Monitoring item and source information: Evidence for a negative generationeffect in source memory

Item memory and source memory were assessed in a task that simulated a soci al conversation. Participants generated answers to questions or read statem ents presented by one of three sources (faces on a computer screen). Positi ve generation effects were observed for item memory. That is, participants remembered topics of conversation better if they were asked questions about the topics than if they simply read statements about topics. However, a ne gative generation effect occurred for source memory. That is, remembering t he source of some information was disrupted if participants were required t o answer questions pertaining to that information. These findings support t he notion that item and source memory are mediated, as least in part, by di fferent processes during encoding.