When retrieval practice promotes new learning – The critical role of study material

Abstract

The forward testing effect (FTE) refers to the finding that retrieval practice of previously studied information can facilitate learning and memory of newly studied information. The goal of the present set of six experiments was to examine whether the FTE is influenced by study material. We replicated prior work by showing that the FTE can arise with both unrelated and categorized item lists. Going beyond the prior work, we found that parallel FTEs for the two types of lists arose only for short retention interval and when the lag between study of the previous lists and study of the final critical list was also short. When there was a prolonged retention interval or a prolonged lag, the FTE was observed with categorized lists but disappeared with unrelated lists. Moreover, semantic generation of extra-list items interspersed between study of the single lists produced an FTE with unrelated lists but not with categorized lists. These findings on the critical role of study material for the FTE are consistent with a two-factor explanation of the FTE, which assumes contributions of both strategy change and context change for the FTE. The account suggests that the FTE is mainly driven by strategy change with categorized material and is mainly driven by context change with unrelated material.