What causes the semantic elaboration benefit in long-term memory?

Semantic elaboration refers to the process by which to-be-remembered information is integrated into a pre-existing network of knowledge. Elaboration improves retrieval from long-term memory. For instance, words are better remembered when processed with semantically congruent rather than incongruent orienting questions. Elaboration is a well-established and widely referenced concept in memory research. Yet, studies investigating the mechanisms underlying its benefit for memory are scarce. Most prominently, elaboration has been assumed to benefit memory by producing distinct representations. In two experiments, we directly manipulated the distinctiveness of semantically processed memory representations. Participants either processed only one feature of a word with three different orienting questions, or they processed three features of a word. Processing three features did not lead to better memory performance than processing only one. Thus, our results provide firm evidence against distinctiveness as an explanation of the elaboration benefit.