
each word was paired with every other word.
Then, a group of participants were presented the
pairs of words and asked to rate how easy it was to
construct an interactive image for each pair. Based
on those ratings three lists were constructed, each
using the same 24 words. The order of the words
was varied based on the ratings of the norming
group. In one list the items were sequenced so that
it was easy to form interactive images between the
successive pairs of words. Another list was
sequenced so that compared to the first list, it
was more difficult to form interactive images
between the successive word pairs. The order of
the third list was randomly generated and the
ratings came out in between the easy and difficult
lists.
In Trial 1, college students were told how to use
the link mnemonic and were then asked to
memorise one of the three lists of words: easy,
medium or difficult. The three word lists all were
comprised of the same 24 items and only the order
of presentation of the words was varied. In this
way, differences in performance on Trial 1 would
be attributed to differences in the ease of accessing
knowledge to form the interactive images.
After participants studied and recalled the
items on the first trial, they were presented with
a second list to study and recall. This second list
was comprised of a set of categorisable words that
were medium-representativeness exemplars and
were given standard free recall instructions. By
using a categorisable list on Trial 2, our intention
was to investigate the issue of strategy choice.
That is, given the opportunity, would participants
choose to use the link mnemonic again or would
they switch and try to categorise the items or even
use some other strategy? The two strategies of
interest, the link mnemonic and categorisation,
would produce a different pattern of recall. All
participants underwent the same experience on

the second trial; thus, any differences in perform-
ance on this trial would be attributable to the
participants’ different experiences on Trial 1.
METHOD
Participants
The participant population consisted of 120
undergraduate students attending the University
of Illinois at Chicago. These students were
Downloaded by [Fordham University], [Mitchell Rabinowitz] at 12:18 20 October 2014
enrolled in an Introduction to Psychology course
and received course credit for their participation.
There were 40 participants in each experimental
group.1 None of the participants had prior experi-
ence with using the link mnemonic.
Materials
In order to develop the three orderings of the
words, a pilot study was first conducted. In this
study, 24 highly imagable words (Paivio, Yuille, &
Madigan, 1968) were chosen and arranged into
276 pairs, such that each word was paired with
every other word once. Three different booklets
were then constructed, each booklet presenting
the 276 pairs in a different random order, one pair
per page.
Then, an independent sample of 30 college
students, in a classroom situation, rated each
word pair in terms of the ease of constructing an
interactive image. They were instructed that a
rating of “1” would stand for “very difficult” and
a rating of “4”, “very easy”. The average rating for
each word pair was then computed and these
ratings were then used to construct three orders
of the initial 24 words: the first list in which the
adjacent words were rated as being easy to
construct interactive images, a second list, in which
the adjacent words were rated as being difficult to
construct interactive images and a third list, where
the ordering of the items was randomly generated.
The easy list had a mean rating of 3.42; the
randomly ordered list had a mean rating of 2.82
1
In actuality, two separate experiments were conducted.
The only difference between Experiments 1 and 2 was that
an addition task was added as a filler activity between trials
1 and 2 in Experiment 2. There were 16 participants per cell
in Experiment 1 and 24 participants per cell in Experiment
2. The factor of Experiment was included in all analyses
and no significant main effects nor interactions involving
this factor were obtained. Thus, the data from the two
experiments are presented together.
EASE OF PROCESSING AND STRATEGY USE 3
and the difficult list had a rating of 2.22. The
ordering of the easy list was fireplace, coffee,
volcano, umbrella, star, yacht, ocean, ankle, ele-
phant, mountain, butterfly, truck, lemon, pencil,
policeman, flag, palace, queen, tweezers, mother,
piano, church, nun and bird. The ordering of the
random (or medium) list was queen, ankle, bird,
flag, piano, pencil, elephant, church, palace, vol-
cano, butterfly, star, fireplace, mountain, yacht,
nun, lemon, ocean, coffee, umbrella, truck, twee-
zers, policeman and mother. The ordering of the
words for the difficult list was queen, truck,
mother, yacht, umbrella, butterfly, policeman, nun,
elephant, coffee, flag, pencil, volcano, piano, star,
lemon, palace, ankle, church, ocean, tweezers,
mountain, fireplace and bird.
In addition, another list of 24 words was also
constructed for Trial 2. This list was a categorisa-
ble list, comprised of four exemplars from six
categories: animals, body parts, furniture, fruits,
musical instruments and articles of clothing. The
items on this list were as follows: zebra, fox, sheep,
goat, neck, back, toe, knee, cabinet, bench, book-
case, lamp, melon, blueberry, apricot, plum, pic-
colo, harp, tuba, fiddle, socks, sweater, shorts and
shoes. The words in each category were rated as
being exemplars of medium typicality (Uyeda &
Mandler, 1980). In constructing this type of list, we
gave participants the opportunity to use two
clearly definable strategies: the link mnemonic
which was taught for the first list, or a categorisa-
tion strategy as an alternative. Use of either of
these strategies would promote a distinctive recall
pattern. Use of the link mnemonic would promote
serial recall; use of the categorisation strategy
would promote recall by category.
Procedure
Participants were randomly assigned to study one
of the three lists of words on Trial 1 (the same
words but presented in different orders). All
participants were instructed that they would be
shown a list of words and that they were to study
the items so that after they had seen them, they
would be able to recall as many as possible. They
were further informed of the link mnemonic and
were told to try to use it to study the list of words
(see Bellezza, 1981 for a full description of the
instructions given). To attempt to clear out items
that might be being held in working memory after
the first list was presented, all participants were
given additional instructions; they were told that
 4 RABINOWITZ AND MCAULEY
they should use the interactive images they formed
to help them remember the words and were asked
to write the items recalled on a sheet of paper. The
participants were additionally instructed to cover
each word with an index card immediately after
writing it. Approximately 30 seconds were
required to give the additional instructions, and
participants were given 3 minutes in which to
recall.
At the completion of Trial 1 recall, participants
were presented with a questionnaire consisting of
five questions. All responses were given in refer-
Downloaded by [Fordham University], [Mitchell Rabinowitz] at 12:18 20 October 2014
ence to a rating on a 6-point scale. The first
question asked how useful the link mnemonic
was in helping the subject memorise the list of
words on a scale ranging from not at all useful (1)
to very useful (6). The second question asked how
difficult or easy was it to use the link mnemonic
and was rated on a scale ranging from very difficult
(1) to very easy (6). The third question asked how
much effort was required to use the link mne-
monic and was rated on a scale ranging from a lot
of effort (1) to no effort (6). The fourth question
rephrased question 2 and asked how difficult or
easy it was to make interactive images and was
rated on a scale ranging from very difficult (1) to
very easy (6). Question 5 rephrased question 3 and
asked how much effort was required to construct
interactive images and was rated on a scale
ranging from a lot of effort (1) to no effort (6).
Only the endpoints were labelled for each of the
rating scales. Participants’ responses to these
questions were self-paced.
After completing the questionnaire, partici-
pants were given a second list of words to
remember and recall. On Trial 2, all participants
were simply told that they should study the items
so that they would be able to recall as many as
possible. They were not informed of the categor-
ical nature of the list. The presentation of the
second list was followed by the additional instruc-
tions and then the participants’ recall.
At the completion of recall, participants were
given a final questionnaire to answer, with the first
question asking participants to describe the strat-
egy used to help them memorise the second list.
This question was followed by the same three
questions presented at the end of recall of Trial 1,
which asked about usefulness, difficulty and effort.
However, rather than specifying the link mne-
monic, these questions referred to the strategy that
the participants applied.
Participants were presented with one of two
orderings of each list. For Trial 1, a list was either
presented in forward or reverse order. For Trial 2,
two random orderings were compiled with the
constraint that 1 item from each category be
presented before an additional item from any
category was presented. Also, no 2 items from
the same category were presented adjacently.
All participants were tested alone in sessions
lasting approximately 25 minutes. The stimulus
materials were presented both orally and visually.
All lists were recorded at a presentation rate of
15 seconds per item, and the experimenter pre-
sented each item, which was written in the centre
of a 12.7 cm × 17.8 cm index card.
RESULTS
The data from this experiment were analysed by
analysis of variance comparing lists (easy, medium
and difficult). The data from Trial 1 were analysed
separately from the data from Trial 2. On Trial 1,
systematic variations in recall and organisation
were investigated as a function of list composition.
On Trial 2, variations in performance as a con-
sequence of the difference in experience partici-
pants obtained on Trial 1 was examined. The
results from Trial 1 will be presented first, fol-
lowed by the results from Trial 2.
Trial 1: initial experience
Recall. The results of the analysis of variance
showed there was a significant main effect of list,
F(2,114) = 4.56, p = .012, MSE = 23.18. Post-hoc
analyses conducted with the Fisher’s least signific-
ant difference (LSD) test indicated that partici-
pants receiving the difficult list recalled fewer
items (15.73) than participants receiving the easy
list (18.88), p = .004. Recall of participants
presented the medium list (17.15) did not signifi-
cantly differ from that of either of the two other
groups (p > .05).
An additional analysis was conducted using a
more stringent criterion for recall. In this analysis,
a word was scored as being recalled if its relative
position in the recall protocol was the same as its
relative position in the presented list. That is, the
word had to be either preceded in recall by the
word immediately preceding it in presentation or
be followed in recall by the word immediately
following it in presentation. Thus, this recall
measure defines recall in terms of the use of the
link mnemonic. The results of this analysis were

similar to that found with overall recall, showing a
significant main effect of list, F(2,114) = 6.50,
p = .002, MSE = 43.25. Post-hoc LSD tests
indicated that participants receiving the difficult
list recalled fewer items (11.4) than participants
receiving either the easy (16.63) or the medium
(14.73) list, both ps = .001 and .026 respectively.
Participants’ scores in the latter two groups did
not significantly differ from each other (p > .05).
Thus, using either measure of recall, the ease in
which participants could access interactive rela-
tions between pairs of words did affect recall. This
Downloaded by [Fordham University], [Mitchell Rabinowitz] at 12:18 20 October 2014
result is all the more interesting in that, each of the
three lists were comprised of the same items.
Variables such as imagability, word frequency
and such were obviously all held constant and
could not contribute to performance. Simply
rearranging the order of presentation of the words
to reflect the ease in which pairwise interactive
images could be formed had a significant effect on
recall.
Input-output correlations. To further assess
whether ease of access affected participants ability
to use the link mnemonic, a simple Pearson’s
correlation was computed for each subject
between the position of the item on the presenta-
tion list and the position of the item within the
recall. Successful use of the mnemonic would
produce a perfect positive correlation. An analysis
of variance showed that there was a significant
main effect of list, F(2,114) = 8.03, p = .001, MSE =
.035. Post-hoc LSD tests indicated that partici-
pants presented with the difficult list had signifi-
cantly lower correlations (.79) than participants
who were presented either the easy list (.96) or the
medium list (.93), ps = .000 and .001 respectively.
The mean correlation of participants in the latter
two groups did not significantly differ from each
other (p > .05).
Perception of strategy. The ratings from each of
the questions (usefulness, difficulty and effort of
strategy use, and difficulty and effort of image
construction) within the questionnaire were ana-
lysed separately using analysis of variance. For the
question on usefulness and effort regarding strat-
egy use, the analyses showed significant effects
of list, F(2,114) = 3.69, p = .028, MSE = 1.55 and
F(2,114) = 4.45, p = .014, MSE = 1.54, respectively.
Post-hoc LSD tests on the usefulness question
indicated that participants presented with the easy
list rated the link mnemonic as being more useful
(5.08) than participants given the difficult list
EASE OF PROCESSING AND STRATEGY USE 5
(4.30), p = .015. The ratings for participants
presented the medium list (4.70) did not signifi-
cantly differ from either of the other two groups,
p > .05. Post-hoc LSD tests on the effort question
responses indicated that participants given the
easy list rated the use of the mnemonic as
requiring less effort (3.85) than participants given
either the medium (3.23) or the difficult list (3.00),
ps = .027 and 003 respectively. The ratings in the
latter two groups did not significantly differ from
each other, p > .05. There were no significant main
effects of list found regarding difficulty of using
the link mnemonic, F(2,114) = 1.44, p = .241 or on
the amount of difficulty or effort in constructing
elaborative images, F(2,114) = 2.13, p = .124 and
F(2,114) = 2.18, p = .118 respectively. The mean
ratings regarding difficulty of using the link mne-
monic were 3.9, 4.25 and 4.43 for the easy,
medium and difficult lists, respectively. The mean
ratings regarding difficulty of generating interact-
ive images were 3.75, 3.78 and 4.20 for the easy,
medium and difficult lists, respectively. The mean
ratings regarding effort of generating interactive
images were 3.28, 3.43 and 3.78 for the easy,
medium and difficult lists, respectively.
These results clearly show that participants’
perceptions of the link mnemonic varied depend-
ing on the ordering of the items within the list.
Participants presented with the easy list perceived
the strategy to be more useful and require less
effort than participants presented with the difficult
list. Participants who were presented with the
medium list fell in between these two groups for
the usefulness question and rated using the mne-
monic as requiring more effort than participants
presented with the easy list.
Trial 2: maintenance
For this second trial, in contrast to Trial 1, all
participants were presented the same words in one
of two random orders (described earlier). Also, in
contrast to Trial 1, this list was comprised of a set
of categorisable items; all items selected to be
medium typical exemplars of their respective
categories.
Strategy choice. The participants’ experience with
Trial 1 and the nature of the stimulus list on Trial
2 gave the participants the possibility of utilising
one of two different strategies. Participants could
maintain use of the link mnemonic and try to
memorise the items in a serial order. Alternately,
 6 RABINOWITZ AND MCAULEY

participants could elect to make use of the TABLE 2

categorical nature of the list and attempt to group Mean number of words recalled as a function of initial
experience and strategy choice
the items by categories. The availability of this
option allows us to investigate variations in parti- Strategy choice
cipants’ strategy selection depending on differ-
ences in initial experiences on Trial 1. Initial experience Link Categorisation Mean
On the questionnaire after Trial 2, participants Easy (n) 17.00 (16) 13.62 (8) 15.88 (24)
were asked to state what strategy they used to Medium (n) 18.42 (14) 16.00 (8) 17.55 (22)
memorise the items on this list. Participants were Difficult (n) 16.00 (8) 15.94 (17) 15.96 (25)
categorised into one of three groups based on Mean (n) 17.32 (38) 15.39 (33)
their response to this question. Participants were
put into the link mnemonic group if they said they
Downloaded by [Fordham University], [Mitchell Rabinowitz] at 12:18 20 October 2014

only used the link mnemonic on the second trial.
Participants were put into the categorisation group
if they stated they only used a categorisation
strategy on Trial 2. Participants were put into an
“other” group if they said they used a combination
of the two strategies or if they said they used some
other type of strategy (e.g., trying to alphabetise
the items).
The results of this grouping are presented in
Table 1. A chi-square analysis was performed to
assess whether the distribution of strategy choice
varied depending on differences in participants’
initial experience on Trial 1. This full analysis
yielded a non-significant result, χ2(4, n = 120) =
7.93, p = .095. However, an analysis that just
included participants who chose between use of
the link mnemonic and the categorisation strategy
(the first two rows) yielded a significant effect,
χ2(2, n = 71) = 7.22, p = .028. Given the experience
of first learning the link mnemonic using the easy
list, 40% of all subjects chose to try it again. For
the medium list, 35% of the subjects chose to
rely on the link mnemonic. For the difficult list,
however, only 20% of the subjects chose to use
this mnemonic.
Given that the “other” category is a mixture of
many different types of strategies and that any
results regarding this category are going to be
difficult to interpret, all the following analyses will
just look at the difference between participants
who stated that they used the link mnemonic or
the categorisation strategy/
Recall. The mean number of items recalled sorted
by Trial 1 list experience and strategy used on
Trial 2 are presented in Table 2. The analysis
showed a non-significant effect of Trial 1 experi-
ence, F(2,59) = .41, p > .665. However, there was a
significant effect of strategy choice on recall,
F(1,59) = 6.60, p = .013. Participants who used
the link mnemonic on Trial 2 recalled more items
(17.32) than participants who used the categorisa-
tion strategy (15.39). There was no significant
interaction between List 1 experience and strategy
choice, F(2,59) = .935, p = .398.
Input–output correlations. The mean correlation
between input and output order sorted by Trial 1
list experience and strategy used on Trial 2 are
presented in Table 3. It is no surprise that the
mean correlation varies with strategy choice,
F(1,59) = 4.80, p = .032, with the participants
stating they used the link mnemonic producing
higher correlations (.50) than participants stating
they used the categorisation strategy (.30). The
main effect of List 1 experience was not signific-
ant, F(2,59) = 2.24, p = .116, nor was the interac-
tion, F(2,59) = 2.24, p = .115. While we did not get
a significant interact, it is interesting to look at the

TABLE 1 TABLE 3
The number of participants who used specific strategies as a Mean input-output correlations as a function of initial
function of initial experience with list experience and strategy choice

Strategy Strategy choice

Initial experience Link Categorisation Other Total Initial experience Link Categorisation Mean

Easy 16 7 17 40 Easy (n) .77 (16) .17 (8) .57 (24)

Medium 14 8 18 40 Medium (n) .46 (14) .24 (8) .38 (22)
Difficult 9 15 16 40 Difficult (n) .29 (8) .10 (17) .17 (25)
Total 39 30 51 120 Mean (n) .56 (38) .15 (33)

input–output correlations as a function of the
initial list experience. The correlations for partici-
pants who initially received the easy, medium and
difficult lists were .77, .46 and .29, respectively.
The contrast between the easy and difficult lists
was significantly different (p = .035). All the other
contrasts were not significantly different. Thus,
even when participants said they were using the
same strategy, participants who received the easy
experience was much more likely to use the
strategy better – staying with the list order.
Downloaded by [Fordham University], [Mitchell Rabinowitz] at 12:18 20 October 2014
Clustering. To assess the extent to which partici-
pants made use of the categorical relations during
recall, clustering according to the categorical
organisation was measured using the relative ratio
of repetition (RRR; Bousfield & Bousfield, 1966).
This measure varies from 0 in the case of no
clustering to 1.0 in the case of perfect clustering.
The mean clustering score sorted by Trial 1 list
experience and strategy used on Trial 2 are
presented in Table 4.
Not surprisingly, an analysis of variance indi-
cated that there was a significant main effect of
strategy choice, F(1,59) = 44.60, p = .000, with
participants stating they used the categorisation
strategy exhibiting the highest amount of cluster-
ing (.65), and participants stating they used the
link mnemonic at .14. There was no significant
main effect of Trial 1 experience, F(2,59) = .299,
p =.742, and no significant interaction, F(2,59) =
.82, p = .446. The results from the input–output
correlations and clustering analyses give credence
to participants’ verbal reports regarding what
strategies they were using.
Perception of strategies. None of the main effects
or interactions were significant for the perception
about effort, ease and usefulness on List 2 strat-
egy use.
TABLE 4
Mean clustering scores (RRR) as a function of initial experi-
ence and strategy choice
Strategy choice
Initial experience Link Categorisation
Easy (n) .15 (16) .55 (8)
Medium (n) .15 (14) .57 (8)
Difficult (n) .10 (8) .69 (17)
Mean (n) .14 (38) .63 (33)
EASE OF PROCESSING AND STRATEGY USE 7
DISCUSSION
Our purpose in this research was to assess how
ease of processing would affect the execution and
perception of a memory strategy. One possible
expectation is that there should not be any
significant observable effect. To the extent that a
memory strategy is very effective, the result of
using the memory strategy might mask the poten-
tial effect of this manipulation. The results from
this study did not support this expectation.
In contrast, we found that manipulating the
ease in which participants could form interactive
images had a significant impact on both the
efficacy and perception of the strategy. Partici-
pants presented the easy list recalled significantly
more items than those presented the difficult list.
Participants presented with the medium list exhib-
ited recall levels between the other two groups. In
addition, these differences in recall appear to be
related to the use of the link mnemonic as
indexed by the input–output correlations. Partici-
pants given the easy list exhibited significantly
higher input–output correlations than those given
the difficult list. Once again, participants presented
the medium list exhibited correlations that fall
between those of the other two groups. These
results are particularly interesting in that all three
lists were comprised of the exact same words.
Differences are attributed in variations in the
ease in which connections between the words can
be found, not to the words themselves.
Also, the data indicated that participants pre-
sented the difficult list perceived the strategy to be
less useful and to require more effort than
participants presented the easy list. Participants
presented the medium list rated the difficulty and
effort required to use the strategy at a level
between those of the other two groups. These
results clearly show that participants’ perceptions
of the link mnemonic varied depending on the
relative accessibility of relevant knowledge.
In addition, we found that the List 1 experience
had an effect on strategy choice on the second list.
Specifically, participants who experienced using
the link mnemonic with the difficult pairs were less
likely to choose to use it on the second list. This
Mean finding replicates the findings observed in the
Rabinowitz, Freeman, and Cohen (1992) study
.29 (24) which looked at the use of a categorisation
.31 (22) strategy. In the Rabinowitz et al. (1992), partici-
.50 (25)
pants were presented a list of either high or low
typicality category items and were instructed to
 8 RABINOWITZ AND MCAULEY
use a categorisation strategy to memorise the
items. As in the current study, they were then
presented a second list of categorisable words and
were instructed to just study so that they remem-
bered as many words as possible. They were free
to use whichever strategy they desired. It was
observed that participants given the low typicality
list were less likely to continue to use the category
strategy than participants given the lists with more
typical items. The general conclusion from that
study was that participants would not continue to
use the strategy if the strategy was difficult to use.
Downloaded by [Fordham University], [Mitchell Rabinowitz] at 12:18 20 October 2014
The argument in reference to the categorisation
strategy was what determined the ease of strategy
use was not the strategy itself but rather the ease
in which people could access the relevant know-
ledge. Even though we found similar results it is
interesting to compare the link mnemonic to the
categorisation strategy.
The link mnemonic differs from a categorisa-
tion strategy in a number of ways which might
make the link mnemonic more difficult to use. For
example, Rohwer et al. (1982) suggested that
forming an image between two nouns involves,
first, searching for a relevant schematic event in
memory, and second, using this event in construct-
ing a particular interactive relationship between
the entities denoted by the nouns. This latter step
entails a metacognitive component of assessing
whether the image constructed was, in fact, an
interactive one. One needs to add on to this the
issue of coordinating the construction process with
the rehearsal of previous images. Overall, the link
mnemonic is fairly complicated, in comparison to a
categorisation strategy, and, at least initially, more
difficult to use.
Thus, one might expect no significant difference
in maintenance of strategy in that all participants
found the link mnemonic difficult to use. In
relation to this, it is interesting to note that during
training, participants, given the different lists,
differed in their perception regarding the effort
required and usefulness, but no significant differ-
ence was obtained regarding differences in ease of
using the strategy.
There is an interesting expected confound that
affects the interpretation of why participants,
given the differences in their initial experience
(List 1), differed in their maintenance of the link
mnemonic. On List 1, as a function of which order
participants received, participants varied in terms
of both the efficacy of the strategy as well as their
perceptions of the strategy; i.e., people given the
difficult list recalled fewer items and had different
perceptions of the strategy than people given the
easy list. Therefore, we do not know whether
differences in strategy maintenance were due to
the efficacy or the perception of the strategy or
both. An interesting follow-up study might be to
replicate this study but to vary whether partici-
pants had to actually recall the List 1 items or not.
If the findings were due to the performance
characteristics, participants who were not actually
required to recall might not show the same pattern
of results. If the maintenance differences were due
to the actually perception of having to use the
strategy, both groups would be expected to replic-
ate the findings observed in the current study.
These results suggest that there are interactive
effects of ease of access to knowledge and memory
strategy use; both interact to determine memory
outcomes. These effects can be observed not only
in terms of efficacy (how many items are remem-
bered), but also in reference to participants’
perception of the effort of the strategy. The
current study can be seen as an extension of the
study conducted by Hertzog et al., 2003). In that
study, using a very similar manipulation they
showed that ease of accessibility influenced parti-
cipants’ judgements of learning as well as ratings
having to do with the quality of encoding while
learning pairs of words within a paired associate
task. The current study extends this effect on
metacognition to the perception of a strategy as
well as to the efficacy of strategy use.
In closing, we thought it interesting to relate the
results of this study to the research conducted on
the advantages of desirable difficulties for enhan-
cing learning (Bjork, 1994; Bjork & Bjork, in
press). This research suggests that in order to
enhance long-term learning, introducing difficult-
ies that enhance encoding are preferred. Making
things easy often leads to a false perception of
learning and memory. While not disagreeing with
this perspective, the current research might pres-
ent a caveat. The current research suggests that
under conditions where it is easy to use a strategy,
people think the strategy is good to use and are
likely to use it again, even in situations where it is
not as easy to use. However, in conditions where it
is difficult to use a strategy, people perceive the
strategy to not be as effective and are less likely to
use the strategy again (see also Rabinowitz, 1988;
Rabinowitz et al., 1992). Thus, by introducing
desirable difficulties into a learning situation the
designer might be providing a context that
enhances learning but also negatively influences
students’ perceptions of the processes that lead to

the enhanced learning as well as the tendency to
use those processes again given a choice.
Original manuscript received November 2013
Revised manuscript received September 2014
Revised manuscript accepted September 2014
First published online October 2014
REFERENCES
Bellezza, F. S. (1981). Mnemonic devices: Classification,
characteristics, and criteria. Review of Educa-
Downloaded by [Fordham University], [Mitchell Rabinowitz] at 12:18 20 October 2014
tional Research, 51, 247–275. doi:10.3102/0034654305
1002247
Bellezza, F. S. (1982). Updating memory using mne-
monic devices. Cognitive Psychology, 14, 301–327.
doi:10.1016/0010-0285(82)90012-3
Bjork, R. A. (l994). Memory and metamemory con-
siderations in the training of human beings. In
J. Metcalfe & A. P. Shimamura (Eds.), Metacogni-
tion: Knowing about knowing (pp. 185–206). Cam-
bridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bjork, E. L., & Bjork, R. A. (in press). Making things
hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating
desirable difficulties to enhance learning. In M. A.
Gernsbacher & J. Pomerantz (Eds.), Psychology and
the real world: Essays illustrating fundamental con-
tributions to society (2nd ed., pp. 55–64). New York,
NY: Worth.
Bousfield, A. K., & Bousfield, W. A. (1966). Measure-
ment of clustering and of sequential constancies in
repeated free recall. Psychological Reports, 19, 935–
942. doi:10.2466/pr0.1966.19.3.935
Brigham, M. C., & Pressley, M. (1988). Cognitive mon-
itoring and strategy choice in younger and
older adults. Psychology and Aging, 3, 249–257.
doi:10.1037/0882-7974.3.3.249
Brown, A. L., Bransford, J. D., Ferrara, R. A., &
Campione, J. C. (1983). Learning, remembering,
and understanding. In P. H. Mussen, J. H. Flavell,
& E. M. Markman (Eds.), Handbook of child
psychology: Vol. 3. Child development (4th ed., pp.
77–166). New York, NY: Wiley.
Ceci, S. J., & Liker, J. K. (1986). A day at the races: IQ,
expertise, and cognitive complexity. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: General, 115, 255–266.
doi:10.1037/0096-3445.115.3.255
Chase, W. G., & Ericsson, K. A. (1982). Skill and
working memory. In G. H. Bower (Ed.), The
psychology of learning and motivation (Vol. 16, pp.
1–58). New York, NY: Academic Press.
DeWinstanley, P. A., & Bjork, E. L. (2004). Processing
strategies and the generation effect: Implications for
making a better reader. Memory & Cognition, 32,
945–955. doi:10.3758/BF03196872
Dunlosky, J., & Hertzog, C. (2001). Measuring strategy
production during associative learning: The relative
utility of concurrent versus retrospective reports.
Memory & Cognition, 29, 247–253. doi:10.3758/
BF03194918
EASE OF PROCESSING AND STRATEGY USE 9
Dunlosky, J., & Lipko, A. R. (2007). Metacomprehen-
sion: A brief history and how to improve its accuracy.
Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 228–
232. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2007.00509.x
Hertzog, C., Dunlosky, J., Robinson, A. E., & Kidder,
D. P. (2003). Encoding fluency is a cue used for
judgments of learning. Journal of Experimental Psy-
chology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 29(1), 22–
34. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.29.1.22
Metcalfe, J. (1998). Cognitive optimism: Self-deception or
memory-based processing heuristics? Personality and
Social Psychological Review, 2, 100–110. doi:10.1207/
s15327957pspr0202_3
Metcalfe, J. (2009). Metacognitive judgments and control
of study. Current Directions in Psychological Science,
18, 159–163. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01628.x
Metcalfe, J., & Finn, B. (2013). Metacognition and
control of study choice in children. Metacognition
and Learning, 8(1), 19–46. doi:10.1007/s11409-013-
9094-7
Newell, A. (1979). One final word. In D. T. Tumas & F.
Reif (Eds.), Problem solving and education: Issues in
teaching and research (pp. 175–189). Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Ornstein, P. A., & Naus, M. (1985). Effects of the
knowledge base on children's memory strategies. In
H. W. Reese (Ed.), Advances in child development
and behavior (Vol. 19, pp. 113–148). San Diego, CA:
Academic Press.
Paivio, A., Yuille, J. C., & Madigan, S. A. (1968).
Concreteness, imagery, and meaningfulness values
for 925 nouns. Journal of Experimental Psychology,
Monograph Supplement, 76(1), 1–25. doi:10.1037/
h0025327
Rabinowitz, M. (1984). The use of categorical organiza-
tion: Not an all-or-none situation. Journal of Experi-
mental Child Psychology, 38, 338–351. doi:10.1016/
0022-0965(84)90130-9
Rabinowitz, M. (1988). On teaching cognitive strategies:
The influence of accessibility of conceptual know-
ledge. Contemporary Journal of Educational Psycho-
logy, 13, 229–235. doi:10.1016/0361-476X(88)90023-9
Rabinowitz, M., Freeman, K., & Cohen, S. (1992). Use and
maintenance of strategies: The influence of accessibility
to knowledge. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84,
211–218. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.84.2.211
Rittle-Johnson, B., & Siegler, R. S. (1999). Learning to
spell: Variability, choice, and change in children’s
strategy use. Child Development, 70, 332–348.
doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00025
Rohwer, W. D., Rabinowitz, M., & Dronkers, N. F.
(1982). Event knowledge, elaborative propensity,
and the development of learning proficiency. Journal
of Experimental Child Psychology, 33, 492–503.
doi:10.1016/0022-0965(82)90061-3
Uyeda, K. M., & Mandler, G. (1980). Prototypicality
norms for 28 semantic categories. Behavior Research
Methods and Instrumentation, 12, 587–595. doi:10.3758/
BF03201848
Yates, F. A. (1966). The art of memory. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul.