Remembering and knowing personality traits: figure/ground asymmetries in person-related retrieval experience

In two experiments, the effect of category salience on retrieval experience was investigated. In Experiment 1, participants rated typicality or concreteness of personality traits that differed in stereotype reference (i.e., consistent, inconsistent, and neutral in relation to the age stereotype). More remember judgments were given for consistent and inconsistent traits in contrast to neutral traits, thereby indicating a figure/ground asymmetry. In Experiment 2, neutral traits were excluded and a classical figure/ground phenomenon was demonstrated for the retrieval experience of traits (i.e., reversibility of an ambiguous figure after typicality and untypicality ratings). Altogether, the results suggest that metacognitive trait representations depend on principles of figure/ground asymmetries rather than on functional principles of social information processing.