Episodic Memory
Production Effect Task
Also called: reading aloud effect, aloud versus silent reading, typing and memory
Type some words and read others silently, then recognize them among new words. Measures how much producing a word helps memory.
7-10 minUntimed
Free to start: 10 free participants per account, then $0.99 per participant for academic research, or any yearly plan. Try it here first, with no account.
- Papers, 2021 to 2025
- 14
- Evidence grade
- D
- Registered clinical studies
- 0
What it measures
Measures the memory benefit of producing a word. In one list, some words are typed and others read silently; a recognition test then shows them among new words. A setting asks for reading aloud instead of typing, which the screen cannot check.
Constructs
- Production effect
- Distinctive encoding
- Recognition memory
- Episodic memory
Research uses
- Memory and learning research
- Education research on study strategies
- Research on distinctiveness in memory
How the paradigm works
The Production Effect Task measures how much producing a word helps people remember it. MacLeod and colleagues (2010) gave the effect its name: in a list where some words are read aloud and the others silently, the words read aloud are recognized more often later. Forrin, MacLeod and Ozubko (2012) found the same benefit, though smaller, for words that are typed, written or mouthed.
More about the paradigm
In this version, one list mixes words marked "Type it" with words marked "Read it silently", one at a time. Each word stays on the screen for 6 seconds, enough to tap the box and type a word on a phone. A word to type has a text box under it; a silent word shows itself again in the same place, as Forrin and colleagues showed an echo of each silent word, so the two kinds differ only in the typing. After 30 seconds of true-or-false arithmetic, a recognition test shows every studied word among as many new words, one at a time, answered Yes or No with no time limit. The standard list has 20 words of each kind and the test 80 words; a setting allows 12 to 20 of each kind. The words are concrete nouns written for this task in each of the eight app languages, and each session gives every word its role at random.
Typing is the standard because it works in a shared room and on a phone, and because the screen can see what was typed: the share of words to type that were typed is reported. A setting asks for reading aloud instead, each word shown for 2 seconds as in MacLeod and colleagues' Experiment 3. Nothing is recorded from a microphone, so the screen cannot tell whether a word was read aloud.
The main score is the production effect: the hit rate for produced words minus the hit rate for silent words. The hit rates, the false alarm rate for new words, corrected recognition and d′ for each kind are also reported. The effect is largest when produced and silent words are mixed in one list, as here, and with 20 words of each kind one person's effect is noisy, so it is best used to compare groups. Scores support research and do not diagnose.
Scores
- Production Effect%
- Hit rate for produced words minus hit rate for silent words.
- Positive means produced words were recognized more often
- Hit Rate, Produced Words%
- Share of produced words answered Yes.
- Higher is better
- Hit Rate, Silent Words%
- Share of silently read words answered Yes.
- Higher is better
- False Alarm Rate%
- Share of new words answered Yes.
- Lower is better
- Corrected Recognition, Produced Words%
- Produced hit rate minus the false alarm rate.
- Higher is better
- Corrected Recognition, Silent Words%
- Silent hit rate minus the false alarm rate.
- Higher is better
- d′, Produced Wordsd'
- z(produced hit rate) minus z(false alarm rate), with the log-linear correction.
- Higher is better
- d′, Silent Wordsd'
- z(silent hit rate) minus z(false alarm rate), with the log-linear correction.
- Higher is better
- Recognition Accuracy%
- Test answers right: Yes for studied words, No for new ones.
- Higher is better
- Words Typed%
- Share of the words to type that have any typed text; empty in the aloud mode.
- Shows the typing was done
- Words Typed Correctly%
- Share of the words to type that were typed as shown, allowing one letter off in longer words; empty in the aloud mode.
- Shows the typing was done
- Median Answer Timems
- Median time to answer a test word.
- Context for the rates
- Anticipationscount
- Test answers under 100 ms, left out of every rate.
- Lower is better
- Words Testedcount
- Test words shown.
- Informational
- Delay Arithmetic Accuracy%
- Share of the true-or-false arithmetic answered correctly in the delay.
- Shows the delay task was done
Use and evidence
14 papers from 2021 to 2025 name this task in their title or abstract, about the same as from 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 432 of 495 test families in our census. See the counts for every test.
Show the numbers
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 5 |
| 2024 | 6 |
| 2023 | 2 |
| 2022 | 1 |
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2020 | 1 |
| 2019 | 2 |
| 2018 | 2 |
| 2017 | 1 |
| 2016 | 8 |
| 2015 | 1 |
| 2014 | 2 |
| 2013 | 5 |
| 2012 | 3 |
| 2011 | 0 |
| 2010 | 1 |
| 2009 | 0 |
| 2008 | 0 |
| 2007 | 1 |
| 2006 | 0 |
| 2005 | 0 |
| 2004 | 1 |
| 2003 | 0 |
| 2002 | 0 |
| 2001 | 0 |
| 2000 | 0 |
Use grade E
Fewer than 30 papers from 2021 to 2025.
Evidence grade D
Little published measurement evidence found.
- Papers on test-retest reliability
- 0
- Papers on reliability or validity
- 1
- Registered clinical studies using it as an outcome
- 0
Note on the counts: counted with specific phrases, since 'production effect' also names effects in economics and farming; undercounts.
How the grades work
Use: A is 1,000 or more papers from 2021 to 2025, B 300 to 999, C 100 to 299, D 30 to 99 and E fewer than 30. Evidence: A means at least 25 papers report its test-retest reliability and at least 25 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome; B, at least 8 test-retest papers, and either 5 registered clinical studies or 150 reliability or validity papers; C, at least 2 test-retest papers, 30 reliability or validity papers or 3 registered clinical studies; D, little published measurement evidence found. The counts measure use. They include every paper that names the task in its title or abstract. Grades describe the published research on this task, not ConductCognition's version of it.
Source: ConductCognition test census 0.22.0, counted 2 November 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
Task design
The trial sequence as the test runs in ConductCognition.
- Study
- One list of 40 words (standard; 24 to 40), each shown for 6,000 ms with a 500 ms gap: 20 marked “Type it” (standard; 12 to 20 of each kind) and 20 marked “Read it silently”, mixed with no more than 4 of a kind in a row. A typed word has a box under it; a silent word shows itself again in the same place.
- Aloud mode
- A setting marks the words to produce “Read it aloud” instead, each word shown for 2,000 ms. Nothing is recorded, so the screen cannot tell whether a word was read aloud.
- Delay
- 30 seconds (standard; 0 to 120) of true-or-false arithmetic.
- Test
- Every studied word among as many new words, one at a time, answered Yes or No with no time limit and no feedback; no more than 4 studied or new words in a row.
- Words
- Concrete nouns written for this task in each of the eight languages; each session gives every word its role at random.
- Scores
- The production effect: the hit rate for produced words minus the hit rate for silent words. Hit and false alarm rates, corrected recognition and d′ for each kind, and the share of words to type that were typed.
- Practice
- 4 words, 2 of each kind, before the list.
MacLeod and colleagues (2010) had people read some words aloud and others silently, and Forrin and colleagues (2012) found that typing words helps memory too, though less than saying them. Typing is the standard here because it works in a shared room and on a phone, and the data show what was typed. Reading aloud is a setting, and the screen cannot tell whether a word was read aloud. The effect is largest when produced and silent words are mixed in one list, as here. Compare groups rather than reading one person's score. The words were written for this task in eight languages; no published word list is used. The scores support research and do not diagnose.
Quality checks
Each session is marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason, before you see its scores.
Scored rows: production_effect_test from the scored run, one Yes or No answer per test word, half of them studied and half new, with the study list and the delay arithmetic from the same run. Accuracy significantly below chance (one-sided exact binomial, p < .05, chance 50%) invalidates; accuracy not above chance over 10 or more answers is flagged. The same answer on 90% of the words invalidates when accuracy is not above chance. Answers under 200 ms on at least half of 4 or more answered words invalidate. Fewer than 90% of the planned test words answered invalidates. In the typing mode, text on fewer than half the words to type is flagged and withholds the percentile. No arithmetic answered in the delay, or delay arithmetic at or below chance over at least 10 answers, is flagged. A hidden tab withholds the percentile.
Why these rules
Half the test words were studied and half are new, so guessing gives 50%: Accuracy significantly below chance (one-sided exact test, p < .05) cannot come from guessing; it means the response mapping was reversed or the task was not followed (Slick, Sherman and Iverson 1999 treat below-chance forced-choice performance as definite response bias). Chance-level accuracy can be a real result in impaired participants, so it is only flagged. One option on at least 90% of answered trials, when the correct options are balanced and accuracy is not above chance, means the answers did not depend on the items (the task counterpart of long-string responding in surveys; Curran 2016). An answer under 200 ms is faster than a simple visual reaction, so it cannot reflect the item. Following response-time effort screening for untimed tests (Wise and Kong 2005), the session is invalid only when at least half the answers are that fast. The instructions ask for Yes on every studied word, typed or read, so accuracy is judged over both kinds; the effect itself, which may be zero or negative, is never judged. A typing mode with few words typed may have run as silent reading throughout; in the aloud mode the screen cannot tell, so nothing is flagged there. Skipping the delay arithmetic means that part of the procedure may not have been followed. A hidden tab lets the study, delay or response timers run without the participant, so a percentile is withheld after one.
No percentile. Scores and quality flags only.
Running this test
Settings you can change
| Setting | Standard | Allowed |
|---|---|---|
| Production | Type the word (standard) | Type the word (standard), Read the word aloud |
| Words of each kind | 20 | 12 to 20 |
| Delay before the test (seconds) | 30 | 0 to 120 |
Yearly plans can change settings within these limits. Free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Need a setting this test does not have?
Devices and languages
- Untimed test: runs on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. Participant devices
- Languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese.
- Available on: Every plan, including the free plan.
- No percentile. Scores and quality flags only. How norms work
- Recruiting online? See the setup guides for Prolific, Sona Systems, CloudResearch Connect and Qualtrics.
Cite and describe
Participants completed the Production Effect Task in a web browser (ConductCognition task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0; MacLeod, Gopie, Hourihan, Neary & Ozubko, 2010), with the standard settings (production: Type the word; words of each kind: 20; delay before the test (seconds): 30). The main score was production effect (hit rate for produced words minus hit rate for silent words).
ConductCognition versions: task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0. Every export records the versions each session used, for a methods section.
- MacLeod, C. M., Gopie, N., Hourihan, K. L., Neary, K. R., & Ozubko, J. D. (2010). The production effect: Delineation of a phenomenon. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36(3), 671-685. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018785The production effect in a mixed list, tested by recognition.
- Forrin, N. D., MacLeod, C. M., & Ozubko, J. D. (2012). Widening the boundaries of the production effect. Memory & Cognition, 40(7), 1046-1055. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-012-0210-8Typing as the production, and a silent word shown again in place of the typed copy.
- MacLeod, C. M., & Bodner, G. E. (2017). The production effect in memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(4), 390-395. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417691356
Source papers
- MacLeod CM, Gopie N, Hourihan KL, Neary KR, Ozubko JD (2010). The production effect: Delineation of a phenomenon. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36(3):671-685.Paradigm source
- Forrin ND, MacLeod CM, Ozubko JD (2012). Widening the boundaries of the production effect. Memory & Cognition, 40(7):1046-1055.Paradigm source
Questions
How long does the Production Effect Task take?
About 7 to 10 minutes, as listed in the test library.
What device does a participant need?
Untimed test: runs on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. The browser must be Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari.
What scores does it produce?
Production Effect, Hit Rate, Produced Words, Hit Rate, Silent Words, False Alarm Rate, Corrected Recognition, Produced Words, Corrected Recognition, Silent Words, d′, Produced Words, d′, Silent Words, Recognition Accuracy, Words Typed, Words Typed Correctly, Median Answer Time, Anticipations, Words Tested and Delay Arithmetic Accuracy. Each session is also marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason.
How widely is the Production Effect Task used in research?
14 papers from 2021 to 2025 name it in their title or abstract, about the same as from 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 432 of 495 test families in the ConductCognition test census (use grade E). Source: ConductCognition test census 0.22.0, counted 2 November 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
How much reliability evidence does the Production Effect Task have?
In the published research, 0 papers report its test-retest reliability and 0 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome (evidence grade D in the ConductCognition test census).
Does it report a percentile?
No. Scores and quality flags only.
Which settings can a researcher change?
Production (Type the word (standard), Read the word aloud), words of each kind (12 to 20) and delay before the test (seconds) (0 to 120). Settings can be changed on yearly plans; free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Which languages can participants use?
Participants can take this test in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese, with its words in the same language. English is on every plan, and the other languages come with yearly plans. Have a native speaker read the machine-translated text before launch.
Is this a clinical test?
No. ConductCognition is for research use only. It runs, scores and exports the test; clinical interpretation is outside the platform.
Every test: the full test list.
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