Characterizing production: the production effect is eliminated for unusual voices unless they are frequent at study.

The production effect refers to the finding that items read aloud are better remembered than items read silently. This is often explained with reference to distinctiveness, arguing that aloud items become associated with distinctive sensorimotor features that facilitate retrieval at test. Based on this framework, more distinctive forms of production should result in larger production effects. The present study tested this theory by having participants study items silently or aloud in either their own voice or as a popular character. Participants were then tested for those items using recognition memory. Relative to silent items, aloud items read in the participants' own voice demonstrated a typical production effect; however, contrary to any predictions, no production effect was observed for the character voices. We next manipulated how frequently the character voice was used relative to the participants' own voice. This revealed a production effect for character voices only when those voices were more common than the participant's own voice. This pattern could not be attributed to cognitive demands or performance anxiety but was predicted by a novel computational account based on the Retrieving Effectively from Memory (REM) model. Our results show that the relation between distinctiveness and memory is not necessarily linear.

Production can enhance semantic encoding: Evidence from forced-choice recognition with homophone versus synonym lures.

The production effect-better memory for words read aloud rather than silently-has been attributed to responses at test being guided by memory for the act of production. In Experiment 1, we evaluated this distinctiveness account by comparing production effects in forced-choice recognition when lures were either homophones of the targets (toad or towed?) or unrelated words (toad or seam?). If the production effect at test was driven solely by memory for the productive act (e.g., articulation, auditory processing), then the effect should be reduced with homophone lures. Contrary to that prediction, the production effect did not differ credibly between homophone-lure and unrelated-lure groups. Experiment 1 led us to hypothesize that production may also boost semantic encoding, and that participants use memory of semantic encoding to guide their forced-choice responses. Consistent with these hypotheses, using synonym lures to interfere with semantic-based decisions (poison or venom?) reduced the production effect relative to using unrelated lures (poison or ethics?) in Experiment 2. Our findings suggest that enhanced conceptual encoding may be another useful product of production.