Inflation of conditional predictions

The authors report 7 experiments indicating that conditional predictions--the assessed probability that a certain outcome will occur given a certain condition--tend to be markedly inflated. The results suggest that this inflation derives in part from backward activation in which the target outcome highlights aspects of the condition that are consistent with that outcome, thus supporting the plausibility of that outcome. One consequence of this process is that alternative outcomes are not conceived to compete as fully as they should. Another consequence is that prediction inflation is resistant to manipulations that induce participants to consider alternative outcomes to the target outcome.     

Exploring a mnemonic debiasing account of the underconfidence-with-practice effect

Judgments of learning (JOLs) underestimate the increase in recall that occurs with repeated study (the underconfidence-with-practice effect; UWP). The authors explore an account in terms of a foresight bias in which JOLs are inflated when the to-be-recalled target highlights aspects of the cue that are not transparent when the cue appears alone and the tendency of practice to alleviate bias by providing learners with cues pertinent to recall. In 3 experiments the UWP effect was strongest for items that induce a foresight bias, but delaying JOLs reduced the debiasing effects of practice, thereby moderating the UWP effect. This occurred when delayed JOLs were prompted by the cue alone (like during testing), not when prompted by the cue-target pair (like during study).     

Is retrieval success a necessary condition for retrieval-induced forgetting?

When information is retrieved from memory, it becomes more recallable than it would have been otherwise. Other information associated with the same cue or configuration of cues, however, becomes less recallable. Such retrieval-induced forgetting (Anderson, Bjork, &; Bjork, 1994) appears to reflect the suppression of competing nontarget information, with this suppression facilitating the selection of target information. But is success at such selection a necessary condition for retrieval-induced forgetting? Using a procedure in which some cues posed an impossible retrieval task for participants, we report evidence that the attempt to retrieve, even if unsuccessful, can produce retrieval-induced forgetting. This finding, we believe, supports and refines a suppression/inhibitory account of retrieval-induced forgetting.     

When disfluency is—and is not—a desirable difficulty: The influence of typeface clarity on metacognitive judgments and memory

There are many instances in which perceptual disfluency leads to improved memory performance, a phenomenon often referred to as the perceptual-interference effect (e.g., Diemand-Yauman, Oppenheimer, & Vaughn (Cognition 118:111–115, 2010); Nairne (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 14:248–255, 1988)). In some situations, however, perceptual disfluency does not affect memory (Rhodes & Castel (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 137:615–625, 2008)), or even impairs memory (Glass, (Psychology and Aging 22:233–238, 2007)). Because of the uncertain effects of perceptual disfluency, it is important to establish when disfluency is a “desirable difficulty” (Bjork, 1994) and when it is not, and the degree to which people’s judgments of learning (JOLs) reflect the consequences of processing disfluent information. In five experiments, our participants saw multiple lists of blurred and clear words and gave JOLs after each word. The JOLs were consistently higher for the perceptually fluent items in within-subjects designs, which accurately predicted the pattern of recall performance when the presentation time was short (Exps. 1a and 2a). When the final test was recognition or when the presentation time was long, however, we found no difference in recall for clear and blurred words, although JOLs continued to be higher for clear words (Exps. 2b and 3). When fluency was manipulated between subjects, neither JOLs nor recall varied between formats (Exp. 1b). This study suggests a boundary condition for the desirable difficulty of perceptual disfluency and indicates that a visual distortion, such as blurring a word, may not always induce the deeper processing necessary to create a perceptual-interference effect.     

Why interleaving enhances inductive learning: The roles of discrimination and retrieval

Kornell and Bjork (Psychological Science 19:585–592, 2008) found that interleaving exemplars of different categories enhanced inductive learning of the concepts based on those exemplars. They hypothesized that the benefit of mixing exemplars from different categories is that doing so highlights differences between the categories. Kang and Pashler (Applied Cognitive Psychology 26:97–103, 2012) obtained results consistent with this discriminative-contrast hypothesis: Interleaving enhanced inductive learning, but temporal spacing, which does not highlight category differences, did not. We further tested the discriminative-contrast hypothesis by examining the effects of interleaving and spacing, as well as their combined effects. In three experiments, using photographs of butterflies and birds as the stimuli, temporal spacing was harmful when it interrupted the juxtaposition of interleaved categories, even when total spacing was held constant, supporting the discriminative-contrast hypothesis. Temporal spacing also had value, however, when it did not interrupt discrimination processing.     

Organizational factors and mental health in community volunteers. The role of exposure,preparation, training,tasks assigned,and support

During disasters, aid organizations often respond using the resources of local volunteer members from the affected population who are not only inexperienced, but who additionally take on some of the more psychologically and physically difficult tasks in order to provide support for their community. Although not much empirical evidence exists to justify the claim, it is thought that preparation, training, and organizational support limit (or reduce) a volunteer's risk of developing later psychopathology. In this study, we examined the effects of preparation, training, and organizational support and assigned tasks on the mental health of 506 Indonesian Red Cross volunteers who participated in the response to a massive earthquake in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in 2006. Controlling for exposure level, the volunteers were assessed for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, and subjective health complaints (SHCs) 6, 12, and 18 months post-disaster. Results showed high levels of PTSD and SHCs up to 18 months post-disaster, while anxiety and depression levels remained in the normal range. Higher levels of exposure as well as certain tasks (e.g., provision of psychosocial support to beneficiaries, handling administration, or handing out food aid) made the volunteers more vulnerable. Sense of safety, expressed general need for support at 6 months, and a lack of perceived support from team leaders and the organization were also related to greater psychopathology at 18 months. The results highlight the importance of studying organizational factors. By incorporating these results into future volunteer management programs the negative effects of disaster work on volunteers can be ameliorated.     

Retrieval experience as a modifier of future encoding: another test effect

Research on how individuals monitor their level of comprehension during study paints a picture of learners as being insensitive to many of the factors or conditions of learning that can enhance long-term retention and transfer. In previous research, however, deWinstanley and Bjork (2004) demonstrated that learners--if made sensitive to the memorial benefits of generation in the context of an informative test following study of a text passage in which they had encoded both to-be-read and to-be-generated critical items--then became more effective processors of future to-be-read information presented in a 2nd text passage. In Experiments 1 and 2 of the present research, we explored the potential applicability of this effect by testing whether it could survive certain types of activity-filled delays. In Experiments 3 and 4, we tested whether enhanced processing of contextual information, an encoding strategy that could possibly have been discovered by participants during the testing episode for the 1st text passage, was a potential underlying cause of this effect. Together, our results bring to light an additional benefit of test taking and point to what might be considered necessary and sufficient conditions for leading learners to become more effective processors of future to-be-learned information.     

The costs and benefits of testing text materials

Tests have been shown to improve the later recall of tested information, a result known as the testing effect. Tests, however, can also impair the later recall of related information, an effect known as retrieval-induced forgetting. Although retrieval-induced forgetting has been demonstrated using a wide variety of materials, recent work suggests that learning information in the context of a coherent text passage may afford protection from retrieval-induced forgetting. In four experiments we explored the conditions under which retrieval-induced forgetting does and does not occur with such materials. We found that two factors-the coherence of the to-be-learned material and the competitiveness of retrieval practice-are important in determining whether retrieval-induced forgetting does or does not occur. Furthermore, even if retrieval-induced forgetting does occur, having the opportunity to restudy the forgotten information can prevent that forgetting from persisting. Taken together, these findings provide greater understanding of the costs and benefits of testing text materials, with possible implications for the optimisation of testing as a tool for learning in educational contexts.