In a verbal interaction, people take turns speaking. Later, they may have difficulty remembering certain parts of the interaction. In particular, they may not recall what was said just before they began to speak. Previous research indicates that this next-in-line memory deficit reflects a failure at encoding, rather than retrieval. The current study assessed two explanations for the next-in-line encoding failure. One explanation locates the failure in a peripheral encoding operation, eye contact; the other locates it in a central operation, elaborative rehearsal. In the current study, verbal elaboration eliminated the next-in-line effect, and eye contact did not. As these results suggest, the next-in-line memory deficit reflects a failure at elaborative rehearsal.
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