The generation effect as an artifact of selective displaced rehearsal

Abstract

Four experiments on the generation effect of free recall were reported. Experiment 1 used a within-lists design that showed the generation effect with unilingual, but not bilingual, pairs. Experiment 2 had a between-lists design and found no effect with either kind of pairs. Experiment 3 contracted the two design types with unilingual materials, and obtained generation effects only for the mixed-list arrangement. Experiment 4 prevented displaced rehearsal in a mixed-list arrangement, and found no generation effects. It was concluded that the generation effect of recall is an artifact of selective displaced rehearsal that strengthens generated items at the expense of read items. It was also argued that these data render extant theories of the effect untenable. © 1987.