Evaluating the Role of Distinctiveness in the Generation Effect

Abstract

According to the distinctiveness interpretation, generating words from word fragments leads to more distinctive memory traces than reading intact words. As a test of this hypothesis, the generation effect was experimentally compared to three phenomena previously attributed to distinctiveness. Experiments 1 and 2 proved that the generation effect was unlike conceptual and encoding task distinctiveness. In Experiment 3 the generation effect and the effects of orthographic distinctiveness were compared. These two manipulations had similar effects on memory, but the effects were additive-challenging the hypothesis that the generation effect is a result of the unusual appearance of tobe-generated items. Thus, the generation effect is inconsistent with current theories of distinctiveness. The results were consistent with the hypothesis that generated items receive more encoding resources than read items, and that increased attention to generated items may be at the expense of attention to intact items in the list.When people are asked to supply missing material from to-be-remembered items, memory (as tested on explicit memory tests) is better than when the items are presented intact. This phenomenon, called the "generation effect", has received a great deal of attention. The generation effect is obtained under a variety of conditions and with a variety of materials, and it has been found Requests for reprints should be sent to

Can we have a distinctive theory of memory?

“…First, words to be generated may actually share features (e.g., blanks replacing letters) and thus form their own conceptual group. As a result, when several generated items are embedded in a list of read items, the generated items are clustered in recall (Schmidt, 1991). Second, contrary to the conclusions of Begg and Snider (1987) and Slarnecka and Katsaiti (1987), the generation effect has been reported in some between-subjects designs (Hirsh-man & Bjork, 1988;McDaniel, Waddill, & Einstein, 1988), a result inconsistentwith the effects of 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.…”

Recognition of script-typical versus script-atypical information: Effects of cognitive elaboration

“…Superior memory performance for information encoded under generate conditions as opposed to read conditions is well established for many measures of memory and several experimental designs (see, e.g., Burns, 1990). This generation effect has been attributed to an increase in elaborative semantic encoding (Graf, 1982), conceptually driven processes (Blaxton, 1989;Roediger, Weldon, & Challis, 1989), and the mobilization of attentional and other cognitive resources during information generation (Fiedler, Lachnit, Fay, & Krug, 1992;S. R. Schmidt, 1992).…”

Short-term recall of order information: Influence of encoding and generation processes on distinctiveness, isolation, and background effects

“…As witnessed by the negative background effect (and by the trend toward Schmidt, 1992, for a similar observation). Indeed, in the generate condition, memory was better for the absent (distinctive) letter than for the present (nondistinctive) letters.…”