Give me enough time to rehearse: presentation rate modulates the production effect

This paper uses the production effect to test one of the important predictions of a view of memory that is embodied in the Revised Feature Model (RFM). When to-be-recalled lists contain items both read aloud and silently, words read aloud are less well recalled at the beginning of the list and better recalled at the end. According to the RFM, producing the items by reading them aloud adds distinctive features which supports recall, but production also interferes with rehearsal – a process that operates more significantly at the start of a list. This critical role assigned to rehearsal has never been systematically tested. We do this here through a systematic literature review and an experiment that manipulates presentation rate. With a faster presentation rate, rehearsal is less likely; the implication is that the advantage observed for silently read items in the primacy positions should vanish, while the recency advantage for produced items should remain. The systematic review collected an initial sample of 422 unique articles on the production effect in immediate serial recall and revealed the predicted pattern. In addition, in our experiment, the presentation rate was manipulated within an immediate serial recall task (500, 1,000, and 2,000 ms/word). As predicted, the recency advantage for produced items was observed for all presentation speeds. Critically, the production disadvantage for early serial positions was only present for the two slowest rates, but not at the fastest speed. Results were successfully modeled by calling upon the RFM.