Many recent studies have shown that memory for correct answers is enhanced when an error is committed and then corrected, as compared to when the correct answer is provided without intervening error commission. The fact that the kind of errors that produced such a benefit, in past research, were those that were semantically related to the correct…

Three experiments investigated the effects of making errors oneself, as compared to just hearing the correct answer without error generation, hearing another person make an error, or being "on-the-hook," that is, possibly but not necessarily being the person who would be "called-on" to give a response. In all three experiments,…

Theories of study time allocation and of curiosity suggest that people are most engaged with and want to devote their time to materials that are not completely mastered but also are not so difficult that they might be impossible. Their curiosity is thought to be triggered by items that are almost known, or are in what is sometimes called theregion…

Although error avoidance during learning appears to be the rule in American classrooms, laboratory studies suggest that it may be a counterproductive strategy, at least for neurologically typical students. Experimental investigations indicate that errorful learning followed by corrective feedback is beneficial to learning. Interestingly, the…