Effects of Self-Corrected Elaboration to Sentence Frames on Incidental Memory

The purpose of the present study was to compare the effect of self-corrected elaboration, with that of self-generated elaboration on the incidental memory of a target in an incongruous sentence. In Experiment I, the subjects performed an orienting task involving three types of elaboration: self-corrected, self-generated, and experimenter-provided elaboration. An unexpected free recall followed. In the condition of self-corrected elaboration the subjects were asked to generate a word to replace a word in each sentence frame so that the relationship between the target and the sentence frame was more congruous. In the condition of self-generated elaboration they were asked to generate a correct word to fit the context of each sentence frame. In the condition of experimenter-provided elaboration they were asked to rate the appropriateness of a target in the context of each sentence frame. Self-corrected and self-generated elaboration led to a better free recall than the experimenter-provided elaboration, but the difference between the former two type of elaborations was not observed. In Experiment II, an orienting task involved three types of elaboration: self-corrected, self-generated, and experimenter-corrected elaboration. Self-corrected and self-generated elaboration led to a better free recall than experimenter-corrected elaboration, but a difference between the first two elaborations was not observed. As there was no difference between self-corrected elaboration and self-generated elaboration, Experiment III using the bizarre imagery sentence frames compared the subjects' performance with these two elaborations, but a difference between the two was not observed. In Experiment IV, an orienting task involved self-generated, and self-corrected, elaboration, but both types of sentence frame, congruous and incongruous, were involved in the self-corrected elaboration condition. However a difference was not observed for the two types of elaboration. No difference of performance between the self-corrected and the self-generated elaboration was discussed in terms of type of memory on which each elaboration depended: semantic and episodic memor