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Generation and mnemonic encoding induce a mirror effect in the DRM paradigm

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Abstract

Encoding tasks that increase memory accuracy are appealing from both practical and theoretical perspectives. Within the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, we found that generating list words from anagrams (relative to reading) produced a mirror effect: enhanced recognition of studied words coupled with a reduction in false recognition. Signal detection analyses suggest that the increase in correct recognition was due to enhanced item-specific encoding of the list words, whereas the reduction in false recognition was due to enhanced strategic monitoring at test (i.e., a distinctiveness heuristic), rather than to reduced relational encoding at study. Further support for a distinctiveness heuristic account was obtained using both “theme judgment” instructions and within-group conditions. In our final experiment, we replicated this mirror effect using a purely mnemonic (self-referential) encoding task, showing that extra perceptual cues are not necessary to induce participants to adopt a successful memory-improvement strategy at test.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, T2N 1N4, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Raymond W. Gunter, Glen E. Bodner & Tanjeem Azad

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  1. Raymond W. Gunter
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  2. Glen E. Bodner
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  3. Tanjeem Azad
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Correspondence to Glen E. Bodner.

Additional information

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada supported this research through a postgraduate scholarship to R.W.G. and a research grant to G.E.B.

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Gunter, R.W., Bodner, G.E. & Azad, T. Generation and mnemonic encoding induce a mirror effect in the DRM paradigm. Memory & Cognition 35, 1083–1092 (2007). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193480

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