Abstract
Two experiments determined whether metamemory judgments invoking covert retrieval practice for a list of unrelated paired associate words led to the facilitation of learning a subsequent list. Three types of relation between successive lists were compared: negative transfer (A-B, A-D); a control for item-specific proactive interference (A-B, C-D); and repetition (A-B, A-B). Experiment 1 showed that the benefit of retrieval practice relative to restudying was equivalent for overt and covert retrieval in the negative transfer paradigm (A-B, A-D). Both types of retrieval minimized intrusions of first list responses in the cued recall of the second list. Experiment 2 showed that memory enhancement following covert retrieval was equivalent for new (C-D) and repeated (A-B) lists. The results are consistent with theories of the forward testing effect (FTE) that assume retrieval practice insulates subsequent learning from proactive interference and provides self-assessment feedback that may lead to more efficient encoding in future learning. Challenges in accounting for the impact of a substantial number of moderators of the FTE are reviewed.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, MC, upon reasonable request.
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Conceptualization: Monique Carvalho, Harvey Marmurek; Data curation: Monique Carvalho, Alysha Cooper; Formal analysis and investigation: Monique Carvalho, Alysha Cooper, Harvey Marmurek; Methodology: Monique Carvalho, Alysha Cooper, Harvey Marmurek; Project administration: Monique Carvalho, Harvey Marmurek; Writing – original draft preparation: Monique Carvalho; Writing—reviewing and editing: Harvey Marmurek; Supervision Harvey Marmurek.
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Carvalho, M., Cooper, A. & Marmurek, H.H.C. Covert retrieval yields a forward testing effect across levels of successive list similarity. Metacognition Learning 18, 847–861 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-023-09348-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-023-09348-9