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Published on: November 30, 2018
On the generality of the revelation effect
1Department of Psychology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106-7123, USA. dlw5@po.cwru.edu
Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition
|September 1, 1996
Summary
The revelation effect, where distorted items initially appearing are recognized as old, is robust across various experimental conditions. This finding challenges existing explanations based on familiarity or response bias.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Memory Research
Background:
- The revelation effect describes the tendency to judge initially distorted items as familiar.
- Existing theories attribute this effect to increased familiarity or response bias.
Purpose of the Study:
- To demonstrate the robustness of the revelation effect across diverse experimental paradigms.
- To challenge current explanations of the revelation effect.
Main Methods:
- Seven experiments were conducted using anagrams as the distortion method.
- Varied designs (within- and between-subjects), tasks (frequency judgment, list discrimination), and stimuli (new targets, cross-modal presentation, mismatched revealed words).
Main Results:
- A significant revelation effect was consistently observed across all seven experiments.
- The effect persisted regardless of design, task, or stimulus variations.
Conclusions:
- The revelation effect is a robust phenomenon in memory recognition.
- Findings challenge explanations solely based on familiarity or response bias, suggesting alternative mechanisms may be involved.
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