Metacognition About Collaborative Learning: Students' Beliefs Are Inconsistent with Their Learning Preferences.

Collaboration plays an important role in educational contexts. However, little is known about students' metacognitive beliefs about collaboration. The present study used an online survey to investigate students' beliefs toward group study/recall, their studying preferences, strategies they use when studying individually and in groups, and important characteristics of their group members.

Does collaboration help or hurt recall? The answer depends on working memory capacity.

Collaborative inhibition (reduced recall in collaborative vs. nominal groups) is a robust phenomenon. However, it is possible that not everyone is as susceptible to collaborative inhibition, such as those higher in working memory capacity (WMC).

Social contagion of memory and the role of self-initiated relative judgments.

Two experiments examined the role of spontaneous relative judgments within the social contagion of memory paradigm (Roediger, Meade, & Bergman, 2001). Participants viewed household scenes (for short or long durations) in collaboration with a confederate (with low, average, or superior memory ability) who falsely recalled incorrect items as having occurred in the scenes. Of interest was whether or not participants would spontaneously evaluate the state of their own memory relative to the state of the confederate's memory when remembering suggested information.

Collaborative inhibition in same-age and mixed-age dyads.

This study examined the influence of same-age and mixed-age dyads on the collaborative inhibition effect (reduced recall in collaborative groups compared to the combined recall of the same number people who recall individually). Younger (age 18-25) and older (age 65+) adults recalled categorized word lists alone or in collaboration with a same-age or a different-age partner. On an initial recall test, the magnitude of collaborative inhibition for veridical recall was similar across dyads, regardless of age.

Ageing stereotypes influence the transmission of false memories in the social contagion paradigm.

These experiments are the first to investigate the impact of confederate accuracy, age, and age stereotypes in the social contagion of memory paradigm. Across two experiments, younger participants recalled household scenes with an actual (Experiment 1) or virtual (Experiment 2), older or younger confederate who suggested different proportions (0%, 33% or 100%) of false items during collaboration. In Experiment 2, positive and negative age stereotypes were primed by providing bogus background information about our older confederate before collaboration.

How do associative and phonemic overlap interact to boost illusory recollection?

This project investigated the underlying mechanisms that boost false remember responses when participants receive study words that are both semantically and phonologically similar to a critical lure. Participants completed a memory task in which they were presented with a list of words all associated with a critical lure. Included within the list of semantic associates was a target that was either semantically associated (e.

Discounting input from older adults: the role of age salience on partner age effects in the social contagion of memory.

Three experiments examined the impact of partner age on the magnitude of socially suggested false memories. Young participants recalled household scenes in collaboration with an implied young or older adult partner who intentionally recalled false items. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with only the age of their partner (low age-salience context); in Experiment 2, participants were presented with the age of their partner along with a photograph and biographical information about their partner (high age-salience context); in Experiment 3, age salience was varied within the same experiment.

The influences of partner accuracy and partner memory ability on social false memories.

In this study, we examined whether increasing the proportion of false information suggested by a confederate would influence the magnitude of socially introduced false memories in the social contagion paradigm Roediger, Meade, & Bergman (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 8:365-371, 2001). One participant and one confederate collaboratively recalled items from previously studied household scenes. During collaboration, the confederate interjected 0 %, 33 %, 66 %, or 100 % false items.

Both young and older adults discount suggestions from older adults on a social memory test.

In the present study, we examined the impacts of participant age and confederate age on social memory processes. During a collaborative recall phase, young and older adult participants were exposed to the erroneous memory reports of a young or an older adult confederate. On a subsequent individual recall test, young and older adult participants were equally likely to incorporate the confederates' erroneous suggestions into their memory reports, suggesting that participant age had a minimal effect on social memory processes.

The effects of initial testing on false recall and false recognition in the social contagion of memory paradigm.

In three experiments, participants studied photographs of common household scenes. Following study, participants completed a category-cued recall test without feedback (Exps. 1 and 3), a category-cued recall test with feedback (Exp.

Neuropsychological status in older adults influences susceptibility to false memories.

In 2 experiments we examined the influence of frontal lobe function on older adults' susceptibility to false memory in a categorized list paradigm. Using a neuropsychological battery of tests developed by Glisky, Polster, and Routhieaux (1995), we designated older adults as having high- or low-frontal function. Young and older adults studied and were tested on categorized lists using free report cued recall and forced report cued recall instructions, with the latter requiring participants to produce responses even if they had to guess.

The effect of information distribution on collaborative inhibition.

Two experiments examined collaborative memory for information that was studied by all group members (shared items) and information that was studied by only a subset of group members (unshared items). In both experiments significant collaborative inhibition (reduced output of the collaborative groups relative to the pooled output of individuals) was obtained for both shared and unshared information. In Experiment 1 the magnitude of collaborative inhibition was larger for unshared items than for shared items, possibly because unshared items were less likely to be acknowledged and thus incorporated into the groups' recall.

Age-related differences in guessing on free and forced recall tests.

This study examined possible age-related differences in recall, guessing, and metacognition on free recall tests and forced recall tests. Participants studied categorised and unrelated word lists and were asked to recall the items under one of the following test conditions: standard free recall, free recall with a penalty for guessing, free recall with no penalty for guessing, or forced recall. The results demonstrated interesting age differences regarding the impact of liberal test instructions (i.

Age differences in collaborative memory: the role of retrieval manipulations.

In two experiments, we examined age differences in collaborative inhibition (reduced recall in pairs of people, relative to pooled individuals) across repeated retrieval attempts. Younger and older adults studied categorized word lists and were then given two consecutive recall tests and a recognition test. On the first recall test, the subjects were given free-report cued recall or forced-report cued recall instructions (Experiment 1) or free recall instructions (Experiment 2) and recalled the lists either alone or in collaboration with another subject of the same age group.

Expertise promotes facilitation on a collaborative memory task.

The effect of expertise on collaborative memory was examined by comparing expert pilots, novice pilots, and non-pilots. Participants were presented with aviation scenarios and asked to recall the scenarios alone or in collaboration with a fellow participant of the same expertise level. Performance in the collaborative condition was compared to nominal group conditions (i.

Improving cognitive function in older adults: nontraditional approaches.

This article considers two nontraditional approaches for developing interventions to improve cognition in older adults. Neither of these approaches relies on traditional explicit training of specific abilities in the laboratory. The first technique involves the activation of automatic processes through the formation of implementation intentions that enhance the probability that a desired action will be completed, such as remembering to take medications.

The effect of forced recall on illusory recollection in younger and older adults.

The effect of an initial forced recall test on later recall and recognition tests was examined in younger and older adults. Subjects were presented with categorized word lists and given an initial test under standard cued recall instructions (with a warning against guessing) or forced recall instructions (that required guessing); subjects were later given a cued recall test for the original list items. In 2 experiments, initial forced recall resulted in higher levels of illusory memories on subsequent tests (relative to initial cued recall), especially for older adults.

Priming guesses on a forced-recall test.

The forced-recall paradigm requires participants to fill all spaces on the memory test even if they cannot remember all the list words. In the present study, the authors used that paradigm to examine the influence of implicit memory on guessing--when participants fill remaining spaces after they cannot remember list items. They measured explicit memory as the percentage of targets that participants designated as remembered from the list and implicit memory as the percentage of targets they wrote but did not designate as remembered (beyond chance level).

Implicit and explicit measures of memory for perceptual information in young adults, healthy older adults, and patients with Alzheimer's disease.

In this study, we examined how implicit and explicit memory for perceptual information (modality and voice) and lexical information varied across three subject groups: healthy young adults, healthy older adults, and age-matched older adults with dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT). These groups exhibited cross-modality (abstract) priming of the same magnitude. However, young adults produced greater modality- and voice-specific priming than the other two groups, whose performance was equivalent, suggesting that aging, but not DAT, reduced form-specific priming.

Explorations in the social contagion of memory.

Four experiments examined social influence on the development of false memories. We employed the social contagion paradigm: A subject and a confederate see scenes and then later take turns recalling items from the scenes, with the confederate erroneously reporting some items that were not present in the scenes; on a final test, the subject reports these suggested items when instructed to recall only items from the scenes. The first two experiments showed that the social contagion effect persisted when subjects were explicitly warned about the possibility that confederates' responses might induce false memories and when they were tested via source-monitoring tests that explicitly gave the choice of attributing suggested items to the other person.