Reverse production effect: children recognize novel words better when they are heard rather than produced

Abstract

This research investigates the effect of production on 4.5- to 6-year-old children's recognition of newly learned words. In Experiment 1, children were taught four novel words in a produced or heard training condition during a brief training phase. In Experiment 2, children were taught eight novel words, and this time training condition was in a blocked design. Immediately after training, children were tested on their recognition of the trained novel words using a preferential looking paradigm. In both experiments, children recognized novel words that were produced and heard during training, but demonstrated better recognition for items that were heard. These findings are opposite to previous results reported in the literature with adults and children. Our results show that benefits of speech production for word learning are dependent on factors such as task complexity and the developmental stage of the learner.

The Production Effect Improves Memory in 7‐ to 10‐Year‐Old Children

“…The primary purposes of Experiment 2 were to replicate and generalize the findings of Experiment 1 and to evaluate the Zamuner et al. () claim that the production effect is reversed in children when infrequent or nonnative stimuli are used. An additional aim was again to test the replicability of our finding of no effect of mixing versus blocking on the within‐subject production effect.…”

“…To date, only two studies have examined production effects in children (Icht & Mama, ; Zamuner, Strahm, Morin‐Lessard, & Page, ), both in preschool children and hence in nonreaders. Thus, both studies used a combination of oral and pictorial stimuli that did not require reading.…”

“…Zamuner et al. () took a different tack, examining whether children would show a recognition advantage for produced novel nonwords that had no preexisting semantic representations. In their study of 16 children aged 4.5–6 years, spoken nonwords were used as stimuli, with a novel animal‐like drawing assigned to each.…”

“…To investigate whether their finding of enhanced memory for heard rather than produced items related to potential methodological and design issues, Zamuner et al. () ran a second experiment increasing the number of nonwords in the study phase from four to eight. These were presented in a within‐subject blocked‐list format rather than in a mixed‐list format so that children studied a block of silent nonwords followed by a block of aloud nonwords or vice versa.…”

“…Further aims were: (a) to compare effects for familiar and unfamiliar verbal stimuli to reexamine the Zamuner et al. () hypothesis that when stimuli are infrequent or nonnative, an attenuated or reversed production effect is observed; and (b) to determine the effect of blocking on the within‐subject production effect by comparing the effect across list type (mixed vs. blocked).…”