When peope are actively involved in generating information (e.g., solving a word fragment), they tend to remember that information better than when they process the information more passively (e.g., hearing a word). This phenomenon—the generation effect—has been applied to numerous settings including the fi eld of education (e.g., teaching, learning, mathematics) and marketing (e.g., advertising). The current study reviewed the applied generation effect literature and then explored this effect within a new applied setting—lyrical censorship. Participants listened to and shadowed an original song which contained a mixture of partially or completely censored nouns. Participants were asked to repeat every word and generate the censored words throughout the song. Results showed an ironic effect of censorship: censored items were remembered signifi cantly better than heard items. Results and implications are discussed.

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