Abstract
The effects on memory of two types of bizarre sentences (rarely occurring, or atypical, and never occurring, or illogical) were investigated in comparison with those of common sentences. In Experiment 1, the effects of these three types of sentences, which were presented for 7 sec, were measured in mixed-list conditions. Evidence for the bizarreness effect (advantageous memorial effects of bizarre sentences over common ones) was found only with atypical and common sentences. In Experiment 2, the stimulus presentation time was 35 sec; free-recall and sentence-access performance were superior for the illogical sentences as opposed to the common and the atypical sentences. A proposal based on the assumption that subjects tend to spontaneously modify sentence structure is suggested.
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This article is based in part on a thesis submitted by S. Imai to the Department of Psychology, Wake Forest University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master’s degree. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance and editorial comments of Robert C. Beck, Ron Cobb, Gilles 0. Einstein, and Cathy Seta. This research was supported by the Wake Forest University Research and Publication Fund to C. L. Richman.
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Imai, S., Richman, C.L. Is the bizarreness effect a special case of sentence reorganization?. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 29, 429–432 (1991). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333962
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333962