The production effect: the role of attentional resources

The production effect is the benefit in memory found for produced (i.e., read aloud) words relative to words read silently. It is proposed that the production effect occurs as a result of the enhanced distinctiveness associated with the produced items. The current research investigated whether attentional resources are required to encode and/or retrieve the distinctive information associated with the produced words. The literature suggests that the encoding of this distinctive information occurs automatically, but at test, purposeful attention is required to retrieve this distinctive information. To test this, participants read words aloud and silently, under either full or divided attention. Participants then completed either a recognition (Experiment 1) or free recall (Experiment 2) memory test under either full or divided attention. The findings show that when attention is divided at encoding, the benefit for aloud words remains for both recognition and free recall. When attention is divided at test, however, the benefit for aloud words remains for recognition but is absent for free recall. Overall, these results suggest that the distinctive information associated with produced words is encoded automatically, but it may not be accessible at test under attentionally demanding conditions.

Exploring the Role of Parental Hearsay when Children Witness a Crime

In cases of potential child abuse, parents may provide hearsay testimony on behalf of a child, retelling events from the child’s perspective. However, according to the limited research that exists, parents may have a negative impact on their child’s memory of an event (Principe, DiPuppo, & Gammel, 2013). In order to gain a better understanding of parental hearsay, parents’ descriptions of information children provided in recorded parent-child discussions were compared to the actual information the children provided in the initial discussion and in a 1-week follow-up interview. Children interviewed by parents were also compared to children interviewed by a trained interviewer. To date, 11 children between the ages of 6-9 years have been assessed. While the current sample size was too small to yield many significant results, graphs and effect sizes suggest there are differences in memory accuracy and completeness between parents and children and across children’s interview condition. Whether hearsay testimony or children’s testimony is preferable may depend on how suggestive the initial parent-child discussion is.