Encoding effort and recall: A cautionary note.

Abstract

In the five experiments reported here we attempted to demonstrate an effect on item memorability of the amount of effort expended during the encoding process. The encoding task in two experiments was anagram solving; here, solution difficulty was varied. In the third experiment, subjects were required to judge whether a word fit meaningfully into a sentence frame, arid the ease of making this decision was manipulated. The final two experiments involved picture naming under time pressure; pictures were displayed either with no labels (easy condition) or, as in the picture-word version of the Stroop task, with superimposed interfering labels (hard condition). In none of the experiments did our manipulations of difficulty/ effortfumess of encoding influence item retention. These findings raise questions about the robustness of the effort phenomenon.The relation between amount of cognitive effort expended during encoding and the subsequent memorability of inputs has received considerable attention of late. A frequently reported finding is that the more effort required by an orienting or cover task, the greater is the incidental retention of the items encountered during the cover task (e.g., Jacoby, Craik,

Anagram solving: Does effort have an effect?

“…Both experiments replicate the results of Zacks et al (1983) in demonstrating that the effort involved in solving difficult anagrams exceeds that involved in solving easy anagrams. Furthermore, recall of solutions to difficult anagrams did not exceed that for easy ones (Experiment I).…”

“…Solution time is a measure of anagram difficulty (Mayzner & Tresselt, 1958;Zacks et al, 1983). An analysis of variance (ANaYA) showed that mean response times varied with condition [F(2,33) = 52.13, p < .001; see Table I].…”

“…In the present experiments, we considered two possible reasons for the negative findings reported by Zacks et al (1983). First, there were no baseline conditions in their studies.…”

“…The results of these studies have implications for our understanding of the role of effort in remembering. Zacks, Hasher, Sanft, and Rose (1983) reported that the effort involved in generating solutions for anagrams did not facilitate memory for those solutions. In some of their studies, subjects solved easy and difficult anagrams varying numbers of times and then recalled solutions for those anagrams.…”

The effects of "effort after meaning" on recall: Differences in within- and between-subjects designs

“…Furthermore, how does effort after meaning relate to the cognitive effort required to perform other encoding tasks, such as item generation, semantic elaboration, or anagram problem solving (e.g., Craik & Tulving, 1975;Jacoby, 1978;Slamecka & Graf, 1978;Tyler, Hertel, McCallum, & Ellis, 1979)? The latter question is underscored by the fact that cognitive effort is poorly understood in general, and prior research examining the effects of cognitive effort on memory performance has yielded mixed results (Ellis, Thomas, & Rodriguez, 1984;Zacks, Hasher, Sanft, & Rose, 1983).…”