We analyze how the interaction between local and nonlocal dispersions, combined with different types of nonlinearities, influences the smoothing effects of solutions. To achieve this goal, we consider a model that generalizes the KdV and Benjamin equations and demonstrate that its solutions exhibit Kato's smoothing effect and satisfy the propagation of regularity principle. As a result, we confirm that the higher-order dispersive term determines the local gain of fractional regularity of solutions. Our results are general; they not only recover known results for the KdV and Benjamin equations, but also provide new insights for a broader family of models of physical and mathematical interest with polynomial dispersions of arbitrary order.