THE ITEM-ORDER DISTINCTION AND THE GENERATION EFFECT - THE IMPORTANCEOF ORDER INFORMATION IN LONG-TERM-MEMORY

The item-order distinction has been useful in explaining memory dissoc iations in short-term retention tasks. It generally has been assumed t hat serial order information is beneficial to long-term retention as w ell, although the distinction has received little empirical attention. Recently it was shown that generating items at input, rather than sim ply reading them, hinders processing of serial order information. This reduction in order processing has been implicated in the lack of gene ration effects in between-list designs. Experiment 1, using typical ge neration effect procedures, showed that generation inhibited order rec onstruction performance. Experiment 2 showed that order reconstruction was hindered even when categorically related lists; were used. Experi ment 3 demonstrated that generation inhibited order reconstruction in an incidental learning procedure. The results suggest that order proce ssing is relatively automatic and that generation constantly inhibits it. The results support the view that the item-order distinction may b e a powerful explanatory tool in longterm memory research.