Listen "Bizareness Effect"
Episode Synopsis
The bizarreness effect is a psychological phenomenon defined as the increased likelihood of people remembering information that is strange or unusual compared to information that is mundane or expected. This effect has a significant impact on memory recall. Memory training experts have long advocated associating information with bizarre imagery to improve recall. The effect typically occurs when bizarre and common information are intermixed. While complex stimuli are generally less conducive to the effect, it can emerge with sufficient processing time. Key theoretical explanations include the distinctiveness account, which suggests that the uniqueness of bizarre items leads to extra processing, and the elaborative processing view, which states that bizarre stimuli attract more attention and require more working memory resources. Crucially, the bizarreness effect also heavily relies on retrieval processes, often only appearing when common and bizarre items are recalled togetheThe Entire Behavioural Science Reading List on Amazon https://amzn.to/4juLQTM
More episodes of the podcast Behavioural Science Explained
Empathy Gap
19/09/2025
Effort Justification
15/09/2025
Denomination Effect
12/09/2025
Defensive Attribution Hypothesis
08/09/2025
Declinism
05/09/2025
Curse of Knowledge
01/09/2025
Cue-Dependent Forgetting
29/08/2025
Cross-race Effect
25/08/2025
Contrast Effect
22/08/2025
Contagion Effect
20/08/2025