The drawing effect: Evidence for costs and benefits using pure and mixed lists

Abstract

Drawing a referent of a to-be-remembered word often results in better recognition and recall of this word relative to a control task in which the word is written, a pattern dubbed the drawing effect. Although this effect is not always found in pure lists, we report three experiments in which the drawing effect emerged in both pure- and mixed-lists on recognition and recall tests, though the effect was larger in mixed lists. Our experiments then compared drawing effects on memory between pure- and mixed-list contexts to determine whether the larger mixed-list drawing effect reflected a benefit to draw items, a cost to write items, or a combination. In delayed recognition and free-recall tests, a mixed-list benefit emerged for draw items in which memory for mixed-list draw items was greater than pure-list draw items. This mixed-list drawing benefit was accompanied by a mixed-list writing cost compared to pure-list write items, indicating that the mixed-list drawing effect does not operate cost-free. Our findings of a pure-list drawing effect are consistent with a memory strength account, however, the larger drawing effect in mixed lists suggest that participants may also deploy a distinctiveness heuristic to aid retrieval of drawn items.