Bertsch Sharon, Pesta Bryan J, Wiscott Richard, McDaniel Michael A
University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown, Pennsylvania 15904, USA.
Mem Cognit. 2007 Mar;35(2):201-10. doi: 10.3758/bf03193441.
The generation effect refers to the finding that subjects who generate information (e.g., produce synonyms) remember the information better than they do material that they simply read. Meta-analytic techniques were used to summarize 445 effect sizes over 86 studies, thereby assessing the magnitude and 11 potential moderators of the generation effect. The size of the generation effect across the 86 studies was .40--a benefit of almost half a standard deviation of generation over reading. The variability of the effect size due to moderator type was substantial, and we attempted to use this information to clarify several theories that have been proposed to explain the generation effect.
生成信息（例如，产生同义词）的受试者比仅仅阅读材料的受试者能更好地记住信息。采用元分析技术总结了86项研究中的445个效应量，从而评估了生成效应的大小和11个潜在调节因素。86项研究中生成效应的大小为0.40——生成比阅读的优势几乎达到半个标准差。由于调节因素类型导致的效应量变异性很大，我们试图利用这些信息来阐明为解释生成效应而提出的几种理论。
