A Positive Generation Effect on Memory for Auditory Context

Amy A. Overman, Alison G. Richard, Joseph D. W. Stephens

Self-generation of information during memory encoding has large positive effects on subsequent memory for items, but mixed effects on memory for contextual information associated with items. A processing account of generation effects on context memory (Mulligan in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30(4), 838-855, 2004; Mulligan, Lozito, & Rosner in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 32(4), 836-846, 2006) proposes that these effects depend on whether the generation task causes any shift in processing of the type of context features for which memory is being tested. Mulligan and colleagues have used this account to predict various negative effects of generation on context memory, but the account also predicts positive generation effects under certain circumstances. The present experiment provided a critical test of the processing account by examining how generation affected memory for auditory rather than visual context. Based on the processing account, we predicted that generation of rhyme words should enhance processing of auditory information associated with the words (i.e., voice gender), whereas generation of antonym words should have no effect. These predictions were confirmed, providing support to the processing account.