Encoding fluency is a cue used for judgments about learning

The authors used paired-associate learning to investigate the hypothesis that the speed of generating an interactive image (encoding fluency) influenced 2 metacognitive judgments: judgments of learning (JOLs) and quality of encoding ratings (QUEs). Results from Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that latency of a keypress indicating successful image formation was negatively related to both JOLs and QUEs even though latency was unrelated to recall. Experiment 3 demonstrated that when concrete and abstract items were mixed in a single list, latency was related to concreteness, judgments, and recall. However, item concreteness and fluency influenced judgments independently of one another. These outcomes suggest an important role of encoding fluency in the formation of metacognitive judgments about learning and future recall.