The self-choice elaboration effects on incidental memory of Japanese historical facts

Self-Corrected Elaboration and Spacing Effects in Incidental Memory

The present study investigated the effect of self-corrected elaboration on incidental memory as a function of types of presentation (massed vs spaced) and sentence frames (image vs nonimage). The subjects were presented a target word and an incongruous sentence frame and asked to correct the target to make a common sentence in the self-corrected elaboration condition, whereas in the experimenter-corrected elaboration condition they were asked to rate the appropriateness of the congruous word presented, followed by free recall test. The superiority of the self-corrected elaboration to the experimenter-corrected elaboration was observed only in some situations of combinations by the types of presentation and sentence frames. These results were discussed in terms of the effectiveness of the self-corrected elaboration.

Self-generated elaboration and spacing effects on incidental memory

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of self-generated elaboration on incidental memory as a function of type of presentation (massed vs spacing). Subjects generated answers to "why" questions for target sentences in a self-generated elaboration condition. They then rated the appropriateness of the answers to the questions presented by the experimenter in an experimenter-provided elaboration condition. This procedure was followed by free recall tests. The target sentences were presented twice, in either a massed presentation without intervening items between the first and the second presentation or spaced presentation in which 5 items appeared between the two presentations. The self-generated elaboration effect, namely, higher recall, of self-generated elaboration over experimenter-provided elaboration, occurred with spaced but not with massed presentation. So, self-generated elaboration was facilitated in the spaced presentation because the time between the first and the second presentations led to richer encoding of each target.

Self-corrected elaboration effects on incidental memory

Subjects performed an orienting task involving 3 conditions followed by an unexpected free recall test. The conditions were designed to force 3 types of corrected elaborations: Generated Correction, Chosen Correction, and No Correction. In the Generated Correction condition the subjects were presented with a target word (e.g., Baby) and a bizarre sentence frame (e.g., "____drinks beer.") and asked to correct the target to a congruous word (e.g., Uncle) to make a common sentence. In the Chosen Correction condition, the subjects were presented with a target and its bizarre sentence frame and asked to choose one of the alternative congruous words (e.g., Uncle, Aunt) to make a common sentence. In the No Correction condition, the subjects were presented with a target and its bizarre sentence frame and asked to rate the congruity of each target to its sentence frame. Generated Correction led to a better performance than Chosen Correction and No Correction, but a difference between the last two correction types was not found. These results were interpreted as showing that, by generating correct information, self-corrected elaboration led to facilitation of incidental memory.

Changes across Age Groups in Self-Choice Elaboration Effects on Incidental Memory

The present study investigated age differences in the effects of a self-choice elaboration and an experimenter-provided elaboration on incidental memory. Adults, sixth grade, and second grade subjects chose which of two sentence frames the target fit better in a self-choice elaboration condition. They then judged whether each target made sense in its sentence frame in the experimenter-provided elaboration, then did free recall tests. Only adults recalled better the targets with an image sentence with self-choice elaboration, rather than experimenter-provided elaboration. However, self-choice elaboration was far superior for the recall of targets with nonimage sentences only for second graders. Thus, the effects of self-choice elaboration were determined both by age and by type of sentence frame.

Effects of types of elaboration on children's memories of a story: interaction with academic performance

Two experiments compared the effectiveness of three types of elaboration on incidental and intentional memory for a story: self-generated, self-choice, and experimenter-provided elaboration. In Exp. 1, using the incidental memory paradigm, second graders listened to a fantastic story and then, in the self-generated condition, answered a "why" question about a particular topic in the story. In the self-choice condition, they chose one of the alternative answers to the question and in the experimenter-provided condition, judged the appropriateness of each of two provided answers. This was followed by free-recall and cued-recall tests. Subjects were categorized into two groups, good and poor academic achievers in terms of academic scores in four subject matter areas. For good academic achievers, self-choice elaboration led to a better cued recall than the other two elaboration types. The cued-recall performance of poor achievers was not different with the three conditions. In Exp. 2, using the intentional memory paradigm, the subjects intended to learn a different story and then performed the same procedure as Exp. 1. For poor achievers, self-choice elaboration led to a worse free recall than the other elaboration types, but the free recall of good achievers was not significantly different for the three types of elaboration. The results were interpreted as showing that the effects of self-choice elaboration on incidental and intentional memory were correlated with subjects' academic performance.

Changes across age groups in self-choice elaboration and incidental memory

This study investigated differences in the self-choice elaboration and an experimenter-provided elaboration on incidental memory of 7- to 12-yr.-olds. In a self-choice elaboration condition 34 second and 25 sixth graders were asked to choose one of the two sentence frames into which each target could fit more congruously, whereas in an experimenter-provided elaboration they were asked to judge the congruity of each target to each frame. In free recall, sixth graders recalled targets in bizarre sentence frames better than second graders for self-choice elaboration condition. An age difference was not found for the experimenter-provided elaboration. In cued recall self-choice elaboration led to better performance of sixth graders for recalling targets than an experimenter-provided elaboration in both bizarre and common sentence frames. However, the different types of elaboration did not alter the recall of second graders. These results were interpreted as showing that the effectiveness of a self-choice elaboration depends on the subjects' age and the type of sentence.