THE CONSEQUENCES OF GENERATION

Seven experiments are reported showing that encoding conditions producing a typical generation effect (better memory for generated than for previously read items) in cued recall and in recognition produce a negative generation effect (better memory for previously read than for generated items) in free recall, as well as a clustering advantage for the previously read items. Taken together, the experiments supported the hypothesis that generation enhanced stimulus-response and/or response-specific processing, but interfered with response-relational processing (i.e., associating responses in the list). In addition, this interference effect was caused by subject failure, in the generate conditions, to process the response-relational information after generating the targets, despite ample time to do so. The results are discussed in relation to both the multifactor theories of the generation effect and the transfer-appropriate procedures approach to explaining dissociations between implicit and explicit tests of memory. © 1992.