The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Pretesting boosts recognition, but not cued recall, of targets from unrelated word pairs

Pretesting boosts recognition, but not cued recall, of targets from unrelated word pairs
Pretesting boosts recognition, but not cued recall, of targets from unrelated word pairs
Attempting to retrieve the answer to a question on an initial test can improve memory for that answer on a subsequent test, relative to an equivalent study period. Such retrieval attempts can be beneficial even when they are unsuccessful, although this benefit is usually only seen with related word pairs. Three experiments examined the effects of pretesting for both related (e.g., pond-frog) and unrelated (e.g., pillow-leaf) word pairs on cued recall and target recognition. Pretesting improved subsequent cued recall performance for related but not for unrelated word pairs, relative to simply studying the word pairs. Tests of target recognition, by contrast, revealed benefits of pretesting for memory of targets from both related and unrelated word pairs. These data challenge popular theories that suggest that the pretesting effect depends on partial activation of the target during the pretesting phase.
Learning, Memory, Pretesting, Testing
1069-9384
Seabrooke, Tina
bf0d9ea5-8cf7-494b-9707-891762fce6c3
Mitchell, Chris J.
348942ac-ea98-494d-ba4c-21e85273575a
Wills, Andy J.
ac3dacc2-7918-47e9-9b4f-bbfde29a4ebf
Hollins, Timothy J.
6717fa83-d36f-4b16-b5f8-129478f6ac50
Seabrooke, Tina
bf0d9ea5-8cf7-494b-9707-891762fce6c3
Mitchell, Chris J.
348942ac-ea98-494d-ba4c-21e85273575a
Wills, Andy J.
ac3dacc2-7918-47e9-9b4f-bbfde29a4ebf
Hollins, Timothy J.
6717fa83-d36f-4b16-b5f8-129478f6ac50

Seabrooke, Tina, Mitchell, Chris J., Wills, Andy J. and Hollins, Timothy J. (2020) Pretesting boosts recognition, but not cued recall, of targets from unrelated word pairs. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. (doi:10.3758/s13423-020-01810-y).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Attempting to retrieve the answer to a question on an initial test can improve memory for that answer on a subsequent test, relative to an equivalent study period. Such retrieval attempts can be beneficial even when they are unsuccessful, although this benefit is usually only seen with related word pairs. Three experiments examined the effects of pretesting for both related (e.g., pond-frog) and unrelated (e.g., pillow-leaf) word pairs on cued recall and target recognition. Pretesting improved subsequent cued recall performance for related but not for unrelated word pairs, relative to simply studying the word pairs. Tests of target recognition, by contrast, revealed benefits of pretesting for memory of targets from both related and unrelated word pairs. These data challenge popular theories that suggest that the pretesting effect depends on partial activation of the target during the pretesting phase.

Text
tpl-relatedness-13-accepted - Accepted Manuscript
Download (530kB)

More information

Accepted/In Press date: 2020
e-pub ahead of print date: 21 September 2020
Additional Information: Funding Information: This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/N018702/1]. Publisher Copyright: © 2020, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.
Keywords: Learning, Memory, Pretesting, Testing

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 436242
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/436242
ISSN: 1069-9384
PURE UUID: 78cacf04-4049-4852-b22e-5d0377ab4415
ORCID for Tina Seabrooke: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-4119-8389

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 04 Dec 2019 17:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 05:06

Export record

Altmetrics

Contributors

Author: Tina Seabrooke ORCID iD
Author: Chris J. Mitchell
Author: Andy J. Wills
Author: Timothy J. Hollins

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×