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The drawing effect: Evidence for costs and benefits using pure and mixed lists

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Abstract

Drawing a referent of a to-be-remembered word often results in better recognition and recall of this word relative to a control task in which the word is written, a pattern dubbed the drawing effect. Although this effect is not always found in pure lists, we report three experiments in which the drawing effect emerged in both pure- and mixed-lists on recognition and recall tests, though the effect was larger in mixed lists. Our experiments then compared drawing effects on memory between pure- and mixed-list contexts to determine whether the larger mixed-list drawing effect reflected a benefit to draw items, a cost to write items, or a combination. In delayed recognition and free-recall tests, a mixed-list benefit emerged for draw items in which memory for mixed-list draw items was greater than pure-list draw items. This mixed-list drawing benefit was accompanied by a mixed-list writing cost compared to pure-list write items, indicating that the mixed-list drawing effect does not operate cost-free. Our findings of a pure-list drawing effect are consistent with a memory strength account, however, the larger drawing effect in mixed lists suggest that participants may also deploy a distinctiveness heuristic to aid retrieval of drawn items.

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Notes

  1. Because hit and false alarm rates were perfect for many participants (1.00 or 0.00, respectively), we focus our analyses on raw recognition rates versus a hits-minus-false-alarms correction or dꞌ using signal detection. A signal-detection analysis requires a correction for asymptotic values (e.g., MacMillan & Creelman, 1988), and most participants would have required at least one corrected score to compute dꞌ due to ceiling hits or floor false alarms which would have distorted the dataset.

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Authors’ note

Data collected were used for partial fulfillment of the Honor’s thesis requirements for P.P. Subject level data reported are available on our Open Science Framework page (osf.io/5wx4m).

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  1. The University of Southern Mississippi, 118 College Drive #5025, Hattiesburg, MS, 39406, USA

    Mark J. Huff, Jacob M. Namias & Peyton Poe

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  1. Mark J. Huff
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Correspondence to Mark J. Huff.

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Data for Experiments 1, 2, and 3 are available at osf.io/5wx4m. Study materials are available upon request.

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Huff, M.J., Namias, J.M. & Poe, P. The drawing effect: Evidence for costs and benefits using pure and mixed lists. Mem Cogn (2024). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-024-01551-6

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