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An investigation of paradoxical memory effects

Profile image of Michael PalijMichael Palij

1989, Journal of Memory and Language

Abstract
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The paper investigates the expectation-violation effect, where weakly related word pairs are better remembered than strongly related pairs, and proposes that this effect arises from surprise responses that enhance associations to general contextual cues. It extends the concept to the bizarre-imagery effect, positing that bizarre sentences are remembered better due to increased contextual associations caused by surprise. Through a series of experiments, the research demonstrates the empirical regularities between these effects and suggests that the bizarre-imagery effect can occur without explicit encoding instructions, while also diminishing when the presence of bizarre sentences is acknowledged.

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