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The enactment effect is due to more than guesses and beliefs
Author(s) -
HELSTRUP TORE
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9450.2004.00403.x
Subject(s) - psychology , recall , social psychology , subject (documents) , space (punctuation) , cognitive psychology , computer science , library science , operating system
Three experiments examined whether the enactment effect – that is, higher recall of enacted than of corresponding non‐enacted information – might be explained by guessing rates and performance expectancies. Experiment 1 checked whether the guessing rate of target items would be higher as a result of a narrowed sampling space defined by the enactment condition. By means of pre‐experimental instructions, the subjects in Experiments 2 and 3 were induced to expect respectively a positive enactment effect, a negative enactment effect, or no difference in amount of recall of enacted and non‐enacted materials. Experiment 2 had a within‐subject design, Experiment 3 a between‐subject design. The experiments failed to support the proposed explanations.