Auditory presentation at test does not diminish the production effect in recognition

Three experiments investigated whether auditory information at test would undermine the relational distinctiveness of vocal production at study, diminishing the production effect. In Experiment 1, with visual presentation during study, the production effect was equivalently large regardless of whether participants read each test word out loud prior to making their recognition decision. In Experiment 2, incorporating auditory presentation during study, the production effect was unaltered by whether recognition test words were presented visually or auditorily. In Experiment 3, the authors manipulated whether presentation was visual or auditory both at study and at test. Once again, presentation modality at test did not affect the size of the production effect, although the effect was significantly smaller when words were presented auditorily at study. These experiments demonstrate that production at the time of study stands out as distinct above and beyond auditory information. Moreover, this distinct aloud information need not "stand out" against a background of silent unstudied words on a recognition test. Consistent with the distinctiveness account, encoding via production enhances later recognition consistently, regardless of study or test modality. (PsycINFO Database Record