The ‘reverse‐generation’ effect: A comparison of memory performance between blind and sighted children

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Abstract
Three studies are reported which investigate word priming and memory in congenitally blind and sighted children. Two conditions were of particular interest, a neural condition, where children read aloud or repeated a word, and a generate condition, where children supplied a target word to a close semantic associate given as a cue. Later, memory for those items was tested and although the two groups did not differ in overall performance a marked interaction across group and condition was noted. The sighted children showed a significant ''generation'' effect (Slamecka and Graf, 1978), where active involvement in a word task led to increased memory. In contrast, the congenitally blind remembered relatively less material when active participation was required, showing a ''reverse-generation'' effect. The results are discussed with reference to the effect on memory of data and conceptually driven processing in the study phase. It is tentatively suggested that the congenitally blind may show different learning strategies from the sighted as a result of allocating more attention to sensory information processing.

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