Avoidance of overlearning characterises the spacing effect

The spacing of a fixed amount of study time across multiple sessions usually increases subsequent test performance—a finding known as the spacing effect. In the spacing experiment reported here, subjects completed multiple learning trials, and each included a study phase and a test. Once a subject achieved a perfect test, the remaining learning trials within that session comprised what is known as overlearning. The number of these overlearning trials was reduced when learning trials were spaced across multiple sessions rather than massed in a single session. In addition, the degree to which spacing reduced overlearning predicted the size of the spacing effect, which is consistent with the possibility that spacing increases subsequent recall by reducing the occurrence of overlearning. By this account, overlearning is an inefficient use of study time, and the efficacy of spacing depends at least partly on the degree to which it reduces the occurrence of overlearning.     

When does testing enhance retention? A distribution-based interpretation of retrieval as a memory modifier

Tests, as learning events, can enhance subsequent recall more than do additional study opportunities, even without feedback. Such advantages of testing tend to appear, however, only at long retention intervals and/or when criterion tests stress recall, rather than recognition, processes. We propose that the interaction of the benefits of testing versus restudying with final-test delay and format reflects not only that successful retrievals are more powerful learning events than are re-presentations but also that the distribution of memory strengths across items is shifted differentially by testing and restudying. The benefits of initial testing over restudying, in this view, should increase as the delay or format of the final test makes that test more difficult. Final-test difficulty, not the similarity of initial-test and final-test conditions, should determine the benefits of testing. In Experiments 1 and 2 we indeed found that initial cued-recall testing enhanced subsequent recall more than did restudying when the final test was a difficult (free-recall) test but not when it was an easier (cued-recall) test that matched the initial test. The results of Experiment 3 supported a new prediction of the distribution framework: namely, that the final cued-recall test that did not show a benefit of testing in Experiment 1 should show such a benefit when that test was made more difficult by introducing retroactive interference. Overall, our results suggest that the differential consequences of initial testing versus restudying reflect, in part, differences in how items distributions are shifted by testing and studying.     

Testing the limits of testing effects using completion tests

Recent work on testing effects has shown that retrieval practice can facilitate memory even for complex prose materials (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006a, 2006b). In three experiments the current study explores the effectiveness of retrieval practice on fill-in-the-blank (FITB) tests requiring the recall of specific words or phrases from a text. Final tests included both repeated items that were directly taken from initial tests, and related items. In Experiment 1, with a 2-day delay between initial and final tests, FITB testing benefited performance only on repeated items. In Experiment 2 a 7-day delay between testing sessions led to more robust effects on repeated items. However, once again no benefits were seen for related items. In Experiment 3 the scope of retrieval was varied by comparing FITB tests to paragraph recall tests requiring retrieval of all sentences following a topic sentence. Only the more open-ended recall practice demonstrated improvements in transfer to novel questions. The results suggest that scope or type of processing required during retrieval practice is likely a critical factor in whether testing will have specific or robust benefits.     

Testing the limits of testing effects using completion tests

Recent work on testing effects has shown that retrieval practice can facilitate memory even for complex prose materials (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006a, 2006b). In three experiments the current study explores the effectiveness of retrieval practice on fill-in-the-blank (FITB) tests requiring the recall of specific words or phrases from a text. Final tests included both repeated items that were directly taken from initial tests, and related items. In Experiment 1, with a 2-day delay between initial and final tests, FITB testing benefited performance only on repeated items. In Experiment 2 a 7-day delay between testing sessions led to more robust effects on repeated items. However, once again no benefits were seen for related items. In Experiment 3 the scope of retrieval was varied by comparing FITB tests to paragraph recall tests requiring retrieval of all sentences following a topic sentence. Only the more open-ended recall practice demonstrated improvements in transfer to novel questions. The results suggest that scope or type of processing required during retrieval practice is likely a critical factor in whether testing will have specific or robust benefits.     

Level of initial training moderates the effects of distributing practice over multiple days with expanding,contracting, and uniform schedules: Evidence for study-phase retrieval

Inconsistent results have been obtained in experiments comparing the effects on retention of expanding, contracting, and uniform practice schedules, in which the spacing between successive practice sessions progressively increases, progressively decreases, or remains constant, respectively. In the present study, we experimentally assessed an apparent trend in the literature for expanding schedules to be more advantageous than other schedules following a low level of training during the initial learning session, but not following a high level of initial training. College students studied pseudocword–word pairs in multiple practice sessions distributed over a 13-day period according to expanding, contracting, and uniform schedules. During their initial learning session, participants received either low-level training (two study trials) or high-level training (one study trial and then five rounds of practice testing with corrective feedback). All participants were treated identically in the subsequent practice sessions. A final cued-recall test after a two-week retention interval revealed an expanding-schedule superiority following low-level initial training but not following high-level initial training. These results are interpreted in terms of a study-phase-retrieval mechanism and help explain the mixed results obtained in the prior literature.     

Learning Painting Styles: Spacing is Advantageous when it Promotes Discriminative Contrast

Repetitions that are distributed over time benefit long‐term retention more than when massed. Recent research has suggested that the advantage of spacing may extend to induction learning‐‐learners were better able to identify the artists of previously unseen paintings when, during training, artists' paintings were spaced (paintings by different artists were interleaved) rather than massed (a given artist's paintings were blocked and presented consecutively). Increasing temporal spacing between paintings while maintaining a presentation sequence that was blocked by artist produced test performance no better than massed presentation (both worse than interleaved presentation) (Experiment 1). Displaying paintings by different artists simultaneously produced test performance as good as interleaved presentation and better than massed presentation (Experiment 2). Our findings argue that spacing benefits perceptual induction learning not because of increased temporal spacing per se but rather because interleaving paintings by different artists enhances discriminative contrast between the artists' styles. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Metacognitive control in self-regulated learning: Conditions affecting the choice of restudying versus retrieval practice

In two experiments, learners studied word pairs one or two times and took a final cued recall test. They studied each pair upon its initial presentation and decided whether they would restudy it later, take a practice test on it later (retrieval practice), or forego all further practice with the pair. Whether learners preferred restudying or testing depended upon conditions. Regardless of whether practice tests were followed by feedback, they chose to take practice tests relatively more often when items were easy and the lag or spacing interval between the first and second occurrence was short, whereas they chose to restudy relatively more when items were hard and the lag was long. That is, they preferred testing under conditions in which successful retrieval on the practice test was likely. In Experiment 2, we varied the number of points each item was worth if recalled on the final test. A high point value led to a marked increase in both the preference for testing when the lag was short and the preference for restudying when the lag was long. Results support the hypothesis that learners appreciate at some level that retrieval practice can be a more effective learning strategy than restudying. However, they appear to believe that successful retrieval is necessary to reap the benefits of retrieval practice. As a consequence, their tendency to choose testing is influenced by conditions (item difficulty and spacing interval) that affect the likelihood of successful practice-test retrieval.     

When additional multiple‐choice lures aid versus hinder later memory

Three experiments were conducted to investigate whether increasing the number of lures on a multiple‐choice test helps, hinders or has no effect on later memory. All three patterns have been reported in the literature. In Experiment 1, the stimuli were unrelated word lists, and increasing the number of lures on an initial multiple‐choice test led to better performance on later free recall and cued recall tasks. In contrast, in Experiments 2 and 3, stimuli were facts from prose materials, and increasing the number of multiple‐choice lures led to robust costs in cued recall and smaller costs in free recall. The results indicate that performance on the initial multiple‐choice test is a critical factor. When initial multiple‐choice performance was near ceiling, testing with additional lures led to superior performance on subsequent tests. However, at lower levels of multiple‐choice performance, testing with additional lures produced costs on later tests. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Failure of further learning: Activities,structure, and meaning

Previous research has shown that little benefit is achieved through spaced study and recall of text passages after the first recall attempt, an effect that we term the failure‐of‐further‐learning. We hypothesized that the effect occurs because a situation model of the text's gist is formed when the text is first comprehended and is consolidated when recalled; it dominates later recall after verbatim memories of more recent study episodes have been lost. Experiments 1 and 2 attempted to circumvent the effect by varying the activities of participants and requiring interactive exploration. In both experiments, recall after four, weekly sessions showed little benefit beyond performance on the first recall. Experiment 3 interfered with the formation of an immediate situation model by introducing passages that were hard to comprehend without a title. Performance improved substantially across four sessions when titles were not supplied, but the standard effect was replicated when titles were given. Experiment 4 made verbatim memories available by incorporating all re‐presentations and tests into one session; as predicted, recall improved over successive tests.     

Generalizing test-enhanced learning from the laboratory to the classroom

Test-enhanced learning refers to the fact that taking an initial test on studied material enhances its later retention relative to simply studying the material and then taking a final test. Most research on the testing effect has been done with materials such as word lists, and the general finding has been that the benefits of testing are greater when the initial test is a recall (production) test rather than a recognition test. We briefly summarize three experiments that extend these results to educationally relevant materials, namely brief articles, lectures, and materials in a college course. All three experiments demonstrated a robust testing effect and also revealed that an initial short-answer test produced greater gains on a final test than did an initial multiple-choice test. Furthermore, one experiment revealed a positive effect of immediate feedback given with the initial test. The educational implications are that production tests (short answer or essay) and feedback soon after learning increase learning and retention. In addition, frequent testing probably has the indirect positive effects of keeping students motivated and leading them to space out periods of study.     

Spreading the words: A spacing effect in vocabulary learning

The spacing effect refers to the frequently observed finding that distributing learning across time leads to better retention than massing it into one single study session. In the present study, we examined whether the spacing effect generalises to primary school vocabulary learning. To this aim, children from Grade 3 were taught the meaning of 15 new words using a massed procedure and 15 other new words using a spaced procedure. The 15 words in the massed condition were divided into three sets of five words, and each set was taught three times in one of three learning sessions. In the spaced condition, learning was distributed across the three sessions: All 15 words were practised once in each of the three learning sessions. At the retention tests after 1 week and after 5 weeks we observed that the meaning of spaced words was remembered better than the meaning of massed words.     

多篇章学习中提取练习策略对高阶技能的影响

采用多篇章学习方式, 结合测试效应研究的经典范式, 设计两个实验探究提取练习策略对高阶技能的影响。结果表明：(1)连续学习3篇文章后, 在最终测试阶段学习策略主效应显著, 提取练习组高阶技能的成绩更优：提取组在每篇文章学习间隔中插入即时测试, 无论是概念型知识还是高阶技能, 最终测试中的成绩都显著高于重学组, 但其反应时却低于重学组。在提取练习组中, 概念型知识与高阶技能成绩均有提升, 但概念型知识比高阶技能提升幅度明显; (2)将篇章数扩展至5篇后, 最终测试中, 提取练习组的成绩仍显著高于重学组。对高阶技能4个维度作以分析后发现, 两组在应用与分析维度上差异显著, 但在评估与创造维度上, 提取练习组成绩虽有提升但差异不显著。结果证实了提取练习是高效学习的有效策略, 不仅体现在单独内容的记忆保持, 也可扩展到连续学习中高阶技能的发展与促进。研究支持了情景语境解释对提取练习内部机制的阐述, 并进一步验证了前摄抑制干扰理论和上下文内容转换假说的观点。     

Mnemonic benefits of retrieval practice at short retention intervals

The testing effect refers to the retention benefit conferred by prior retrieval of information from memory. Although the testing effect is a robust phenomenon, a common assumption is that reliable memory benefits only emerge after long retention intervals of days or weeks. The present study focused on potential test-induced retention benefits for brief retention intervals on the order of minutes and tens of seconds. Participants in four experiments studied lists of words. Some of the items were subjected to an initial cued recall test, and others were re-presented for additional study. Free recall tests were administered in each experiment following retention intervals ranging from 30 s to 8 min. When initial retrieval practice was successful (Experiments 1 through 3), or feedback compensated for unsuccessful retrieval (Experiment 4), significant testing effects emerged at all retention intervals. Results are discussed in the context of a bifurcated item-distribution model and highlight the importance of initial test performance and the type of analysis employed when examining testing effect data.     

Is expanding retrieval a superior method for learning text materials?

Expanding retrieval practice refers to the idea that gradually increasing the spacing interval between repeated tests ought to promote optimal long-term retention. Belief in the superiority of this technique is widespread, but empirical support is scarce. In addition, virtually all research on expanding retrieval has examined the learning of word pairs in paired-associate tasks. We report two experiments in which we examined the learning of text materials with expanding and equally spaced retrieval practice schedules. Subjects studied brief texts and recalled them in an initial learning phase. We manipulated the spacing of the repeated recall tests and examined final recall 1 week later. Overall we found that (1) repeated testing enhanced retention more than did taking a single test, (2) testing with feedback (restudying the passages) produced better retention than testing without feedback, but most importantly (3) there were no differences between expanding and equally spaced schedules of retrieval practice. Repeated retrieval enhanced long-term retention, but how the repeated tests were spaced did not matter.     

The interim test effect: Testing prior material can facilitate the learning of new material

A wealth of prior research has shown that testing can improve subsequent learning of the initially tested material. In contrast, only one recent study has shown that an interim test over prior material can improve learning of subsequent new material (i.e., an interim-test effect). Five experiments replicated and extended this initial work by exploring the extent to which interim test effects generalize to complex text material. Participants were prompted to recall each section of an expository text before moving on to study the next section, or were only prompted to recall after the final section. In all experiments, recall of the final, target section was greater when prior sections had received interim tests versus no interim tests. Experiment 3 established that the effect was due to interim testing in particular rather than to intervening activity in general. Experiment 4 established that the effect was not due to test expectancy differences. In contrast to prior research, Experiment 4 also provided evidence that the effect is not due to release from proactive interference. We discuss other possible mechanisms underlying interim-test effects with text, including shifting to more effective encoding strategies.     

The sensitivity of judgment-of-learning resolution to past test performance,new learning,and forgetting

When people judge their learning of items across study–test trials, their accuracy in discriminating between learned and unlearned items improves on the second trial. We examined the source of this improvement by estimating the contribution of three factors—memory for past test performance (MPT), new learning, and forgetting—to accuracy on trial 2. In Experiment 1, during an initial trial, participants studied paired associates, made a judgment of learning (JOL) for each one, and were tested. During the second trial, we manipulated two variables: when the JOL was made (either immediately before or after studying an item) and whether participants were told the outcome of the initial recall attempt on trial 1. In Experiment 2, the same procedure was used with a 1-week retention interval between study and test on trial 2. In both experiments, JOL resolution was higher on trial 2 than on trial 1. Fine-grained analyses of JOL magnitude and decomposition of resolution supported several conclusions. First, MPT contributed the most to boosts in JOL magnitude and improvements in resolution across trials. Second, JOLs and subsequent resolution were sensitive to new learning and forgetting, but only when participants’ judgments were made after study. Thus, JOLs appear to integrate information from multiple factors, and these factors jointly contribute to JOL resolution.     

Segregation accuracy in item‐method directed forgetting across multiple tests

Two experiments examined recall across tests following item‐method directed‐forgetting instructions and the varying of presentation duration of items at study. For both immediate testing (Experiment 1) and delayed testing (Experiment 2), accurate recall of remember instruction items (R‐items) exceeded the accurate recall of forget instruction items (F‐items). However, some F‐items from study were inaccurately recalled as R‐items and R‐items from study as F‐items. Inaccurate recall persisted across tests for both immediate and delayed recall and increased across tests for immediate recall. We view the R‐item advantage in accurate recall as consistent with the account they receive more rehearsal at study than do F‐items. We view inaccurate recall as reflecting the bias to report items retrieved on an immediate test lacking instructional tags as F‐items. On delayed tests, items retrieved lacking instructional tags are first assessed against a criterion point on a memory‐strength continuum and those with strength above the criterion reported as R‐items and those below the criterion as F‐items.     

The effects of overlearning and distributed practise on the retention of mathematics knowledge

In two experiments, 216 college students learned to solve one kind of mathematics problem before completing one of various practise schedules. In Experiment 1, students either massed 10 problems in a single session or distributed these 10 problems across two sessions separated by 1 week. The benefit of distributed practise was nil among students who were tested 1 week later but extremely large among students tested 4 weeks later. In Experiment 2, students completed three or nine practise problems in one session. The additional six problems constituted a strategy known as overlearning, but this extra effort had no effect on test scores 1 or 4 weeks later. Thus, long‐term retention was boosted by distributed practise and unaffected by overlearning. Unfortunately, most mathematics textbooks rely on a format that emphasises overlearning and minimises distributed practise. An easily adopted alternative format is advocated. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Behavioral momentum and resistance to extinction across repeated extinction tests

The present experiments assessed whether resistance to extinction of pigeons' key pecking decreased across repeated extinction tests. An additional impetus for this research was to determine how the quantitative framework provided by behavioral momentum theory might be used to describe any such changes across tests. Pigeons pecked keys in two‐component multiple schedules (one component associated with a higher reinforcer rate and the other with a lower rate) in which baseline and extinction conditions alternated. In Experiment 1, baseline and extinction conditions alternated every session, and, in Experiment 2, these conditions lasted for 10 and 7 sessions, respectively. Resistance to extinction decreased across successive extinction conditions in both experiments. Fits of the behavioral‐momentum based model of extinction to the data returned uncertain results in Experiment 1 but implicated both generalization decrement and response–reinforcer contingency termination as the possible mechanisms responsible for behavior change in Experiment 2. Thus, these data suggest that experimental manipulations that affect discrimination of changes in reinforcement contingencies may influence resistance to extinction by modulating the disruptive impacts of removing reinforcers from the experimental context and of suspending response–reinforcer contingencies.     

Expectancy of an open-book test decreases performance on a delayed closed-book test

Two experiments examined the influence of practice with, and the expectancy of, open-book tests (students viewed studied material while taking the test) versus closed-book tests (students completed the test without viewing the studied material) on delayed retention and transfer. Using GRE materials specifically designed for open-book testing, participants studied passages and then took initial open- or closed-book tests. Open-book testing led to better initial performance than closed-book testing, but on a delayed criterial (closed-book) test both types of testing produced similar retention after a two-day delay in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2 participants were informed in advance about the type of delayed criterial test to expect (open- or closed-book). Expecting an open-book test (relative to a closed-book test) decreased participants' time spent studying and their delayed test performance on closed-book comprehension and transfer tests, demonstrating that test expectancy can influence long-term learning. Expectancy of open-book tests may impair long-term retention and transfer compared to closed-book tests, despite superior initial performance on open-book tests and students' preference for open-book tests.