Assessing a retrieval account of the generation and perceptual-interference effects

Enactment and retrieval

“…Mulligan and Peterson (2008) examined the generation and perceptual interference effects with an experimental paradigm similar to that in the present study and found similar results; combined retrieval conditions did not enhance the size of either effect. That is, the predictions of the retrieval hypothesis were not observed for either generation or perceptual interference.…”

“…As such, differences in the nature of the study items do not seem to drive the differences found between generation, perceptual interference, and enactment, on the one hand, and bizarreness, on the other. McDaniel and Bugg (2008) speculated that bizarre sentences may produce a greater reliance on item distinctiveness in recall, consistent with findings that the bizarreness effect is more malleable in the face of retrieval manipulations than are the other manipulations (enactment, generation, and perceptual interference; see Mulligan & Peterson, 2008, p. 1380, for a discussion). Clearly, additional research is required to determine why this is the case.…”

“…That is, if the participants in the combined condition completed the bulk of their recall in less than 2.5 min (which seems likely on the basis of typical recall dynamics; e.g., Mulligan, 2006), they largely finished recalling both lists before the separate condition would begin on their second test (although the analysis in note 2 argues against this). However, earlier research using this paradigm (McDaniel et al, 2005;Mulligan & Peterson, 2008) did not show significant main effects of recall condition. Likewise, no main effect of recall condition was found in the subsequent experiments of the present project.…”

“…The present study tested the generality of McDaniel et al's (2005) findings with respect to enactment. Mulligan and Peterson (2008), employing the design of McDaniel et al (2005), found that the retrieval account could not adequately explain the effects of perceptual interference or generation. That is, the effects of these variables were not moderated by the manipulation of combined versus separate recall tests.…”

Investigating the encoding—retrieval match in recognition memory: Effects of experimental design, specificity, and retention interval

“…If so, the effect is more likely to occur in a within-groups design, in which participants encounter both match and mismatch conditions. A number of influential findings in memory research have been shown to be influenced by experimental design (see McDaniel & Bugg, 2008;Mulligan & Peterson, 2008, for reviews). The present findings suggest that the same is true of the encoding-retrieval match, at least when the reinstated task involves the generation of target items.…”