The paper by Schwarz, Bless, Strack, Klumpp, and Simons explores the role of ease of retrieval as a source of information in judgments and self-assessments. The authors investigate whether people's judgments are influenced by the ease with which they can recall specific behaviors or events, a concept known as the availability heuristic. Through three experiments, they find that the ease of retrieval can qualify the implications of recalled content. Specifically, subjects who found it difficult to recall a certain number of examples rated themselves as less assertive or unassertive, despite recalling more examples. This suggests that the perceived difficulty in retrieval can reverse the direction of self-assessments. The authors also manipulate the perceived diagnosticity of the ease of retrieval, using misattribution techniques, to show that the impact of ease of retrieval can be discredited. The findings highlight the importance of considering both the content of recall and the subjective experience of ease or difficulty in making judgments. The study extends previous research on the availability heuristic and provides insights into the informational functions of subjective experiences, suggesting that people may use these experiences as additional sources of information, but only if they can attribute them to the object of judgment.The paper by Schwarz, Bless, Strack, Klumpp, and Simons explores the role of ease of retrieval as a source of information in judgments and self-assessments. The authors investigate whether people's judgments are influenced by the ease with which they can recall specific behaviors or events, a concept known as the availability heuristic. Through three experiments, they find that the ease of retrieval can qualify the implications of recalled content. Specifically, subjects who found it difficult to recall a certain number of examples rated themselves as less assertive or unassertive, despite recalling more examples. This suggests that the perceived difficulty in retrieval can reverse the direction of self-assessments. The authors also manipulate the perceived diagnosticity of the ease of retrieval, using misattribution techniques, to show that the impact of ease of retrieval can be discredited. The findings highlight the importance of considering both the content of recall and the subjective experience of ease or difficulty in making judgments. The study extends previous research on the availability heuristic and provides insights into the informational functions of subjective experiences, suggesting that people may use these experiences as additional sources of information, but only if they can attribute them to the object of judgment.