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The article Aging and the production effect: a test of the distinctiveness account, written by Olivia Lin and Colin MacLeod focuses on the issue of distinctive productiveness through saying words aloud and its benefits for improving the remembering among older adults. Taking into consideration various findings, the authors foreground the advantages of the production effect, which helps to recall and recognize said aloud meaningful words or material. The encoding and retrieval play also a significant function in improving memory. Moreover, the distinctiveness of the words pronounced aloud makes them easier to remember due to the self-production and comparison with non-distinctive words. Still, the decline in source memory, judgments of learning and reality monitoring among elderly can also aggravate the production effect and distinctiveness. Stimuli, which are considered to be the means to improve memory, often are insufficient and automatic. Therefore, the production effect of saying things aloud can be simple to perform and simultaneously efficient to boost memory. The procedure of the experiment, including study, recall and recognition is used to prove the stated above. In order to show the effect of distinctive production, the juxtaposition between the rates of recall and recognition of younger and older adults is applied. The findings show that in spite of the lower recall rates among older adults in comparison with the younger participants, recognition rates stay almost on the same high level, foregrounding advanced remembering of the silently read words. Therefore, the experiment highlights that due to the distinctive production of the words aloud the older participants showed advanced rates of remembering the words in spite of earlier discussed decline in remembering. Difficulties in monitoring memory appeared to be inconsistent in the described above case. However, a deficit in the use of distinctive encoding in older adults is the reason of the reduced production effect, which still has a beneficial effect, improving the memory of the older adults and being one of the successfully used mnemonic strategies.

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The article under consideration presents a structured, well-organized and detailed literature analysis, concerning the topic of the research. Since the main issue of aging and production effect with the test of distinctiveness account has not been investigated before as the single problem, the review of the available research literature appears to be a solid theoretical basis for the current research. The authors analyzed such problems as interpolated recall and recognition, distinctive processing manipulations, the influence of age on the memory, pronunciation effect in recognition memory, the concept of distinctiveness, the associative memory, a false recall, recognition memory, etc. in order to include all relative theories and findings into their research and exclude secondary or insignificant information. The listed references show the deep scope into the subject, beginning with the pioneer investigation of Postman, Jenkings and Belbin and ending with the most current scientific contributions of Butler, Darley, Cardiger, Houriham, Rabinowitz, Ozubko, etc. in the field of experimental psychology. The research under consideration belongs also to the sphere of experimental psychology and makes therefore the valuable contribution not only with its theoretical but also practical findings for the issue of distinctness and production effect for the memory improving in older adults. The significance of this study lies also in its concrete aim and strong arguments to support it. The authors profoundly analyze the difference between the aloud and silent words, the influence of the pronunciation on their perception, as an important aspect of remembering. They also, distinguish between the meaning of the aloud and silent words, avoiding making them extremely distinct, in order not to produce an addition impact on the study. According to Hunt (2006), Ozubko, et al (2012) and Craik et al (1987), the concept of distinctiveness is crucial for the recall and recognition, but it should not be artificially promoted. The researchers followed this principle, concentrating their main attention on the self-production of words by the younger and older adults. Therefore, they exposed the

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participants to a simple task they can do in everyday life in order to show the practical significance, results and application of the findings. The main method used for this psychological research appeared to be an experiment. All participants were recruited from the Waterloo Research in Aging Participant and from the University of Waterloo, ranging in the age with a mean of 75.7 (standard deviation 6.04) and 22 years old. Informed consent was obtained from all participants. Moreover, all younger and older adults were healthy, had normal or correct to normal vision, and spoke English fluently (Lin and MacLeod, 2012, p.213). 120 words, divided into certain categories were chosen for the experiment form the Appendix of MacDonald and MacLeod. The special controlling program was written for the computer, which was also the main tool for the experiment. Therefore, taking into consideration all these preparations, it is true to state that the laboratory experiment was thoroughly prepared and well-thought. The procedure of the experiment included three phases: study, recall and recognition (Lin and MacLeod, 2012, p.213). The participants were randomly assigned to one of the two groups and reported no difficulty in following the rules. The Table 1 was used to depict the result of the recall and recognition both of aloud and silent words by younger and older adults. The age was meant as a between-subject variable and the condition (aloud or silent) was meant as a within-subject variable, which resulted in a structured and easy to follow outcomes. Moreover, age appeared to be an active ingredient of the research. For the adequate calculation of the results, the researchers applied various procedures, like Macrae and MacLeod or ANOVA. The following description of the results and their analysis is conducted, complying with the requirements. Statistical methods are used adequately and also descriptively, helping to exemplify the findings, discrepancies between the expected results and achieved ones. False alarm rates are also marked during the study. However, they are not included into the discussion because of being redundant. All measures, applied during

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the analysis support the conclusion, highlighting logical way to it. The discussion of the outcomes is intermingled with the literature analysis, which helps to support certain ideas with scientifically relevant data from the previous studies. The authors juxtapose the achieved outcomes with the findings of another researches and report their consistency. Still, new findings foreground also inconsistency of some studies as with memory monitoring effect, etc. The main conclusion drawn from the study underpins the distinctiveness account of the production effect, which improves the remembering of older adult through aloud words (Lin and MacLeod, 2012, p.213). Thus, the experimental study, discussed above is a well-structured and scientifically grounded research that adequately uses a special laboratory experiment for the psychological research. All tools and procedures for the data analysis correspond to the goal of the study and add greatly to its efficient realization. References Craik, F.I. and McDowd, J.M. (1987). Age differences in recall and recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 13, 474-479. Hunt, R.R. (2006). The concept of distinctiveness in memory research. In R.R. Hunt and J.B. Worthen (Eds), Distinctiveness and Memory. New York: Oxford University Press, 3-25. Lin, O.Y. and Macleod, C.M. (2012). Aging and the production effect: a test of the distinctiveness account. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 66 (3): 212-216. McLeod, S.A. (2007). Psychology Research Methods. Retrieved from: <http://www.simp lypsychology.org/research-methods.html>. Ozubko, J.D., Gopie, N. and MacLeod, C.M. (2012). Production benefits both recollection and familiarity. Memory and Cognition, 40, 326-338.

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Smith, R.E., Lozito, J.P. and Bayen, U, J. (2005). Adult age differences in distinctive processing: the modality effect on false recall. Psychology of Aging, 20, 486-492.