ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on one particular type of experiential information, namely the ease or difficulty with which information can be recalled from memory, thoughts can be generated, and new information can be processed. Most importantly, the logic of the feelings-as-information approach predicts that the influence of subjective experiences is eliminated when people attribute their experience to an irrelevant source, thus undermining its informational value for the judgment at hand. People's judgments are consistent with the implications of accessible thought content when recall or thought generation is experienced as easy, but opposite to the implications of accessible thought content when recall or thought generation is experienced as difficult. In sum, what people conclude from their accessibility experiences depends on which of many naive theories of memory and cognition they bring to bear. Social cognition researchers commonly assume that people's processing style depends on the motivation and cognitive resources they bring to the task.
