Pretesting boosts recognition, but not cued recall, of targets from unrelated word pairs
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BRIEF REPORT
Pretesting boosts recognition, but not cued recall, of targets from unrelated word pairs Tina Seabrooke 1 & Chris J. Mitchell 2 & Andy J. Wills 2 & Timothy J. Hollins 2
# The Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2020
Abstract Attempting to retrieve the answer to a question on an initial test can improve memory for that answer on a subsequent test, relative to an equivalent study period. Such retrieval attempts can be beneficial even when they are unsuccessful, although this benefit is usually only seen with related word pairs. Three experiments examined the effects of pretesting for both related (e.g., pond-frog) and unrelated (e.g., pillow-leaf) word pairs on cued recall and target recognition. Pretesting improved subsequent cued recall performance for related but not for unrelated word pairs, relative to simply studying the word pairs. Tests of target recognition, by contrast, revealed benefits of pretesting for memory of targets from both related and unrelated word pairs. These data challenge popular theories that suggest that the pretesting effect depends on partial activation of the target during the pretesting phase. Keywords Memory . Learning . Testing . Pretesting
Introduction Tests have been hailed in recent years as effective and efficient studying tools (e.g., McDaniel, Anderson, Derbish, & Morrisette, 2007). It is well established that retrieving information from memory on an initial test can improve memory on later tests (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006). An important question, however, is when tests should be introduced. Traditional learning theorists argued that testing prematurely would be counterproductive, because failed tests could create confusion (Skinner, 1958; Terrace, 1963). Others strongly disagree, however, arguing that waiting until errors can be safely avoided wastes valuable study time (e.g., Kornell & Vaughn, 2016; Metcalfe, 2017). These researchers cite carefully controlled experiments that suggest that, just like successful tests, failed tests can be beneficial. Kornell, Hays, and Bjork (2009) developed a pretesting procedure to examine the effects of failed tests on memory. Their participants first studied a list of weakly associated cue* Tina Seabrooke [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
2
Faculty of Health and Human Sciences, Psychology, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK
target word pairs (e.g., pond-frog), by either studying each pair for the trial duration (Read condition), or by guessing the target for each cue before it was revealed (Generate condition). Since the word pairs were only weakly related, the participants’ guesses on Generate trials were usually wrong. Nevertheless, the participants recalled more Generate targets than Read targets in a subsequent cued-recall test, and this pattern remained even when only trials involving incorrect guesses were analysed. Kornell et al. (2009) therefore showed that failed tests were constructive – an effect known as the pretesting effect. Several theories have been pro
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