Pretesting boosts item but not source memory
Pretesting boosts item but not source memory
Two experiments examined the effect of pretesting on target recognition and source memory. In an initial encoding phase, participants attempted to learn the common English definitions of rare English words. For each rare word, the participants either guessed the definition of the rare English word before it was revealed (Pretest condition) or just studied the complete word pair without first guessing the definition (Read-only condition). To manipulate source information, the targets were either presented in different colours (Experiment 1) or lists (Experiment 2). In both experiments, the participants correctly recognised more targets from Pretest trials than Read-only trials, but showed no difference in source memory. Pretesting, therefore, appears to improve target recognition memory, but not memory for contextual information. The results are discussed in relation to semantic and episodic theories of the pretesting effect.
Tests, errors, generation, item recognition, source memory
1245-1253
Seabrooke, Tina
bf0d9ea5-8cf7-494b-9707-891762fce6c3
Mitchell, Chris J.
348942ac-ea98-494d-ba4c-21e85273575a
Hollins, Timothy J.
6717fa83-d36f-4b16-b5f8-129478f6ac50
17 September 2021
Seabrooke, Tina
bf0d9ea5-8cf7-494b-9707-891762fce6c3
Mitchell, Chris J.
348942ac-ea98-494d-ba4c-21e85273575a
Hollins, Timothy J.
6717fa83-d36f-4b16-b5f8-129478f6ac50
Seabrooke, Tina, Mitchell, Chris J. and Hollins, Timothy J.
(2021)
Pretesting boosts item but not source memory.
Memory, 29 (9), .
(doi:10.1080/09658211.2021.1977328).
Abstract
Two experiments examined the effect of pretesting on target recognition and source memory. In an initial encoding phase, participants attempted to learn the common English definitions of rare English words. For each rare word, the participants either guessed the definition of the rare English word before it was revealed (Pretest condition) or just studied the complete word pair without first guessing the definition (Read-only condition). To manipulate source information, the targets were either presented in different colours (Experiment 1) or lists (Experiment 2). In both experiments, the participants correctly recognised more targets from Pretest trials than Read-only trials, but showed no difference in source memory. Pretesting, therefore, appears to improve target recognition memory, but not memory for contextual information. The results are discussed in relation to semantic and episodic theories of the pretesting effect.
Text
tpl-sourcememory (6)-accepted
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 1 September 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 17 September 2021
Published date: 17 September 2021
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number: ES/N018702/1].
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Keywords:
Tests, errors, generation, item recognition, source memory
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 451205
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/451205
ISSN: 0965-8211
PURE UUID: 18fc334d-7a1e-41ba-9a0f-d702c38aa5f1
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Date deposited: 14 Sep 2021 16:35
Last modified: 06 Jun 2024 02:07
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Author:
Chris J. Mitchell
Author:
Timothy J. Hollins
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