Generation effect (learning)

The generation effect refers to the robust finding that information will be better remembered if it is generated rather than simply read. For example, you are more like to remember the word "orangutan" if you generate it from the fragment "or_ng_ta_" than if you simply see the word in its entirety.

Generation Effect in Experiments
The generation effect is usually achieved in cognitive psychology experiments where participants are asked to generate words from word fragments. It has also been demonstrated using a variety of other materials, such as when generating a word after being presented with its antonym or synonym, generating keywords in paragraphs, pictures, and arithmetic problems. In addition, the generation effect has been found in studies using free recall, cued recall, and recognition tests.

Lexical activation hypothesis
Researchers have struggled to account for why generated information is better recalled than read information, but no single explanation has been sufficient. According to the lexical activation hypothesis, the participant must search his or her semantic memory during the process of generation. The search activates semantic features in memory that are related to the target item. During the retrieval of the target item at testing, the semantic features serve as retrieval cues and aid in the recall of the target item.

Procedural account
The procedural account, which builds upon the lexical activation hypothesis, argues that people are more likely to engage in particular cognitive procedures during the encoding of items when generating than when reading. The process of generation induces people to connect the item to information in memory (unlike the lexical activation hypothesis, the information in memory does not necessarily reside in the lexicon). The generation effect occurs if the procedures used during encoding are reinstated during the memory test.

Multifactor transfer-appropriate processing account
According to the multifactor transfer-appropriate processing account, the generation task forces participants to focus their processing on the type of information needed to solve the generation task. When a later test is sensitive to the same type of information, a generation effect occurs. When, however, there is not a match between the type of information processed to solve the generation task and the type of information needed to do well on a later test, the generation effect does not occur. For example, a participant that is required to generate same-category targets from distinctive semantic cues (e.g., PURR-C_T, SADDLE-H_RS_) is likely to notice similarities between the targets (e.g., they are all animals). This type of manipulation would promote whole-list relational processing, which may enhance generation performance on a free recall test. Other manipulations can emphasize cue-target processing, thus helping generation performance on cued recall tests.

Limitations
By manipulating materials or instructions, experimenters have reduced or eliminated the generation effect. This suggests that there are instances in which reading can have the same memorial gains as generating. For example, when participants are given instructions to process information in a manner that was similar to the processing performed by the participants in the generate condition, the generation advantage between the groups was eliminated. In another study, participants who used a processing strategy (imagery) that was more effective than reading performed just as well as those who generated.

Although the generation effect is a robust finding, there are some studies that have found no memorial benefits of generating compared to reading. For example, one study did not find the generation effect when they used legal nonwords and found a reduced generation effect when they used material unfamiliar to the participants. They concluded that generating may have limited effectiveness when applied to new or unfamiliar material. This warrants some concern because if generation is to be incorporated into educational practices such as classroom teaching, we would want it to help students learn new material.

It is possible that generation may cause a trade-off in encoding item information and associative information. The processing of item-specific features of the target item may be enhanced when generating, and generating may also enhance the processing of cue-target relation. But, encoding requires limited-capacity resources, so the better encoding of one type of information may occur at a cost to the encoding of other information. This also has implications for applying generation to educational practices because even if generation improves the recall of specific words, the memory for the contextual information surrounding those words may suffer.

Practical applications
The generation effect appears promising as a strategy for learning, particularly for remembering educational material. Currently, researchers at UCLA and UC Berkeley are investigating ways to incorporate learning strategies such as the generation effect, as well as other "desirable difficulties", into the classroom.

There are some ways that you could use generation to aid in memory retention. Here are some examples:
 * Read a section of your book. Then, close the book and generate (and answer) questions about what you just read.
 * If there are review questions at the end of a chapter, answer those questions without looking back at the pages.
 * Use flashcards to test yourself.
 * If you are an educator (or if you want write a practice test for a friend), create tests that require fill-in-the-blank, short answer, or essay responses rather than multiple-choice responses.