Research has shown that after being encoded, self-reference effect is more effective when it comes to recalling memory than semantic encoding. As researchers have found that the self-reference effect goes more hand and hand with elaborative rehearsal. Which elaborative rehearsal is more often than not, found to have a positive correlation with the improvement of retrieving information from memories. Then being compared to other methods such as semantic encoding. Also, it's important to know that studies have concluded that self-reference effect can be used to encode information among all ages. However, they have determined that an older sample is limited in their use of the self-reference effect when being tested with a younger sample.