Larry Jacoby: An appreciation of his early research

Larry Jacoby was one of the most creative experimental psychologists of his generation. I describe four papers from early in his career that were influential to debates at the time and that are still well worth reading today. These are Jacoby and Bartz (Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11[4], 561-565, 1972), Jacoby ((Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 17[6], 649-667, 1978), Jacoby and Dallas (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 110[3], 306-340, 1981), and Jacoby (Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 22[5], 485-508, 1983). The last two papers showed that dissociations among memory measures, analogous to those observed in amnesic patients (relative to controls), could be obtained in college students. These are just a selection of his famous findings, which include how people can become famous overnight (Jacoby et al., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56[3], 326-338, 1989), how to deceive the elderly (Jacoby, Cognitive Neuropsychology, 16(3/5), 417-436, 1999), and, of course, the process dissociation procedure (Jacoby, Journal of Memory and Language, 30[5], 513-541, 1991). Jacoby's influence on cognitive psychology and related fields will endure.