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Release from generation failure: the role of study-list structure

Release from generation failure: the role of study-list structure
Release from generation failure: the role of study-list structure
Three experiments, using the original encoding-specificity paradigm, investigated the role of study list structure in producing Higham and Tam's (2005) generation failure effect. Generation failure occurs when cued recall performance for strong, extralist cues is worse than target production in a control group that is given no study list but is instead required merely to generate responses to the same test cues. In the present study, generation failure was replicated in Experiment 1, and Experiment 2 demonstrated that strong, extralist cues were more likely to elicit targets in pure generation groups when participants had studied a list of strong associates than when they had studied a list of weak ones. In Experiment 3, participants were released from generation failure when a study list of moderate associates was used and the cue-to-target associative strength was equated between the reinstated- and extralist-cue conditions. Together, these results suggest that generation failure is partly attributable to participants' searching inappropriate domains that, though consistent with the study list structure, are unlikely to contain targets.
0090-502X
148-157
Higham, P. A.
4093b28f-7d58-4d18-89d4-021792e418e7
Tam, H.
310ef7ae-bbad-447e-a0db-62a3fbf1a342
Higham, P. A.
4093b28f-7d58-4d18-89d4-021792e418e7
Tam, H.
310ef7ae-bbad-447e-a0db-62a3fbf1a342

Higham, P. A. and Tam, H. (2006) Release from generation failure: the role of study-list structure. Memory & Cognition, 34 (1), 148-157. (doi:10.3758/BF03193394). (PMID:16686114)

Record type: Article

Abstract

Three experiments, using the original encoding-specificity paradigm, investigated the role of study list structure in producing Higham and Tam's (2005) generation failure effect. Generation failure occurs when cued recall performance for strong, extralist cues is worse than target production in a control group that is given no study list but is instead required merely to generate responses to the same test cues. In the present study, generation failure was replicated in Experiment 1, and Experiment 2 demonstrated that strong, extralist cues were more likely to elicit targets in pure generation groups when participants had studied a list of strong associates than when they had studied a list of weak ones. In Experiment 3, participants were released from generation failure when a study list of moderate associates was used and the cue-to-target associative strength was equated between the reinstated- and extralist-cue conditions. Together, these results suggest that generation failure is partly attributable to participants' searching inappropriate domains that, though consistent with the study list structure, are unlikely to contain targets.

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Published date: 2006

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 18312
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/18312
ISSN: 0090-502X
PURE UUID: 5a420e95-a2e4-41f2-8858-803f2b6d3194
ORCID for P. A. Higham: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-6087-7224

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Date deposited: 13 Jun 2006
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 03:18

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Contributors

Author: P. A. Higham ORCID iD
Author: H. Tam

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