Lecture 16 - Improving Memory Flashcards
What are the six strategies for effective learning?
- Spaced practise: activities are spread out over time
- Interleaving: switching between topics while studying
- Retrieval practise: bringing learned info to mind from LTM
- Elaboration: Asking/explaining why and how things work
- Concrete examples: when studying abstract things, using specific examples
- Dual coding: combining words with visuals
What is elaboration?
- Connect new info to pre-existing info
- Thinking in a deeper level e.g accessing meaning
- Improvements in organisation
What is elaborative interrogation
- Prompt learners to generate explanation for a fact? e.g why/how
- Process of working out answer with uncertainty that helps you learn
What was a study looking at elaboration?
- Series of sentences given
- Three conditions: elaborative interrogation, explanation provided and a reading group who just read the sentence
- Final test with cues for recall
- EI = 72%, other groups = 37%
Why does elaborative interrogation work?
- Higher knowledge = more appropriate explanations
- Study asked german students and canadian students about their own geography with high/low knowledge students. EI benefits memory but bolsters it for those with high knowledge
Pros/cons of implementations of EI:
P:
- Minimal training needed
- Reasonable time demands
- Consistency of prompt
C:
- Do students make questions?
- What level of knowledge do you direct question at?
- How often do you ask? And how long should students look for answers?
What is retrieval practise?
- Low/No-stakes practise: practise recall/problems e.g test yourself
Study that shows retrieval practise is effective?
- 3 groups: repeated study where ppl read passage 4 times with no test, single test: passage read 3 studies and 1 test, final group: read once, recalled as much as possible on 3 diff occasions
- Short delays = better for more reading, longer delays = better performance in more test sessions = robust effect
Why does practise testing improve learning?
- Direct effect: act of retrieval strengthens memory
- Effect of covert retrieval: ppts need to bring info to find but not say anything, overt is same but you say it. Both groups better than control with no retrieval
- Indirect effects: expectations of testing = better encoding. Frequent tests = less mind-wandering
How to implement practise testing technique?
- Across array of practise test formats
- Benefits depends to a certain extent upon how successful retrieval is
- Balance success with difficulty of retrieval
- More testing = better, better for repeated tests to be spaced
What is spaced practise?
- Distributed practise
Evidence of spaced practise:
- Learning stats over 6 mo or 8 weeks
- 6 mo have better performance
How is spaced practise a robust effect?
- Meta analysis where students recalled more after spaced study compared to massed study
- All studies with retention interval more than a month showed a benefit
Why is distributed practise good?
- Do not have to work very hard to retrieve straight away
- More sessions = reminding
- Consolidation
How should you space learning episodes?
- Longer lags = better
- When lag is 10-20% of desired retention interval = best performances
