The generation effect is no artifact: Generating makes words distinctive.

Abstract

The generation effect occurs if people remember items they complete from fragments better than complete items they read. Four experiments investigate two questions. When does the effect occur, and why does it do so? Targets generated in related contexts are recognized better than read targets, and they are recalled better with the contexts as cues; the contexts are recognized equally well, and the relation between the context and target is not enhanced by generation. Furthermore, generated items exceed items read in pure lists even when the read ones from the mixed list are no worse than the controls. The generation effect is real; it is not an artifact. However, there is nothing special about generation. Generating is a type of encoding, and like any other type of encoding, its effects are maximal on tests that require subjects to do again whatever they did at study. Generating makes targets distinctive by contrasting them with other relatives of the context, and, as a result, the targets enjoy benefits in later discriminations within their family.Subjects need to do something to make ANIMAL-H_R_E meaningful that they need not do for ANIMAL-HORSE; horse can be read from HORSE, but it must be generated from H__R_E. The "generation effect" (Slamecka & Graf, 1978; cf. Jacoby, 1978) occurs if generated items are remembered better than items that are read. Many experimenters using many procedures have presented lists of complete items and fragments and have found that the items generated from fragments are remembered better than the read ones. The generation effect transcends even success or failure in the generation task; Kane and Anderson (1978) and Slamecka and Fevreiski (1983; see also McElroy & Slamecka, 1982) found no change in the size of the generation effect if subjects succeeded or failed in the attempt, provided that the complete target was given as feedback after the attempt.Slamecka and Katsaiti (1987) reviewed existing explanations of the generation effect and concluded that none were satisfactory. However, some recent accounts (Hirshman & Bjork, 1988;McDaniel, Waddill, & Einstein, 1988) seem promising. In agreement with these accounts, we will establish

Can we have a distinctive theory of memory?

“…In support of this explanation, researchers have noted that the generation effect in free recall is more robust in mixed-list designs than it is in between-list designs (Begg & Snider, 1987, Slamecka & Katsaiti, 1987. Also, like the effects of bizarre imagery, generation of some items in a mixed list appears to have a negative effect on the recall of the read items in the list (Begg & Snider, 1987;Begg et al, 1989;Schmidt, 1990b, Slamecka & Katsaiti, 1987. These results indicate a strong similarity between the generation effect and other types of secondary distinctiveness.…”

“…Several researchers have attempted to explain the generation effect by invoking the concept of distinctiveness (Begg et al, 1989;Kinoshita, 1989;Schmidt, 1988Schmidt, , 1991. In support of this explanation, researchers have noted that the generation effect in free recall is more robust in mixed-list designs than it is in between-list designs (Begg & Snider, 1987, Slamecka & Katsaiti, 1987.…”

“…McCloskey et al (1988) argued that memory for emotionally traumatic events (flashbulb memories) could be explained in terms of distinctiveness. Several researchers have tried to explain the generation effect in terms of distinctiveness (Begg, Snider, Foley, & Goddard, 1989;Kinoshita, 1989;Schmidt, 1988Schmidt, , 1991. Graf and Ryan (1990) have argued that only distinctive encoding tasks produce "format-specific" effects on tests of implicit and explicit memory.…”

Enactment versus conceptual encoding: Equivalent item memory but different source memory

“…Even with recognition lists of 300 images, 94% of the objects were correctly classified as studied or new. This high accuracy rate confirms the findings of the studies reviewed in the Introduction: action is a very effective encoding aid 4 . However, our finding of equally high item recognition accuracy after Cost encoding suggests that there is no special memory advantage due to active movement during study.…”

“…The current encoding tasks differ from the typical generation paradigm in that participants did not, of course, create the objects during the study phase. However, one factor invoked to explain the generation effect is that generation acts to differentiate studied items from one another and thus create more distinctive memory traces (Begg, Snider, Foley, & Goddard, 1989;Mulligan & Duke, 2002). Both the Perform and Cost encoding tasks are likely to serve this function well; participants employed a large number of different actions within the Perform task, and offered many different cost estimates across objects as well.…”