The role of metacognition in the word frequency mirror effect is examined in 8 experiments. Experiment 1 uses a counterfeit list technique to replicate and expand upon previous findings indicating that participants exhibit a bias toward choosing high frequency items in a recognition task. Experiment 2 demonstrates that when participants are exposed to a training phase that includes a recognition task involving the discrimination of high and low frequency targets and lures prior to exposure to the subliminal list task, participants learn to overcome this bias. With this training, participants' strategies seem to shift away from a strong reliance on pre-experimental familiarity. Experiments 3--8 systematically examine the conditions under which participants learn to discount familiarity by manipulating list composition, task demands, and alternate sources of familiarity during participant training. The results of the experiments reported here support theories of recognition memory that rely on metacognitive strategies as an element of their explanation of the mirror effect.
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