Familiarity, relative distinctiveness, and the generation effect

Abstract

In Experiment 1, psychology experts and novices showed generation effects with both psychology-related and other words. In Experiment 2, music experts who were sports novices and sports experts who were music novices showed a generation effect in a recognition test for all words regardless of domain (music or sports). Moreover, the effect was greater for words from the subjects' "nonexpertise" area. In Experiments 3A and 3B, music experts showed a greater generation effect for sports words than for music words in a free recall test but only when the sports and music words were studied together. These results are inconsistent with the semantic elaboration requirement for the generation effect that predicts less of an effect, if any, with less familiar materials. Rather, they provide evidence for the idea that the generation effect is influenced by relative distinctiveness of the to-be-remembered items.