THE REVELATION THAT THE REVELATION EFFECT IS NOT DUE TO REVELATION

The revelation effect is the tendency to call an item on a recognition test ''old'' if it is preceded by a different task interpolated betwe en study and test. Seven experiments explored the generality of the re velation effect across a number of interpolated tasks. A revelation ef fect emerged when a variety of tasks preceded recognition test items; the effect was found for test items that followed a memory-span task, a synonym-generation task, and a letter-counting task. The compatibili ty between the test stimuli and the stimuli that composed the interpol ated task was found to be a critical factor. With words as stimuli on a recognition test, a revelation effect was found when the stimuli in the interpolated task were words and letters. However, when numbers we re the stimuli in the interpolated task, no revelation effect was foun d.