Processing strategies and the generation effect: Implications for making a better reader

When presented with items that must be generated versus read at encoding, individuals typically remember better those items that they generated versus those that they only read. We examined whether--given the opportunity to experience such differential memorial consequences of generating versus reading--participants might change how they processed future to-be-read information. In a first set of two experiments, participants were able to profit from such an experience to the extent that a generation advantage was eliminated on subsequent memory tests of generated and read items. Two additional experiments demonstrated the critical nature of this experience in leading to improved processing of future to-be-read information and elimination of a generation advantage. We believe that these results relate to the characterization of the learner emerging from recent metacognitive research and have possible implications for how learners might be induced to process information more effectively.     

Illusions of competence during study can be remedied by manipulations that enhance learners’ sensitivity to retrieval conditions at test

Monitoring one's knowledge during study is susceptible to a foresight bias (Koriat and Bjork, 2005). Judgments of learning (JOLs) are inflated whenever information that is present at study and absent, but solicited, at test, such as the targets in cue-target paired associates, highlights aspects of cues that are less apparent when those cues are presented alone. The present findings demonstrate that foresight bias can be alleviated by study-test experience (Experiment 1), particularly test experience (Experiments 2 and 3), and by delaying JOLs after study (Experiment 4) and that both foresight bias and its alleviation have behavioral consequences, as measured by study time allocation (Experiment 5). Collectively, the findings suggest that overconfidence and misallocation of study time arise from a mismatch that is inherent to education--that the answer is present at study and absent at test--and that alleviating the problem requires creating conditions at study that sensitize learners to retrieval conditions at test.     

Metacognition in motor learning

Research on judgments of verbal learning has demonstrated that participants' judgments are unreliable and often overconfident. The authors studied judgments of perceptual-motor learning. Participants learned 3 keystroke patterns on the number pad of a computer, each requiring that a different sequence of keys be struck in a different total movement time. Practice trials on each pattern were either blocked or randomly interleaved with trials on the other patterns, and each participant was asked, periodically, to predict his or her performance on a 24-hr test. Consistent with earlier findings, blocked practice enhanced acquisition but harmed retention. Participants, though, predicted better performance given blocked practice. These results augment research on judgments of verbal learning and suggest that humans, at their peril, interpret current ease of access to a perceptual-motor skill as a valid index of learning.     

Models of performance in learning multisegment movement tasks: consequences for acquisition,retention, and judgments of learning

Participants learned different keystroke patterns, each requiring that a key sequence be struck in a prescribed time. Trials of a given pattern were either blocked or interleaved randomly with trials on the other patterns and before each trial modeled timing information was presented that either matched or mismatched the movement to be executed next. In acquisition, blocked practice and matching models supported better performance than did random practice and mismatching models. In retention, however, random practice and mismatching models were associated with superior learning. Judgments of learning made during practice were more in line with acquisition than with retention performance, providing further evidence that a learner's current ease of access to a motor skill is a poor indicator of learning benefit.     

Psychological Science in the Public Interest: the case for juried analyses

The inaugural issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest (PSPI), a new publishing initiative by the American Psychological Society, accompanies this issue of Psychological Science. The report it contains, "Psychological Science Can Improve Diagnostic Decisions," by John Swets, Robyn Dawes, and John Monahan, represents a careful effort by those authors to summarize the potential of modern psychological science to enhance real-world diagnostic decisions. Such decisions (Is a cancer present? Will this individual commit violence? Will an impending storm strike? Will this applicant succeed?) are prevalent and crucial to the lives of individuals and to the well-being of our society. Subsequent issues of PSPI will address other important topics of public interest in areas where psychological science may have the potential to inform and improve public policy. Each of those reports will also represent the efforts of a distinguished team of scientists to report the available evidence, and the implications of that evidence, fairly and comprehensively. In this article, we describe the goals, procedures, and potential of PSPI.     

Viewing oneself during synchronous online learning increases appearance anxiety and decreases memory for lecture content

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, instructors began using online learning platforms to offer live remote instruction (e.g., Zoom), which allow students to view themselves in real-time (i.e., self-view). The present research examined whether having students keep their cameras on, relative to cameras off, during a live online lecture would increase anxiety and reduce learning. In both Experiment 1a (small group setting) and Experiment 1b (large group setting), students in the camera-on condition did not report greater state anxiety, nor was anxiety associated with lower performance on an immediate multiple-choice exam. Experiment 2 specifically examined the effect of self-view and if appearance anxiety (rather than state anxiety) might mediate the relationship between camera use and test performance. Results indicate that participants viewing themselves reported significantly higher appearance anxiety, and that higher appearance anxiety was related to decreased learning. These findings suggest that viewing oneself may uniquely contribute to heightened appearance anxiety and may reduce memory for content when learning synchronously online.     

Retrieval-induced forgetting is associated with increased positivity when imagining the future

People often think of themselves and their experiences in a more positive light than is objectively justified. Inhibitory control processes may promote this positivity bias by modulating the accessibility of negative thoughts and episodes from the past, which then limits their influence in the construction of imagined future events. We tested this hypothesis by investigating the correlation between retrieval-induced forgetting and the extent to which individuals imagine positive and negative episodic future events. First, we measured performance on a task requiring participants to imagine personal episodic events (either positive or negative), and then we correlated that measure with retrieval-induced forgetting. As predicted, individuals who exhibited higher levels of retrieval-induced forgetting imagined fewer negative episodic future events than did individuals who exhibited lower levels of retrieval-induced forgetting. This finding provides new insight into the possible role of retrieval-induced forgetting in autobiographical memory.     

Recency-sensitive retrieval processes in long-term free recall

In several experiments, each presentation of a to-be-remembered item in a free-recall list was both preceded and followed by a distracting activity and recall was delayed by an additional period of distracting activity. Pronounced long-term effects of recency were obtained, the standard short-term memory interpretation of recency effects in free recall notwithstanding. The results are interpreted as reflecting retrieval processes that are obscured by procedural characteristics of typical free-recall experiments.     

Using Selective Redundancy to Eliminate the Seductive Details Effect

The seductive details effect occurs when adding interesting, but extraneous, details to a lesson impairs learning of the lesson's key information. Although instructors could simply remove such interesting details, prior research suggests that interest can be a powerful motivating factor for learning. In the present research, we attempted to recruit the motivational benefits of seductive details without eliciting their detrimental effects by manipulating the redundancy between narrated and on‐screen verbal information within a multimedia lesson. We presented 69 college students with different instructional videos, one in which key facts were presented with on‐screen text slightly different from the narration, while seductive details were presented with on‐screen text that was identical to the narration. We eliminated the seductive details effect for these participants, indicating that partial redundancy can be used as a means by which interesting details can be included in a lesson without detracting from the learning of key facts.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.