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.