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Abstract The present experiment examined the relation between the time allotted to process complex bizarre and common sentences (15, 30 or 60 s) and the demonstration of the "bizarreness effect." Sentence recall was superior for bizarre relative to common sentences when presentation times were 30 s or more. No bizarreness effect was evident when presentation times were restricted to 15 s. It was suggested that subjects require an extended amount of time to reorganize complex bizarre sentences into meaningful ones and that it is this process that enhances bizarre sentence recall.
Resume L'experience dont il est question consiste a comparer le temps mis a traiter des phrases complexes bizarres et des phrases ordinaires (15, 30 ou 60 s), et a demontrer I'effet de la bizarrerie. Le rappel etait meilleur pour les phrases bizarres que pour les phrases ordinaires lorsque le temps de presentation durait 30 s ou plus. On n'a constate aucun effet de la bizarrerie lorsque le temps de presentation etait limite a 15 s. On avance l'hypothese que les sujets puissent avoir besoin de plus de temps pour reorganiser les phrases complexes bizarres en phrases signifiantes, et que c'est ce processus qui ameliore le rappel des phrases bizarres.
For more than two decades psychologists have examined the bizarreness effect under controlled laboratory conditions. Operationally the bizarreness effect is defined as the facilitation of recall for bizarre items relative to normal/common ones. In general, the experimental evidence is conflicting and, according to recent reviews (Einstein & McDaniel, 1987; Wollen & Margres, 1987) the bizarreness effect occurs only in limited circumstances.
In brief, (a) the bizarreness advantage is, with few exceptions, demonstrable only in mixed lists, i.e., within subjects designs (McDaniel & Einstein, 1986); (b) the advantage for bizarre items is primarily a free recall effect (Bergfeld, Choate, & Kroll, 1982; Hirshman, Whelley, & Palij, 1989; Kroll & Tu, 1988; McDaniel & Einstein, 1986; Pra Baldi, DeBeni, Cornoldi, & Cavedon, 1985; Webber & Marshall, 1978; Wollen & Cox, 1981a, 1981b); (c) total nouns recalled is a composite measure of the sentence access, i.e., retrieving distinct sentences, and the items - per - sentence, i.e., retrieving items within each sentence. The bizarreness effect is a function of sentence access and not items - per - sentence...