Lecture 21 - Improving memory

Question 1

What did Fowler & Barker (1974) investigate?

Answer 1

They studied effects of active vs passive highlighting vs control when reading science articles (~8000 words)

Question 1

Is highlighting an effective study method on its own?

Answer 1

No, highlighting alone does little to boost performance (Dunlosky et al., 2013)

Question 2

What was the test used in Fowler & Barker (1974)?

Answer 2

One week later, 54 MCQs with 10 minutes review time before testing

Question 3

What were the results of Fowler & Barker (1974)?

Answer 3

Highlighting groups did not outperform control overall, but active highlighting helped with specifically highlighted items

Question 4

How did active and passive highlighting differ in benefit?

Answer 4

Active highlighting improved performance more than passive highlighting, despite identical highlighted content

Question 5

What drawback was found in highlighting?

Answer 5

Highlighting helped recall highlightwd material but impaired recall of non-highlighted content

Question 6

How does the amount of highlighting affect performance?

Answer 6

More highlighting was linked to poorer performance, likely due to lower distinctiveness and shallow processing

Question 7

List six effective learning techniques

Answer 7

• Spaced retrieval
• Interleaving
• Retrieval practice
• Elaboration
• Concrete examples
• Dual coding

Question 8

What is elaboration in learning?

Answer 8

Connecting new information to prior knowledge to deepen processing and improve organisation

Question 9

What is elaborative interrogation?

Answer 9

Generating explanations for facts using why or how questions to promote deeper understanding

Question 10

How does elaborative interrogation help memory?

Answer 10

Encourages active engagement and deeper processing, strengthening memory of the material

Question 11

What did Pressley et al. (1987) study?

Answer 11

Compared elaborative interrogaion vs given examples vs simple reading in sentence recall

Question 12

What were the results of Pressley et al. (1987)?

Answer 12

Elaborative interrogation group recalled 72% vs 37% in both explanation-provided and reading-only groups

Question 13

What issues affect elaborative interrogation implementation?

Answer 13

• Consistency of questions
• Complexity level
• Whether students generate or are given prompts
• How often students ask why

Question 14

What is retrieval practice?

Answer 14

Practising recall from LTM (e.g., testing), not just re-reading - known as the testing effect

Question 15

What did Roediger & Karpicke (2006) compare?

Answer 15

• Repeated study (read 4x)
• Single test (read 3x + recall)
• Repeated test (read once + recall 3x)

Question 16

What were Roediger & Karpicke (2006) findings?

Answer 16

Repeatedtesting led to 50& higher recall than repeated study, demonstrating the testing effect

Question 17

What are the direct effects of retrieval practice?

Answer 17

Retrieval itself strengthens memory (Karpicke et al., 2014)

Question 18

What did Smith et al. (2014) find about covert vs overt retrieval?

Answer 18

Covert (mental recall) and overt (spoken/written recall) recall equally improved memory over no testing

Question 19

What are the indirect effects of retrieval practice?

Answer 19

• Anticipating tests improves encoding (Weinstein et al., 2014)
• Frequent testing reduces mind-wandering (Szpunar et al., 2013)

Question 20

What influences the benefit of retrieval practice?

Answer 20

• Retrieval success
• Appropriate difficulty
• Feedback (if low accuracy)
• Spacing between tests

Question 21

What types of test formats benefit from retrieval practice?

Answer 21

• Free recall tests
• Short-answer tests
• Multiple-choice tests
• Comprehension questions

Question 22

What is the best empirically supported technique for improving memory?

Answer 22

Retrieval practice (outperforms highlights, summarising, and re-reading)