Effect of tests without feedback and presentation-test interval in paired-associate learning.

Abstract

STUDIED THE LONG-TERM EFFECT OF INTERSPERSING RECALL TESTS WITHOUT FEEDBACK (T1) WITHIN A SINGLE PRESENTATION OF A PAIRED-ASSOCIATE (PA) LIST. THE NUMBER OF ITEMS BETWEEN THE INITIAL PRESENTATION OF A PAIR (P) AND T1 FOR THAT PAIR WAS VARIED. LONG-TERM EFFECT WAS MEASURED BY RECOGNITION TESTS SEVERAL MINUTES LATER (T2). FACILITATING EFFECTS OF T1 ON PERFORMANCE ON T2 WERE FOUND IN 3 EXPERIMENTS. FACILITATION DEPENDED ON THE INTERVAL BETWEEN P AND T1, BUT BOTH DEGREE AND DIRECTION OF THE SPACING EFFECT VARIED FROM 1 EXPERIMENT TO ANOTHER, SUGGESTING A COMPLEX AND/OR NONMONOTONIC RELATION. FOR 1 SET OF MATERIALS T1 HAD NO EFFECT ON T2 WHEN P AND T1 WERE SUCCESSIVE, BUT HAD MARKED BENEFICIAL EFFECT WHEN THERE WERE OTHER ITEMS BETWEEN P AND T1, DESPITE A MUCH GREATER NUMBER OF CORRECT RESPONSES TO T1 IN THE SUCCESSIVE CONDITION. THIS DEMONSTRATES THAT REINFORCEMENT IN PALEARNING REQUIRES MORE THAN THE OCCURRENCE OF A CORRECT RESPONSE IN THE PRESENCE OF THE STIMULUS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)