Self-generated elaboration and spacing effects on incidental memory.
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of self-generated elaboration on incidental memory as a function of type of presentation (massed vs spacing). Subjects generated answers to "why" questions for target sentences in a self-generated elaboration condition. They then rated the appropriateness of the answers to the questions presented by the experimenter in an experimenter-provided elaboration condition. This procedure was followed by free recall tests. The target sentences were presented twice, in either a massed presentation without intervening items between the first and the second presentation or spaced presentation in which 5 items appeared between the two presentations. The self-generated elaboration effect, namely, higher recall, of self-generated elaboration over experimenter-provided elaboration, occurred with spaced but not with massed presentation. So, self-generated elaboration was facilitated in the spaced presentation because the time between the first and the second presentations led to richer encoding of each target.
Toyota
Hiroshi
H
Department of Psychology, Nara University of Education, Nara-City, 630-8528 Japan. toyotah@nara-edu.ac.jp
Kikuchi
Yasuko
Y
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D011939:Mental Recall; D013995:Time