What is the mechanism for fluency in successive recognition?

There are a number of reasons to believe that processing fluency may affect successive recognition judgements, but evidence about the mechanism for these effects is currently lacking. This study used a successive task design to examine whether subjective ease might underlie effects of fluency on recognition. At study subjects performed lexical decisions; in a subsequent test with studied and new items, subjects performed lexical decisions followed immediately by recognition or ease judgments. In a previous study we used that process dissociation procedure to show that recognition in a similar task was largely based upon fluency. In the present study, successive recognition judgments interfered with lexical decision performance to a greater degree than did ease judgments, suggesting that the recognition judgment was not automatic and involved processes additional to the judgment of ease. The data suggest that the fluency involved in successive recognition is more complex than a subjective judgment of ease of processing. One possible mechanism for fluency in recognition may be based upon reductions in the orientation of attention that accompany item repetition.