Bizarreness effect

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The bizarreness effect is the idea that bizarre or unusual material is remembered better than ordinary material. But it isn’t guaranteed to appear in every situation; it tends to show up only when the study items vary in how bizarre they are. Some studies argue the effect doesn’t exist or can even hurt memory. In a 1986 paper, McDaniel and Einstein said that being bizarre doesn’t directly improve memory. They suggest bizarre information stands out, and this distinctiveness makes it easier to encode.