Postcriterion overlearning reduces the effectiveness of the method of adjusted learning

One goal of the method of adjusted learning (“dropout procedure”) is to equate the strength of different Items for subsequent retention. Some studies have yielded results in accord with this goal while others have not, with no known reason for the discrepancy. We manipulated the number of postcriterion overlearning trials and found that the adjusted learning procedure was effective in equating items for subsequent retention when learning terminated after one correct response per item but ineffective when postcriterion overlearning trials occurred. This finding is especially important for those versions of the adjusted learning procedure, such as the frequently utilized variant developed by Battig (1965), that incorporate overlearning of the to-be-equated items.     

Effects of simultaneous interference upon free recall learning and retention

Learning and retention were examined under varying amounts of intratask interference during learning. All subjects were required to learn the same list of auditorily presented words while concurrently processing a visually presented interfering list. Differential amounts of interference were produced by varying the relatedness of the interfering list to the learning list. The common learning list consisted of four general categories that also contained members of more restricted subcategories. Some subjects were instructed about the existence and names of the subcategories. The results showed that interference lengthened learning but, in some cases, facilitated retention relative to control groups. Restricted category knowledge facilitated learning but had no effect on retention. There were no significant retention differences after I week, but after 5 weeks retention performance was significantly better for groups that learned under related interference conditions. The results were interpreted in terms of more elaborate encoding of the items in the high intratask interference conditions.     

记忆的前向测试效应对老年人学习新事物的作用

为检验前置测试是否可以有效地提升老年人学习新事物的能力,参与实验的老年人被随机分为有前置测试的实验组和无前置测试的对照组,在实验1中学习了5列单词,在实验2中记忆了5列日用品,在实验3中学习了4段讲座视频。结果表明,实验组老年人对新事物的记忆成绩均高于对照组的老年人。结论认为,前置测试能够显著提升老年人学习新事物的能力,干扰降低与学习参与相结合的“加减”理论能更好地解释提升老年人记忆的前向测试效应。     

Rate and frequency as determinants of learning with complete and discrete list presentation

In Experiment 1, complete presentation of the study list produced better free recall learning than did the usual item-by-item (discrete) presentation. The difference was large and held for items occurring one, two, or three times within a list, whether items were spaced or massed, and for discrete presentation rates of 2, 4, and 6 sec/item. Experiment 2 replicated this superiority of complete over discrete presentation (equating total study time), and Experiment 3 extended the finding to paired associate learning. Experiments 2 and 3 indicated that multiple presentations of a list at fast rates were superior to a single presentation at a more standard rate and only slightly inferior to a single, complete presentation. Practical implications for instruction were pointed out, as were problems that certain of the results pose for theories that emphasize strategic (or at least extended) processing of items for encoding.     

Components of verbal learning in children: Analysis by selective reminding

Free recall verbal learning by 5- and 8-year-old children was analyzed by selectively reminding them only of items not recalled on the preceding trial (instead of continuing to present the entire list before each recall trial) to show learning by retrieval from long-term storage without presentation. Concurrent analysis of long-term storage, consistent and random retrieval from long-term storage, and recall from short-term storage indicates that, while 5-year-olds showed slower acquisition than 8-year-olds, lower recall by 5-year-olds also was due to less effective retrieval from longterm storage. Repeated retrieval, without any further presentation after an item has been recalled just once, indicates that lower recall by 9-year-old children than by adults also reflects retrieval difficulty, since these children showed storage and retention of almost as many items as adults by eventual spontaneous retrieval without further presentation.     

Part-list recall following part-whole learning

Following five trials of part-list free recall learning and six trials of whole-list free recall learning, Ss were asked to recall the part-list items on two successive trials. Experimental Ss whose whole list contained all of the part-list items recalled more part-list items than did control Ss whose whole list contained none of the part-list items. The data are inconsistent with current notion of subjective organization.     

Learning a list for free recall: Selective reminding versus the standard procedure

Almost all free-recall experiments involve an acquisition phase in which the set of to-be-learned items is presented repeatedly in its entirety. Two experiments are described that pit this standard procedure against theselective reminding procedure (Buschke, 1973), wherein only items incorrect on trial n are presented again on trial n+ 1. The two methods were virtually identical in terms of (1) trials to reach an acquisition criterion of one errorless recall, (2) number of items correct on each recall trial during acquisition, (3) number of items correct on a 3-week delayed-recall test, (4) number of items correctly relearned after the 3-week retention interval, (5) extent of subjective organization on all retention tests, and (6) pattern of errors over all test trials. These results generalized to both single-category and random lists of 20 words, and were thoroughly consistent across the two experiments. However, the standard procedure required that many more items be presented over trials, and more subjects failed to learn the list within 1 h using the standard procedure. Because the selective reminding procedure is more efficient and has no apparent drawbacks, it is recommended that memory researchers switch to selective reminding as the preferred way to teach a subject a free-recall list.     

Memory after motoric encoding in a generation-recognition model

Summary Two groups of subjects were required to learn taxonomic verb lists without being given explicit information about the categories. Category size was varied. Different categories were represented in the list by 2, 4, 6, or 8 instances per category. One group learned under standard learning instructions, the other learned by performing the denoted actions. We observed higher memory performances for the enacting group in free recall and recognition in comparison with those of the standard learning group. Category size did not interact with encoding condition. Free recall, but not recognition, correlated slightly positively with category size. After the memory tests a generation-recognition procedure was carried out. Subjects were given the category names and had to generate as many items as possible without reference to the learning list. After this, they had to mark the items from the learning list in their own productions. Both groups generated an equal number of items per category, but the proportion of generated old items and of recognized self-generated items was higher for the enacting group than for the standard learning group. The conclusion is discussed that enacting did not change relational information, but made items more accessible in memory.This research was supported by a grant from the German Science Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) to J. Engelkamp and the author under En 124/8-1.     

A Comparative analysis of learning,retention, learning and study strategies in the traditional and M-learning systems

IntroductionLearning and study strategies are important issues that have attracted the attention of many researchers in recent decades. The importance of strategies is well known as a way of improving the level of learning.ObjectiveThis research aimed to compare the effect of learning via mobile devices on learning, retention, learning, and study strategies, with traditional instructional methods.MethodThe present study is a quasi-experimental design with a static group comparison design. The study comprised all primary education students of Taybad Branch, Islamic Azad University (N = 54) in the second semester of the academic year 2018–2019 who chose the language course. These students were considered as a research sample and divided them non-randomly into two groups (27 people as experimental and 27 people as the control group). Before the beginning of the research, a researcher-made learning pre-test questionnaire was developed for both groups in similar conditions. Then, we used the traditional method for the control group and implemented the M-Learning method for the experimental group. At the end of sixteen weeks of training, a researcher-made learning post-test and also the standard learning strategies test were performed in both groups, and after two months of learning tests; the retention test was performed for both test and control groups. Independent t-test analyzed data in Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) software.ResultsFindings showed that the rate of learning and retention among trainees by the M-learning method is more than the traditional method. However, in the traditional method, the motivation for progress was more than M-Learning.ConclusionSince mobile learning has a high degree of interoperability, personalization, and participation, compared to traditional learning, it allows students to learn at any time and place they wish. Language teachers and education planners with regard to the importance of learning various skills, apply e-learning in training increase personal motivation and interest in learning.     

An investigation of serial learning and retention processes in children

Three studies investigated both serial learning (SL) and retention processes among first through sixth graders. SL processes were evaluated for both pictorial and verbal materials by use of a probing methodology, and retention processes were studied as a function of the amount of intratask interference during original learning. All three SL stimuli considered (prior item, serial position, and prior-item cluster) were found to be functional, although the prior-item stimulus was most frequently used. Additionally, SL rate was found to improve with increasing age. The introduction of interference into SL through acoustic, associative, or semantic similarity facilitated retention in control as well as proactive and retroactive inhibition conditions. Pictorial serial list items improved SL performance only for second, third, and fourth graders, while fifth graders performed better with verbal materials and sixth-grade performance was comparable in both presentation modes.     

Voluntary forgetting before and after learning has been accomplished

Two experiments, in which voluntary forgetting was measured, are reported. In both experiments, lists of randomly mixed syllables and numbers were projected on a screen, and Ss were instructed before projection which part of the lists to remember or to forget. In the first experiment, the syllables were cued as items to be forgotten in one group, and to be remembered in the other one. At the end of the projection, Ss were instructed to recall freely only the syllables. For the former group, this was an unexpected test. The same list was projected for different groups: one, three, five, seven, and fourteen times, with new randomly mixed items each time. Syllable recall increased with an increase of times of projection of the list in the second group, but not in the first one. Recall of syllables in the first group was, however, above the chance level. These results were best interpreted by assuming a voluntary forgetting mechanism, which operates after the verbal items leave the short term store. The second experiment, a variation of the first, was designed to find the locus of voluntary forgetting mechanisms. The question is whether Ss can voluntarily forget syllables only before they are learned, or also after learning has already taken place. Voluntary forgetting after learning has been achieved was found to be ineffective. These results tend to support the hypothesis that voluntary forgetting processes do not operate in the long-term store and that Ss can block the transmission of to be forgotten items from the short-term store to the long-term store.     

What drives sleep-dependent memory consolidation: Greater gain or less loss?

When memory is tested after a delay, performance is typically better if the retention interval includes sleep. However, it is unclear what accounts for this well-established effect. It is possible that sleep enhances the retrieval of information, but it is also possible that sleep protects against memory loss that normally occurs during waking activity. We developed a new research approach to investigate these possibilities. Participants learned a list of paired-associate items and were tested on the items after a 12-h interval that included waking or sleep. We analyzed the number of items gained versus the number of items lost across time. The sleep condition showed more items gained and fewer items lost than did the wake condition. Furthermore, the difference between the conditions (favoring sleep) in lost items was greater than the difference in gain, suggesting that loss prevention may primarily account for the effect of sleep on declarative memory consolidation. This finding may serve as an empirical constraint on theories of memory consolidation.     

Conceptual organization and memory in nonretarded, mildly retarded, and moderately retarded adults

Moderately retarded, mildly retarded, and nonretarded adults learned a list of 12 items from three categories to a criterion of 75% correct recall in a free-recall learning paradigm. Retention was measured 1 week later. The moderately retarded took more trials and had lower retention and clustering scores than the others. The mildly retarded took more trials and had lower retention than the nonretarded. The results violate Murdock's total time hypothesis (Cooper & Pantle, 1967) but support Mandler's (1967) contention that learning is enhanced by the mental capacity for organization.     

Arousal and paired-associate learning

Walker and Tarte (1963) postulate that at short retention intervals high arousal paired-associates are reproduced more poorly than low arousal items. Walker and colleagues believe that this hypothesis is confirmed by their paired-associate learning studies. However, results of these paired-associate learning studies are position confounded artifacts. Better recall of low arousal items at short-term retention is caused by the coincidence of the recency effect and low arousal at the end of the trial. When these position effects are controlled there is no action decrement for the high arousal paired-associates. To test this assumption, the Kleinsmith and Kaplan study (1963) was replicated and two other variations were conducted. In these three studies with 76 subjects, which were tested at two minutes or 1 week, the action decrement occurs only when the two position effects coincide.     

Degree of learning,interpolated tests,and rate of forgetting

The purpose of the two experiments reported here was to observe the effects of degree of learning, interpolated tests, and retention interval, primarily on the rate of forgetting of a list of words, and secondarily on hypermnesia for those words. In the first experiment, all the subjects had one study trial on a list of 20 common words, followed by two tests of recall. Half of the subjects had further study and test trials until they had learned the words to a criterion of three correct consecutive recalls. Two days later, half of the subjects under each learning condition returned for four retention tests, and 16 days later, all the subjects returned for four tests. Experiment 2 was similar, except that all the subjects had at least three study trials followed by four recall tests on Day 1, intermediate tests were given 2 or 7 days later, and they all had final tests 14 days later. The results showed that rate of forgetting was attenuated by an additional intermediate set of tests but not by criterion learning. Hypermnesia was generally found over the tests that were given after a retention interval of 2 or more days. The best predictor of the amount of hypermnesia over a set of tests was the difference between overall cumulative recall and net recall on the first test of the set.     

Recognition and recall as measures of long-term retention

Acquisition and retention of a list of paired associates were measured either by cued recall or by multiple-choice recognition. The method of testing used during original learning was combined factorially with the type of test administered after a 1-week interval. Speed of learning to criterion under the two procedures was comparable. Long-term recognition was substantially higher than recall. This difference did not interact significantly with the method of learning. Recall benefited substantially from a prior test of recognition, but there was little effect when the order of tests was reversed. It is concluded that (a) both occurrence and retrieval information were stored under each condition of learning, and (b) occurrence information is less subject to forgetting than retrieval information.     

Connectionist models of recognition memory: constraints imposed by learning and forgetting functions

Multilayer connectionist models of memory based on the encoder model using the backpropagation learning rule are evaluated. The models are applied to standard recognition memory procedures in which items are studied sequentially and then tested for retention. Sequential learning in these models leads to 2 major problems. First, well-learned information is forgotten rapidly as new information is learned. Second, discrimination between studied items and new items either decreases or is nonmonotonic as a function of learning. To address these problems, manipulations of the network within the multilayer model and several variants of the multilayer model were examined, including a model with prelearned memory and a context model, but none solved the problems. The problems discussed provide limitations on connectionist models applied to human memory and in tasks where information to be learned is not all available during learning.     

Sequential learning in individuals with agrammatic aphasia: evidence from artificial grammar learning

We examined sequential learning in individuals with agrammatic aphasia (n = 12) and healthy age-matched participants (n = 12) using an artificial grammar. Artificial grammar acquisition, 24-hour retention, and the potential benefits of additional training were examined by administering an artificial grammar judgment test (1) immediately following auditory exposure-based training, (2) one day after training, and (3) after a second training session on the second day. An untrained control group (n = 12 healthy age-matched participants) completed the tests on the same time schedule. The trained healthy and aphasic groups showed greater sensitivity to the detection of grammatical items than the control group. No significant correlations between sequential learning and language abilities were observed among the aphasic participants. The results suggest that individuals with agrammatic aphasia show sequential learning, but the underlying processes involved in this learning may be different than for healthy adults.     

Selective cues to forget can fail to cause forgetting

Recent research has found that individuals can selectively forget a subset of items through directed forgetting. The goal of the present study was to replicate this selective directed forgetting effect and elucidate its underlying mechanisms. Unfortunately, results from four experiments failed to find any evidence of selective directed forgetting. Participants failed to forget any items when instructed to forget a subset of items from a first list before learning a second list. Participants were only successful in forgetting items from the first list when they were instructed to forget all items from the first list before learning the second list.     

Conceptual Organization and Memory in Nonretarded,Mildly Retarded,and Moderately Retarded Adults

Moderately retarded, mildly retarded, and nonretarded adults learned a list of 12 items from three categories to a criterion of 75% correct recall in a freerecall learning paradigm. Retention was measured 1 week later. The moderately retarded took more trials and had lower retention and clustering scores than the others. The mildly retarded took more trials and had lower retention than the nonretarded. The results violate Murdock's total time hypothesis (Cooper & Pantle, 1967) but support Mandler's (1967) contention that learning is enhanced by the mental capacity for organization.