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The generation effect in reading and proofreading

Is it easier or harder to detect errors in one's own writing?

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Abstract

Using a naturalistic text generation and proofreading task, we investigated two questions concerning the effect of text familiarity on proofreading performance. Can experimental evidence be provided for the intuition that it is harder to proofread one's own writing than someone else's? Will the effect of text familiarity on proofreading differ as a function of whether the familiarity is self-generated or experimentally-induced? Subjects spent 30 minutes composing an essay on student life; after a 20 minute interval (Experiment 1) or a two week interval (Experiment 2) they proofread their own essay, another subject's essay after being familiarized on an error-free version of it, or another subject's essay without the benefit of a preview. Experiment 1 showed that subjects wereless able to detect errors (e.g.,The best part of student like is socializing.) in self-generated essays than in unfamiliar other-generated essays; on the other hand, they werebetter able to detect errors in familiar other-generated essays that in unfamiliar ones. Experiment 2 showed that the disadvantage for proofreading self-generated text is likely a by-product of extreme familiarity rather than any special quality of self-generated knowledgeper se. The results have implications for models of skilled reading.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Erindale College, University of Toronto, L5L 1C6, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

    Meredyth Daneman & Murray Stainton

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  1. Meredyth Daneman
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  2. Murray Stainton
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Correspondence to Meredyth Daneman.

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Daneman, M., Stainton, M. The generation effect in reading and proofreading. Read Writ 5, 297–313 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01027393

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