Does ease mediate the ease-of-retrieval effect? A meta-analysis
Weingarten and Hutchinson pooled a large body of experiments on the ease-of-retrieval effect, in which the felt difficulty of recalling examples shapes later judgements. The standard few-versus-many manipulation produced a medium-sized effect on average. In the standard paradigm, subjective ease accounted for about a third to a half of the total effect, which supports the usual explanation while indicating that other mediators are also at work. The authors found evidence of publication bias that reduces the estimate. Moderators outside the standard design produced smaller and often reversed effects, while several theory-based moderators produced strong effects consistent with the theory.
Weingarten and Hutchinson pooled a large body of experiments on the ease-of-retrieval effect, in which the felt difficulty of recalling examples shapes later judgements. The standard few-versus-many manipulation produced a medium-sized effect on average. In the standard paradigm, subjective ease accounted for about a third to a half of the total effect, which supports the usual explanation while indicating that other mediators are also at work. The authors found evidence of publication bias that reduces the estimate. Moderators outside the standard design produced smaller and often reversed effects, while several theory-based moderators produced strong effects consistent with the theory.
Written from the abstract, University of Pennsylvania repository.
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Weingarten, E., & Hutchinson, J. W. (2018). Does ease mediate the ease-of-retrieval effect? A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 144(3), 227-283. doi:10.1037/bul0000122