The production effect through the looking glass

Words that are spoken aloud are remembered more effectively in relation to words that are read silently; this is known as the production effect. This study investigated what effects cognitive demand has on the production effect, in order to explore the limits of this robust effect. Additional cognitive demand was introduced by using mirror-reversed words. A convenience sample of 19 participants was recruited for this study (7 females and 12 males). The mean age of participants was 29.9 years (range 18 to 50, SD = 11.1). All participants studied mixed lists of words; half that were to be read aloud and the other half to remembered silently. Some participants saw these words normally (a 'Standard group'), while others saw them mirror-reversed (a 'Mirrored' group). All participants were then tested on these words using a recognition test, once after study and once more the day after. Results show a clear production effect both on the day of study and after. However, there was no significant difference between the Standard and Mirrored groups, suggesting that cognitive demand had no significant effect on the production effect in this study. However, this may be due to a lack of a large enough sample size.