Interpolated pretesting can boost memory of related and distinct prose materials.

The pretesting effect refers to the finding that tests performed before to-be learned material is encountered can enhance later retention of the material, even when no correct answers were provided on the initial pretest. The goal of the present study was to examine whether interspersing pretest questions between the study of multiple segments consisting of prose passages can induce a pretesting effect on a final cumulative recall test on all segments. To this end, participants studied four segments which were either thematically related (Experiment 1) or distinct (Experiment 2) and either received pretest questions about each segment immediately prior to study of the segment (pretest condition) or not (study-only condition).

The role of mediators for the pretesting effect.

Taking a pretest (e.g., smoke - ?) before material is studied (smoke - ) can improve later recall of that material, compared to material which was initially only studied.

Repeated guessing attempts during acquisition can promote subsequent recall performance.

Taking a pretest before to-be-learned material is studied can improve long-term retention of the material relative to material that was initially only studied. Using weakly associated word pairs (Experiments 1 and 3), Swahili-German word pairs (Experiment 2), and prose passages (Experiment 4) as study material, the present study examined whether this pretesting effect is modulated in size when pretests are repeatedly administered during acquisition. All four experiments consistently showed the typical pretesting effect, with enhanced recall after a single guessing attempt relative to the study-only baseline.

The pretesting effect thrives in the presence of competing information.

Taking a pretest (e.g., blanket - ?) before some target material (blanket - ) is studied can promote recall of that material on a subsequent final test compared to material which was initially only studied.

How retrieval practice and semantic generation affect subsequently studied material: an analysis of item-level effects.

The forward testing effect (FTE) refers to the finding that retrieval practice of previously studied material can facilitate recall of newly studied (critical) material. Such interim retrieval practice can also lead to a differential FTE, i.e.

The Effects of Interspersed Retrieval Practice in Multiple-List Learning on Initially Studied Material.

The forward testing effect (FTE) refers to the finding that retrieval practice of previously studied material can facilitate retention of newly studied material more than does restudy of the material. The goal of the present study was to examine how such retrieval practice affects initially studied, unpracticed material. To this end, we used two commonly applied versions of the FTE task, consisting of either three (Experiment 1) or five (Experiment 2) study lists.

The Mechanisms Underlying Interference and Inhibition: A Review of Current Behavioral and Neuroimaging Research.

The memory literature has identified interference and inhibition as two major sources of forgetting. While interference is generally considered to be a passive cause of forgetting arising from exposure to additional information that impedes subsequent recall of target information, inhibition concerns a more active and goal-directed cause of forgetting that can be achieved intentionally. Over the past 25 years, our knowledge of the neural mechanisms underlying both interference-induced and inhibition-induced forgetting has expanded substantially.

Buildup and release from proactive interference - Cognitive and neural mechanisms.

Interference from related memories is generally considered one of the major causes of forgetting in human memory. The most prevalent form of interference may be proactive interference (PI), which refers to the finding that memory of more recently studied information can be impaired by the previous study of other information. PI is a fairly persistent effect, but numerous studies have shown that there can also be release from PI.

Does Amount of Pre-cue Encoding Modulate Selective List Method Directed Forgetting?

Prior work reported evidence that when people are presented with both a relatively short list of relevant information and a relatively short list of irrelevant information, a subsequent cue to forget the irrelevant list can induce successful selective directed forgetting of the irrelevant list without any forgetting of the relevant list. The goal of the present study is to determine whether this selectivity effect is restricted to short lists of information (six items per list), or if the effect generalizes to longer lists (12 items per list). In Experiment 1, we replicate the finding that selective directed forgetting can occur when short lists of relevant and irrelevant information are involved.

Feedback at Test Can Reverse the Retrieval-Effort Effect.

The testing effect refers to the finding that retrieving previously encoded material typically improves subsequent recall performance more on a later test than does restudying that material. Storm et al. (2014) demonstrated, however, that when feedback is provided on such a later test the testing advantage then turns to a restudying advantage on subsequent tests.

How delay influences search processes at test.

Delay-induced forgetting refers to the finding that memory for studied material typically decreases as the delay between study and test is increased. The results of 3 experiments are reported designed to examine whether this form of forgetting is primarily caused by interference effects or contextual drift effects when people engage in neutral distractor tasks during the delay. Response latency analysis was used to contrast predictions of the interference and the contextual drift view of the forgetting.

A (Preliminary) Recipe for Obtaining a Testing Effect in Preschool Children: Two Critical Ingredients.

The testing effect refers to the finding that retrieval of previously learned information improves retention of that information more than restudy practice does. While there is some evidence that the testing effect can already arise in preschool children when a particular experimental task is employed, it remains unclear whether, for this age group, the effect exists across a wider range of tasks. To examine the issue, the present experiments sought to determine the potential roles of retrieval-practice and final-test formats, and of immediate feedback during retrieval practice for the testing effect in preschoolers.

Selective directed forgetting in children.

When, after study of an item list, adults are cued to forget some of the list items and encode new information instead, such cuing often induces selective forgetting of the to-be-forgotten material without impairing recall of the other items. This study examined developmental trends in such selective directed forgetting by having second graders, sixth graders, and young adults study three successive lists of items and, after study of List 2, cuing them either to remember both List 1 and List 2 or to forget List 2 but remember List 1. Consistent with prior work, second graders exhibited no forgetting at all in response to the forget cue, whereas young adults selectively forgot List 2.

Retrieval practice can insulate items against intralist interference: Evidence from the list-length effect, output interference, and retrieval-induced forgetting.

This study sought to determine whether nonselective retrieval practice after study can reduce memories' susceptibility to intralist interference, as it is observed in the list-length effect, output interference, and retrieval-induced forgetting. Across 3 experiments, we compared the effects of nonselective retrieval practice and restudy on previously studied material with regard to these 3 forms of episodic forgetting. When study of an item list was followed by a restudy cycle, recall from a longer list was worse than recall from a shorter list (list-length effect), preceding recall of studied nontarget items impaired recall of the list's target items (output interference), and repeated selective retrieval of some list items attenuated recall of other nonretrieved items at test (retrieval-induced forgetting).

The contribution of encoding and retrieval processes to proactive interference.

Proactive interference (PI) refers to the finding that memory for recently studied (target) material can be impaired by the prior study of other (nontarget) material. Previous accounts of PI differed in whether they attributed PI to impaired retrieval or impaired encoding. Here, we suggest an integrated encoding-retrieval account, which assigns a role for each of the 2 types of processes in buildup of PI.

List-method directed forgetting: Evidence for the reset-of-encoding hypothesis employing item-recognition testing.

In list-method directed forgetting (LMDF), people are cued to forget a previously studied item list (List 1) and to learn a new list of items (List 2) instead. Such cuing typically enhances memory for the List 2 items, in both recall and (sometimes) item-recognition testing. It has recently been hypothesized that the enhancement effect for List 2 items (partly) reflects the result of a reset-of-encoding process.

List-method directed forgetting can be selective: evidence from the 3-list and the 2-list tasks.

When people are cued to forget previously studied irrelevant information and study new information instead, such cuing typically leads to forgetting of the precue information. But what do people forget if, before the forget cue is provided, both irrelevant and relevant information have been encoded? Using relatively short item lists, we examined in a series of three experiments whether participants are able to selectively forget the irrelevant precue information, when relevant and irrelevant precue items were presented subsequently in two separate lists (3-list task) and when the two types of items were presented alternatingly within a single list (2-list task). Selective forgetting of the irrelevant precue items arose in the 3-list task, independent of modality of item presentation and level of discriminability of the precue lists, and it arose in the 2-list task.

List-method directed forgetting: the forget cue improves both encoding and retrieval of postcue information.

In list-method directed forgetting, people are cued to forget a previously studied item list and to learn a new list instead. Such cuing typically leads to forgetting of the first list and to memory enhancement of the second, referred to as list 1 forgetting and list 2 enhancement. In the present study, two experiments are reported that examined influences of items' serial learning position in a list and the two lists' output order on list-method directed forgetting.