Pretesting boosts item but not source memory

Tina Seabrooke,Chris J Mitchell,Timothy J Hollins

doi:10.1080/09658211.2021.1977328

Tina Seabrooke, Chris J Mitchell + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2021.1977328

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Journal: Memory	Publication Date: Sep 14, 2021
Citations: 2	License type: open-access

Affiliation: University of Southampton, University of Plymouth

Abstract

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.

Highlights

L (relative to study-alone), even when the participants generated incorrect responses on every Pretest trial
L, even when the participants generated incorrect responses on every Pretest trial
The task was the same as Experiment 1, except that targets were presented in black, the participants completed an interim maths task half-way through the encoding phase, and the source memory test involved recalling whether the targets were presented before or after the interim maths task As with Experiment 1, we anticipated a pretesting effect (PTE) on target recognition, but the crucial question of interest was whether pretesting would improve source memory

Summary

Introduction

L (relative to study-alone), even when the participants generated incorrect responses on every Pretest trial. Participants were tested on recognition memory for the items and the contextual source the words were presented in.

Results

Conclusion