Effects of Alcohol on Rotary Pursuit Performance: A Gender Comparison

The Psychological Record - For 6 days, 10 male and 10 female social drinkers performed a rotary pursuit task six times across each day under both placebo and alcohol-intoxicated conditions....     

Why does guessing incorrectly enhance,rather than impair,retention?

The finding that trying, and failing, to predict the upcoming to-be-remembered response to a given cue can enhance later recall of that response, relative to studying the intact cue–response pair, is surprising, especially given that the standard paradigm (e.g., Kornell, Hays, & Bjork, 2009) involves allocating what would otherwise be study time to generating an error. In three experiments, we sought to eliminate two potential heuristics that participants might use to aid recall of correct responses on the final test and to explore the effects of interference both at an immediate and at a delayed test. In Experiment 1, by intermixing strongly associated to-be-remembered pairs with weakly associated pairs, we eliminated a potential heuristic participants can use on the final test in the standard version of the paradigm—namely, that really strong associates are incorrect responses. In Experiment 2, by rigging half of the participants’ responses to be correct, we eliminated another potential heuristic—namely, that one’s initial guesses are virtually always wrong. In Experiment 3, we examined whether participants’ ability to remember—and discriminate between—their incorrect guesses and correct responses would be lost after a 48-h delay, when source memory should be reduced. Across all experiments, we continued to find a robust benefit of trying to guess to-be-learned responses, even when incorrect, versus studying intact cue–response pairs. The benefits of making incorrect guesses are not an artifact of the paradigm, nor are they limited to short retention intervals.     

Thinking can cause forgetting: memory dynamics in creative problem solving

Research on retrieval-induced forgetting has shown that retrieval can cause the forgetting of related or competing items in memory (Anderson, Bjork, & Bjork, 1994). In the present research, we examined whether an analogous phenomenon occurs in the context of creative problem solving. Using the Remote Associates Test (RAT; Mednick, 1962), we found that attempting to generate a novel common associate to 3 cue words caused the forgetting of other strong associates related to those cue words. This problem-solving-induced forgetting effect occurred even when participants failed to generate a viable solution, increased in magnitude when participants spent additional time problem solving, and was positively correlated with problem-solving success on a separate set of RAT problems. These results implicate a role for forgetting in overcoming fixation in creative problem solving.     

Familial transmission of Continuous Performance Test behavior: attentional and impulsive response characteristics

Continuous Performance Tests (CPTs) provide information on attentional processing and impulsive behavior. The results of previous research that used self-report measures have provided evidence for familial transmission (through genetic and/or environmental influences) of impulsive characteristics. The authors of the present study examined whether the impulsive behavioral parameters that are measured by the CPT also share familial relationships. The researchers asked 26 healthy parent-adolescent pairs to complete the Immediate and Delayed Memory Tasks (IMT/DMT; D. M. Dougherty, 1999; D. M. Dougherty, D. M. Marsh, & C. W. Mathias, 2002), a modified CPT (B. A. Cornblatt, N. J. Risch, G. Faris, D. Friedman, & L. Erlenmeyer-Kimling, 1988; H. E. Rosvold, A. Mirsky, I. Sarason, E. D. Breansome, Jr., & L. H. Beck, 1956), and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS; J. H. Patton, M. S. Stanford, & E. S. Barratt, 1995), a self-report measure. The main findings can be summarized as follows: (a) commission errors (but not correct detections) on the IMT and DMT were correlated between parents and their adolescent children, (b) adolescents emitted a higher proportion of commission errors than did their parents, and (c) self-reported impulsivity (i.e., BIS) was correlated with commission errors for parents, but not for adolescents. The findings of this study support the use of an objective behavioral measure of impulsivity to assess familial relationships of impulsivity.     

The memorial consequences of multiple-choice testing

The present article addresses whether multiple-choice tests may change knowledge even as they attempt to measure it. Overall, taking a multiple-choice test boosts performance on later tests, as compared with nontested control conditions. This benefit is not limited to simple definitional questions, but holds true for SAT II questions and for items designed to tap concepts at a higher level in Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy of educational objectives. Students, however, can also learn false facts from multiple-choice tests; testing leads to persistence of some multiple-choice lures on later general knowledge tests. Such persistence appears due to faulty reasoning rather than to an increase in the familiarity of lures. Even though students may learn false facts from multiplechoice tests, the positive effects of testing outweigh this cost.     

Using verification feedback to correct errors made on a multiple-choice test

A key educational challenge is how to correct students' errors and misconceptions so that they do not persist. Simply labelling an answer as correct or incorrect on a short-answer test (verification feedback) does not improve performance on later tests; error correction requires receiving answer feedback. We explored the generality of this conclusion and whether the effectiveness of verification feedback depends on the type of test with which it is paired. We argue that, unlike for short-answer tests, learning whether one's multiple-choice selection is correct or incorrect should help participants narrow down the possible answers and identify specific lures as false. To test this proposition we asked participants to answer a series of general knowledge multiple-choice questions. They received no feedback, answer feedback, or verification feedback, and then took a short-answer test immediately and two days later. Verification feedback was just as effective as answer feedback for maintaining correct answers. Importantly, verification feedback allowed learners to correct more of their errors than did no feedback, although it was not as effective as answer feedback. Overall, verification feedback conveyed information to the learner, which has both practical and theoretical implications.     

Body image trends among Icelandic adolescents: a cross-sectional national study from 1997 to 2010

The aim of this study was to evaluate trends in body image among Icelandic adolescents from 1997 to 2010. Data from five cross-sectional surveys conducted among national samples of 9th and 10th graders in Iceland using five time points (1997, 2000, 2006, 2009, and 2010) were compared to examine changes in body image. In total, 32,397 adolescents participated in the study. Body image among 14-15-year-old adolescents in Iceland improved significantly over the 13-year period. Girls reported more negative body image than boys at all time points. However, the positive change in body image from 1997 to 2010 was more pronounced for girls than boys, resulting in a narrower gap between the genders. The current results are encouraging and indicate that in an age of increased overweight and obesity, the body image of Icelandic adolescents is becoming more positive.     

Expecting to teach enhances learning and organization of knowledge in free recall of text passages

The present research assessed the potential effects of expecting to teach on learning. In two experiments, participants studied passages either in preparation for a later test or in preparation for teaching the passage to another student who would then be tested. In reality, all participants were tested, and no one actually engaged in teaching. Participants expecting to teach produced more complete and better organized free recall of the passage (Experiment 1) and, in general, correctly answered more questions about the passage than did participants expecting a test (Experiment 1), particularly questions covering main points (Experiment 2), consistent with their having engaged in more effective learning strategies. Instilling an expectation to teach thus seems to be a simple, inexpensive intervention with the potential to increase learning efficiency at home and in the classroom.     

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.     

Using verification feedback to correct errors made on a multiple-choice test

A key educational challenge is how to correct students’ errors and misconceptions so that they do not persist. Simply labelling an answer as correct or incorrect on a short-answer test (verification feedback) does not improve performance on later tests; error correction requires receiving answer feedback. We explored the generality of this conclusion and whether the effectiveness of verification feedback depends on the type of test with which it is paired. We argue that, unlike for short-answer tests, learning whether one's multiple-choice selection is correct or incorrect should help participants narrow down the possible answers and identify specific lures as false. To test this proposition we asked participants to answer a series of general knowledge multiple-choice questions. They received no feedback, answer feedback, or verification feedback, and then took a short-answer test immediately and two days later. Verification feedback was just as effective as answer feedback for maintaining correct answers. Importantly, verification feedback allowed learners to correct more of their errors than did no feedback, although it was not as effective as answer feedback. Overall, verification feedback conveyed information to the learner, which has both practical and theoretical implications.