The generation effect extended: Memory enhancement for generation cues

Greenwald, Anthony G.; Johnson, Mitzi M. S.

doi:10.3758/bf03202628

Cited by 30 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…They therefore prudently deferred drawing any firm conclusion as to whether or not generation also increases recall of the cue words, pending further replication. Recently, however, Greenwald and Johnson (1989) reported a generation effect for the recall of the stimulus terms of related pairs when they were cued with the response terms. Their results are thus consistent with our proposed explanation for the lack of a context effect for generated items.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of repetition of mental operations on memory for occurrence and origin

Rabinowitz

1990

Mem Cogn

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In two experiments, subjects read or generated items at both encoding and retrieval. At test, they were required to decide whether or not the targets were presented initially (recognition), and if so, whether they were initially read or generated (judgments of origin). Recognition for items that were initially generated was enhanced if they were once again generated at test in the same context, but not if they were generated at test without context. These results confirm that memory for occurrence is facilitated by repetition of the initial encoding operations at retrieval. Generating at test resulted in an increase in "generate" responses both for items that were initially generated and for items that were initially read. Overall, there was a decrease in the accuracy of origin discriminations. It is suggested that, when subjects generate at test, they are likely to mistakenly attribute these just-performed operations to be part of the memory trace for that item.Understanding the cogrutive operations, or mental processes, by which we perceive and imagine events is a central focus of cognitive psychology. More recently, it has been argued that repetition of cognitive operations is a critical determinant, or perhaps, the determinant of remembering (Kolers, 1975(Kolers, , 1979Kolers & Roediger, 1984). The focus of this paper is to examine further the effect of repetition of cognitive operations on memory for occurrence and to begin to explore the effects of repetition of cognitive operations on memory for the origin, or source, of a remembered event.Glisky and Rabinowitz (1985) reported that repetition of the same cognitive operations during retrieval as those that were performed during encoding resulted in an increase in recognition. We required subjects to read target words or generate words from word fragments (e.g., AL-OHO-). At test, they were again required to read or generate the words before making recognition decisions. In addition to the standard generation effect of better memory for the items presented as fragments (Slamecka & Graf, 1978), we observed what we called a specific generation enhancement effect. For those items that were initially generated, recognition performance was improved if they were generated again, rather than read, at test. There was no effect of reading or generating at test for those items that were initially read. We therefore argued that a complete account of the generation effect must include a specific processing component. Records of cognitive operations are stored as part of the memory trace of the stimulus event Kolers, 1975Kolers, , 1979Russo & Wisher, 1976). Repeating the same operations at test as those that were performed at encoding facilitates access to the memory trace of which those operations are a part. This view is supported by two additional findings. First, a generation enhancement effect was not observed when the letters that were missing from the target at retrieval were different from the letters missing at encoding (AL-OH-L). Thus, the generation enhancem...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of repetition of mental operations on memory for occurrence and origin

Rabinowitz

1990

Mem Cogn

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“…This difference between cued recall and recognition was critical to their theoretical argument. Indeed, they argued that the only other relevant study (Greenwald & Johnson, 1989, Experiment 2) had found a significant generation effect for cue words in recognition because cued recall had preceded recognition, thereby contaminating it. Although we cannot dispute their criticism, the same claim cannot be applied to the present experiment.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reenacting the route to interpretation: Enhanced perceptual identification without prior perception.

Masson¹,

MacLeod²

1992

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

152

218

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Memory for processing a stimulus event may be expressed indirectly through more fluent processing of that stimulus on a later occasion. In 11 experiments, enhanced identification of words presented under visual masking was measured following events that involved reading target words or generating them from semantic cues. Amount of enhancement was related not to whether a word was actually seen on its first presentation, but to the degree to which it was integrated with its encoding context-integration led to less enhancement. It is proposed that 2 sets of operations are carried out during encoding. Interpretive encoding operations construct a context-sensitive interpretation of the stimulus and are optionally followed by elaborative encoding operations. Enhanced word identification due to memory for a prior episode is determined by the fluent reenactment of interpretive encoding operations applied during that episode.In their everyday use of the word, people usually think of remembering as a single act. This is evident in the frequent analogy to locating a book on a library shelf: The routine is done essentially the same way every time. But cognitive psychologists have shown over and over that, as appealing as the library analogy may be, it is not appropriate for describing memory. Remembering is not a single routine; it is a family of skills that we learn to use alone or in combination to meet the demands placed on us by our contexts.To understand memory, then, a key step will involve categorizing different types of remembering, finding commonalities among superficially different acts of remembering. In the past decade, this enterprise has focused particularly on a distinction between two ways of remembering-the deliberate recollection of specific episodes and the fluent application of memory for past experience to current task performance. Situations in which we deliberately attempt to remember have been called direct or explicit tests of memory (Richardson-

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“…Begg, Snider, et al (1989) found no cases in which recall of contexts cued by generated targets exceeded recall of contexts cued by read targets. Greenwald and Johnson (1989) found a generation effect in recall of contexts, but the small effect was reliable only when experiments were combined, and there was a strong generation effect in memory for the targets; perhaps the generation effect in recall of contexts occurred because more of the targets were recognized when they were given as cues. McDaniel and Waddill (1990) found a more substantial effect, but there was no unique generation effect in recall of the contexts; there were strong effects of generation on recall of targets.…”

Section: Generated Targets Benefit From Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, recognition memory for horse is better if the original stimulus was tiger-h-r-e rather than tigerhorse, but recognition of tiger is equally good in both cases (Begg, Snider, et al, 1989;see also Slamecka & Graf, 1978). In two recent articles, generation effects have been reported for contexts (Greenwald & Johnson, 1989;McDaniel & Waddill, 1990): Greenwald and Johnson found a generation effect in recognition of contexts, but the recognition test followed a recall test; McDaniel and Waddill tested recognition of contexts unconfounded by a previous test, and did not find a generation effect. Hence, the generation effect in recognition is item-specific, and the target is the item.…”

Section: Generated Targets Benefit From Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Generating makes words memorable, but so does effective reading

et al. 1991

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In many experiments, memorial benefits have been found when subjects generate items from fragments rather than read items in their complete forms. Does generation cause this difference, or are subjects disposed to adopt different strategies when generating as opposed to reading? If generating causes the difference, items processed in the same way apart from a generative stage should therefore benefit from that generative stage. Our experiments did result in benefits for generating as opposed to reading, but only when the readers processed the words poorly-by pronouncing them. When the readers processed the items well, by imagining them, generating was no better than reading. A new generation effect was found in metamemory. Subjects thought they would remember more generated items than read items; however, the act of making the prediction entailed meaningful processing, and the generated items were not actually remembered better than the read ones.

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The generation effect extended: Memory enhancement for generation cues

Cited by 30 publications

References 18 publications

Effects of repetition of mental operations on memory for occurrence and origin

Effects of repetition of mental operations on memory for occurrence and origin

Reenacting the route to interpretation: Enhanced perceptual identification without prior perception.

Generating makes words memorable, but so does effective reading

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