Distribution of Practice Flashcards
initial leanring (underwood and schultz)
2 different conditions
a massed practice, short gap between pair
distribute practice: 30 sec between paired longer
results: not big of a different between both conditions, no advantage of distributed practice. Not a lot of opportunity to forget information
- how well we retuns
distribute practice makes informatino less likley to be forgotten
Retentions Keppe (1964 1967)
paired associate task
2 conditions
1- learned one list of pairs
2- learned 3 lists, then a 4th
multiple lists they had to learn, more tougher to learn
measured performance after one day vs 8 days
results: 1 list vs 4 lists, a mass practices vs
single list with distributed practive, amount of info that is lost is not. alot in the first day and 8th day
multiple list condition, distributed practice- not forgotten mch 1 day later and
mass practiced- doing okay 1 day later,
do not always see advantage of distributed practice instead of mass practice
You are conducting a memory experiment using faces
and names. Some participants restudy the faces after
an hour, and some restudy after a week. Each group
then comes in to take a memory test a week after their
last study session. What do you think will happen?
A. The hour-restudy group will retain the information
better
B. The week-restudy group will retain th
e information
better
C. They will both do the same
A. The hour-restudy group will retain the information
Long term learning STUDY Bahrick, Bahrick, Bahrick, Bahrick (1993)
distributive practice is not just an advantage of one day, but for years
tested retention for words from different sessions for up to five years
13 sessions learned 13 sessions, 26 sessions
results: forgot language vocab overtime, adverting for 56 day interval set of studies
motor tasks- 1
use implicit procedural memory
Overall, motor tasks also show a clear advantage for
distributed practice
STUDY Lorge 1930-1
mirrored tasks, distributive practices
results: any interval between sessions helped improved performance
even though we talk about paired association, we see it in multiple places
distribution of practive summary
distributed practice is not clearly better than massed practice for initial learning
distributed practice is clearly better at preventing forgetting
true for both declarative and procedural memory
You and your friend are taking calculus. You distribute
your practice over time, while he crams right before the
test. When do you expect to see an advantage over
your friend?
A. The midterm that he crammed for
B. The final exam at the end of the semester
C. At an interview in three years
D. Both C and D
D. Both C an B
as you start to forget information the person that did distributive practice will retain more infor
A closer look
how doe distributed practice interact with other factors that affect us like repitions
are there other kinds of distributed practice that are better than others
Spacing and repetition
massed and discriptive
distributed practice can also apply to how far apart items occurs in a list:
pillows
cat
cat
shoe
key
vs
pilowe
shoe
key
spray
cat
STUDY Underwood (1970)
how repetition interacts with spacing
repetition: nouns in word list occurred between one and four time
spacing half of nous were masses, half of nouns were distributed
results: distributed practice is better than mass, the more times we see the word the more the advantage for distributed practice
spacing is better than massed practice for all frequency of words, size of spaxing effect increases as repetition increases
Improved Distributed Practice
Distributed practice is thought to interact with other
tactics to improve memory
Expanding retrieval practice
Structured practice
Expanding retrieval practice
commonly thought that recaking at greater intervals improves learning
Landauer and Bjork (1973)
asked participants to learn first and last names
presented the cards are different intervals
results: studies same number of times but at uniform intervals
different schedules of retrieval practice help distribute info differerntly
STUDY Expanding Retrieval Practice
Latimier, Peyre, and Ramus (2021)
a meta analysis that asked 2 questions
across the many studies, do we find that spacing consistently benefits memory
- yes!
do we find that expanding retrieval practice benefits memory?
-no
Latimier, Peyre, and Ramus (2021)
studies with
results: expanding retrieval practice does help but we have to see the 2 groups differently
Which of the following is an example of expanding
retrieval practice?
A. Studying a topic before a weekly quiz, then before
a midterm, and then before a final
B. Always studying for chemistry the week before the
exam
C. Studying physics every Thursday
D. Studying the night before a Linguistics exam
A. Studying a topic before a weekly quiz, then before
a midterm, and then before a final
Strucuted Pracrtice
STUDY Finely et al (2011)
one advantage of distributed practice is that it is more difficult which improves learning
what are other ways to include difficulty
Manipulated how many cues participants could use for
retrieval;
accumulating: 1 or 2 letters back
diminishing: start with upiawu word
get the word a bunch of times
results: diminishing, retrieval gets harder and harder, more and more difficult forms of retrieval is better for distributed practice better
STUDY Ker and booth 1978
do procedural tasks also benefit from structured practice?
Specific condition: always practiced throwing from four
feet away
Varied condition: practiced throwing from three and five
feet away
result: varied practice adds a structure to the memory
specific manipulations of distributed practice improve memory and expanding retrieval improves memory assuming items are seen many times
multiple different distances
You are memorizing a song for a musical. Which of the
following strategies would help you the least?
A. Practicing the song beginning from multiple
different points
B. Reading the lyrics, and slowly removing more and
more words to force yourself to retrieve
C. Practicing multiple times with at least some time in
between sessions
D. Always practicing the song from the beginning, and
starting over if you mess up
D. Always practicing the song from the beginning, and
starting over if you mess up
Theories of distributed practice
1)Redices processing/ attenuation of attention
2) Encoding variability
3) Reminding
1) Reduced processing/ attenuation n of attention
STUDY Johnson and Uhl (1976)
if we see items close together we pay less attentions to them
words playing in one ear and just a tone in the other
paying more attention to words, we will be slowly to detect the tone
how much attention we are paying to words was done through distributed or mass practices
results: the more times the massed words are repeating the more times they notice the tone
with the distributed lists, we see slower and slower reaction times to the tone
supporting the reduces processing theory the more mass times
Reduced Processing
pros and cons
pros; lots of empirical research to support, reduces processing cant explan all effects of distrubiting processing
2) Encoding variablity
is the same items in more different environment is more successful
more cues to bring back to mind
lots of different contast can. mamke memory better
