Testing potentiates new learning across a retention interval

 

 

Please do not include this Method section in your final research report. Write your report as  if it is present. 

Method

Participants

565 introductory psychology students voluntarily took part in the current study as part of

requirements for their course (190 Male, 373 Female, 2 Non-binary), with a mean age of 19.87

years (Min. 17, Max. 54). Participants were tested in groups of no more than 24 and completed

the study as part of their allocated tutorial class.

Materials

Thirty-six words were selected from the Van Overschelde, Rawson and Dunlosky (2004)

norms. The most frequent six exemplars that were between three and eight letters in length were

selected from four taxonomic categories - ‘animals’, ‘fruits’, ‘musical instruments’, and ‘weather

event’. Three words from each list were taken to create three interrelated lists containing 12

words each. Presentation order was random in all conditions. Word and list presentation were

counterbalanced.

Design and procedure

In total 4 conditions were compared between-subjects: Restudy, Retrieval (Free Recall),

List Discrimination, and Category Judgement. Participants were randomly allocated to each

condition. Figure 1 illustrates the experimental design. In all learning blocks participants were

shown a list1 of words (Study lists: SL1, SL2, SL3), then required to engage in a 40s distractor

                                                             1 In the list discrimination condition the first half of each list was labelled “List 1.1” or “List 2.1” and the second half  of each list was labelled “List 1.2” or “List 2.2” but other than this minor break, these lists were presented as they  were in all other conditions.  

 

 

task which required them to solve maths problems. In learning blocks 1 and 2, this was followed

by an interval task (refer to Figure 2) which differed across conditions, and consisted of either:

Retrieval: Participants were asked to try and retrieve as many words as they could from

the list (free recall) and were given 60s to do so.

Restudy: Participants were shown the list again in exactly the same manner as in the

study phase.

Category judgement: Participants saw each word and two category alternatives which

appeared underneath (e.g., for the word Horse, subjects were asked to decide if this was a fruit or

an animals). Participants indicated which category the word belonged to by clicking a labelled

button.

List discrimination: During the study phase the words had been split into two smaller lists

(lists 1.1 and 1.2, or 2.1 and 2.2), and in this condition the words were shown again and the task

required participants to indicate which list the word had appeared in.

Figure 1. The experiment consisted of three Learning Blocks. Blocks 1 and 2 contained the same interval tasks, which were  manipulated between‐subjects. Block 3 was the exact same for each condition and the interval task was always a free recall. List  3 free recall was compared.  

In the final learning block (Learning Block 3), all participants in all conditions were

shown a single list of words (List 3). They were then required to engage in the same 40s

 

 

distractor task which required them to solve maths problems. However in Learning Block 3 there

was no interval task, and all participants completed a final task (identical across all conditions)

which consisted of a retrieval (free recall) task of the List 3 words which lasted 60s. Memory

performance on this task provided the key dependent measure for the study.

Figure 2. Examples of interval tasks performed in Learning Blocks 1 and 2. During Interval 3 all subjects  completed retrieval (free recall).