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We investigated whether retrieval-based learning can facilitate the acquisition of cognitive skills, focusing on the control-of-variables strategy. This core scientific experimentation skill is regularly taught in science education classes because understanding it is essential for understanding experimental investigations in science. In the present study, participants initially read a text explaining the control-of-variables strategy. We compared the effects of subsequent retrieval practice and restudy of the text in performing a transfer test requiring the application of the control-of-variables strategy by judging the validity of a number of experimental designs. In addition, recall of the initially studied text was assessed as well. Repeated retrieval practice in combination with restudy opportunities resulted in better performance in both the transfer test and the recall test as compared to mere restudy or a single study opportunity. These findings demonstrate that retrieval practice is a useful tool for promoting deep conceptual learning.
Retrieval-based learning has been investigated in various populations. The present study examined retrieval-based learning in a sample of students at a special-needs school with educational tracks for learning and mental development. In addition, a comparison group of students at a regular school was examined. Learning conditions were manipulated within participants. In a first session, participants either received restudy cycles only, or they received alternating test and restudy cycles. A second session then comprised the opposite form of practice. In both sessions, a final test assessed memory after a short distractor phase. This procedure was the same in two experiments but with different kinds of item material. For both kinds (images and image-word pairs), a testing effect occurred, that is higher recall of tested items. These results show that lower cognitive ability or lack of experience with regularly being tested in school do not prevent students from benefiting from retrieval-based learning.
Two experiments examined effects of including an information about a disability in a person description on memory about that person’s traits. In Experiment 1, this information impaired correct recognition of traits of a person that had been described in correspondence to gender stereotypes. In Experiment 2, it induced false memories in accordance with stereotypes about people with disabilities. Participants’ false alarms for traits belonging to the dimension of warmth increased, whereas false alarms for traits belonging to the dimension of competence decreased. Thus, activating stereotypes through a disability prime influenced what could be recognized correctly or falsely was assumed to be recognized about a person.
We investigated retrieval-induced forgetting of motor sequences in samples of Chinese participants. Retrieval-induced forgetting occurs when selective retrieval of a subset of information stored in memory causes forgetting for the non-retrieved rest. This phenomenon critically depends on the organised storage of separate categories of memory representations. In studies with participants from a Western culture (Germany), a categorization in left- and right-hand movements previously had been supported by letter stimuli based on a spatial mental representation of the Roman alphabet. The same assignment of letters from the beginning or end of the alphabet to motor sequences performed either with the left- or the right-hand did not entail retrieval-induced forgetting in the present study, however (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, visual features of displaying to-be-learned sequences additionally supported a distinction into left and right. In Experiment 3, learning trials provided verbal category labels. The occurrence of retrieval-induced forgetting in the latter two experiments suggests language-dependent organisation of non-verbal items in memory.
For some people with strong motor impairments, controlling a computer with theeyes is the only possibility for human-computer interaction. In addition, gaze controlis becoming a new option as an input device for the general population as wellbecause of the increasing availability of eye-tracking technology. Yet, little is knownabout additional cognitive demands involved in gaze control and how to handlepotentially high demands when using the eyes not only for perception but also foraction. The present study shows that cognitive offloading improves performancewhen using gaze control. Memory for to-be-studied items benefitted significantlyfrom saving another set of items just studied before for later restudy. Employing cog-nitive offloading in a targeted manner may be a useful means to assist in mastering eye-gaze control.
The saving of previously encoded information boosts both memory for subsequent information (saving-enhanced memory; SEM) as well as cognitive performance in general (saving-enhanced performance; SEP). These findings have been replicated in a setting that involves the assistance by an intelligent software that automatically structures and saves work content in an interactive sidebar. It is assumed that beneficial effects on cognitive performance due to (automatic) saving are caused by a reduction in current workload by means of cognitive offloading. We tested this assumption by measuring neural activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) via functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)—once after saving and once after deleting of previously collected information that had to be recalled later-on. On a behavioral level, there was a brief benefit of saving. However, cognitive offloading became most apparent on a neural level: after saving, participants showed significantly lower activation in the right DLPFC. Also, the more participants benefited from cognitive offloading, the more they were able to re-access previously collected, saved information. Thus, fNIRS results indicated reduced mental load after saving, confirming the assumption that saving triggers cognitive offloading.