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);…

Evidence is mixed concerning whether delayed judgments of learning (JOLs) enhance learning and if so, whether their benefit is similar to retrieval practice. One potential explanation for the mixed findings is the truncated search hypothesis, which states that not all delayed JOLs lead to a full-blown covert retrieval attempt. In three…

The present study investigated whether and to what extent children with dyslexia utilize visual and phonetic strategies in character learning. A paired associate learning paradigm was used in two experiments to train children's pronunciation-orthography associations of novel words, with a recall task 1 week later for retention. Experiment 1…

Considerable work during the past two decades has focused on modeling the structure of semantic memory, although the performance of these models in complex and unconstrained semantic tasks remains relatively understudied. We introduce a two-player cooperative word game, Connector (based on the boardgame Codenames), and investigate whether…

Three source-monitoring models were tested using the data of Bellezza, Elek, and Zhang (2016), who presented word pairs with each word in 1 of 4 locations. Given 1 word as a cue, participants had to remember the other word as well as the 2 corresponding locations. Results included (a) locations of the cue and target words were identified equally…

The experience of fluency while learning might bias students' metacognitive judgments of learning (JOLs) and impair the efficacy of their study behaviors. In the present experiments, we examined whether perceptual fluency affects JOLs (1) when people only experience one level of fluency, (2) when item relatedness is also available as a cue, and…

We examined whether 2 types of interpolated tasks (i.e., retrieval-practice via free recall or guessing a missing critical item) improved final recognition for related and unrelated word lists relative to restudying or completing a filler task. Both retrieval-practice and guessing tasks improved correct recognition relative to restudy and filler…

One of the foundational principles of human memory is that repetition (i.e., being presented with a stimulus multiple times) improves recall. In the current study a group of participants who studied a list of cue-target pairs twice recalled fewer targets than a group who studied the pairs only once, a negative repetition effect. Such a…

Early verbal-memory researchers assumed participants represent memory of a pair of unrelated items with 2 independent, separately modifiable, directional associations. However, memory for pairs of unrelated words (A-B) exhibits associative symmetry: a near-perfect correlation between accuracy on forward (A??) and backward (??B) cued recall. This…

Involuntary episodic memories are memories of events that come to mind spontaneously, that is, with no preceding retrieval attempts. They are common in daily life and observed in a range of clinical disorders in the form of negative, intrusive recollections or flashbacks. However, little is known about their underlying mechanisms. Here we report a…

Testing typically enhances subsequent recall of tested material. In contrast, it has been proposed that consolidated memories can be destabilized when reactivated and then need to be reconsolidated in order to persist. Learning new material immediately after reactivation may disrupt reconsolidation. We investigated whether the well-known benefits…

Behavioral evidence concerning memory in forms of high-functioning autism (HFA) and in moderately low-functioning autism (M-LFA) is reviewed and compared. Findings on M-LFA are sparse. However, it is provisionally concluded that memory profiles in HFA and M-LFA (relative to ability-matched controls) are similar but that declarative memory…

The present study compared the impact of different categories of graphics used within a complex learning task. One hundred eighty five native English speaking undergraduates participated in a task that required learning 18 Chinese radicals and their English equivalent translations. A post-test only control group design compared performance…

The literature on learning with animations has focused so far on subject matters in which changes over time depicted in the animation are mapped onto changes over time in the reality of the concepts to be learned. The experiments presented in this article, however, suggest that also a nontemporal mapping of facts, as in paired-associate learning…

We examined associative and item recognition using the maintenance rehearsal paradigm. Our intent was to control for mnemonic strategies; to produce a low, graded level of learning; and to provide evidence of the role of attention in long-term memory. An advantage for low-frequency words emerged in both associative and item recognition at very low…