An Examination of the Factors that determine the Effectiveness of Self-Choice Elaboration : On the Types of Sentence Frames and Image

Two experiments were carried out to investigate whether, or not, two factors, namely the type of sentence frame (bizarre or common) and the image of the sentence frame (image or nonimage) determined the occurrence of a self-choice elaboration effect on incidental memory. A self-choice elaboration effect refers to the superiority of self-choice elaboration to experimenter-provided elaboration. In all experiments, the subjects performed an orienting task involving two conditions (choice and rating) followed by an unexpected free recall and cued recall tests. In the choice condition the subjects selected one sentence frame (from two) into which a specific target could fit more congruously or which, with a target, would arouse a more vivid image. In the rating condition the subjects were required to rate the congruity of each target to its sentence frame, or the vividness of the image that was aroused by each target and its sentence, on a 5-point scale. Four types of sentence frames were provided : bizarre image sentences ; bizarre nonimage sentences ; common image sentences ; and common nonimage sentences. In Experiment I the image of the sentence frame was treated as a between-subjects factor and the type of sentence frame was treated as a within-subjects factor, whereas in Experiment II, the type of sentence frame was treated as a between-subjects factor and the image of sentence frame was treated as a within-subjects factor. In Experiment I self-choice elaboration effects on free and cued recall were not observed in any of the sentence frames. However in Experiment II self-choice elaboration effects on free recall were observed in all except the common image sentence frames. Experiment II also showed that self-choice elaboration effects on cued recall were observed in nonimage sentence frames but not in image sentence frames. These results were interpreted as showing that the type of sentence frame and an image of the sentence frame were determinants of a self-choice elaboration effect on incidental memory