Two experiments were designed to elucidate effects of elaboration on recall and recognition. The experiments were carried out in incidental memory paradigms, where subjects were instructed first to produce free associates to target words, then they were forced to face an unexpected memory test. Here, the degree of elaboration was identified with the number of generated words at the free association task. Recall performance was significantly higher for targets which generated the more associates (Exp. I). In recognition, no clear effects of elaboration were found for long presented targets (Exp. I, II), however increased elaboration was associated with higher retention when targets were presented for short periods (Exp. II). These results were interpreted in terms of a three process model of retrieval.
