The generation effect when generation fails

doi:10.1016/S0022-5371(83)90112-3

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

Volume 22, Issue 2, April 1983, Pages 153-163

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(83)90112-3 Get rights and content

In a generation-effect paradigm, generation of opposites to stimulus words was strongly influenced by the number of response letters provided. Experiment 1 found recall of these responses to be independent of subjects' prior success or failure in generating them, and higher than Read. Experiment 2 extended these findings and also showed response recognition to be poorer for failures than successes. Experiment 3 showed significant recognition of failed items even when they were not displayed at input. It was hypothesized that generation failures were really incomplete generations, where semantic, but not surface, features were processed. The interpretation that recognition rather than recall was more sensitive to detection of ungenerated surface features accounted for the differential test outcomes.

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A sample of 120 participants with clinically definite MS who have impairments in new learning and memory will be enrolled. Outcomes will be assessed via three mechanisms, an Assessment of Global Functioning, which examines everyday functioning and quality of life, a Neuropsychological Evaluation to examine objective cognitive performance, and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to examine the impact of treatment on patterns of cerebral activation. We will additionally evaluate the longer-term efficacy of KF-STEM™ on everyday functioning and neuropsychological assessment through a 6-month follow-up evaluation and evaluate the impact of booster sessions in maintaining the treatment effect over time. The methodologically rigorous design of the current study will provide Class I evidence for the KF-STEM™ treatment protocol for persons with MS.
Effects of retrieval practice on tested and untested information: Cortico-hippocampal interactions and error-driven learning
2021, Psychology of Learning and Motivation - Advances in Research and Theory
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In fact, when practice test is incorrect, retrieval may distort memories toward the retrieved incorrect information (e.g., Bridge & Paller, 2012; Bridge & Voss, 2014). In addition, whereas a large number of studies on testing effects have examined the outcomes of correct retrieval, some other studies have reported that unsuccessful retrieval attempts can also improve encoding of the items that have not yet been studied (Izawa, 1970; Karpicke, 2009; Karpicke & Roediger, 2007; Kornell, Hays, & Bjork, 2009; Pastötter, Schicker, Niedernhuber, & Bäuml, 2011; Richland, Kornell, & Kao, 2009; Slamecka & Fevreiski, 1983; Wissman, Rawson, & Pyc, 2011). For example, Kornell et al. (2009) explored what happened to paired associates that were not correctly generated on their first guess attempt when they were studied as a pair later.
Episodic memory retrieval is often viewed as a static process that enables one to re-experience past events. However, there is considerable evidence suggesting that memories can be modified, altered, or strengthened through online retrieval and reactivation during sleep. For example, recent research has demonstrated the importance of testing in learning, highlighting a phenomenon known as the testing effect. Moreover, testing can have significant effects on memory for untested items, sometimes enhancing retention and sometimes causing forgetting. This chapter reviews the relevant literature on the testing effect and the effects of testing on related untested information. We close by introducing a biologically-based computational model—TEACH—that can potentially explain a broad range of findings on the testing effect through cortico-hippocampal interactions and the principle of error-driven learning. This model makes a number of predictions at the biological and behavioral levels that can be used to guide future research.
Learning from errors is attributable to episodic recollection rather than semantic mediation
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In typical participants, generating an error prior to being provided with the correct answer results in enhanced memory for the correct answer, as compared to simply studying the correct information with no intervening error generation (Finn and Metcalfe, 2010; Grimaldi and Karpicke, 2012; Hays et al., 2013; Huelser and Metcalfe, 2012; Izawa, 1967, 1970; Karpicke and Roediger, 2007; Kornell et al., 2009; Metcalfe and Miele, 2014; Pastötter et al., 2011; Richland et al., 2009; Slamecka and Fevreiski, 1983).
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 answer suggested that the effect may occur because the error provides a semantic stepping stone to the correct answer: the Semantic Mediation hypothesis. This hypothesis seems at odds with the finding that amnesicsgenerate answers, again including those studied by Tulving and his colleagues–who purportedly have spared semantic/implicit memory–experience enormous difficulties when they commit errors. Accordingly, the present experiments investigated whether the error-generation benefit seen in typicals was attributable Semantic Mediation or to Episodic Recollection. In Experiment 1, we used polysemous materials to create Congruent (e.g., wrist-palm) and Incongruent (e.g., tree-palm) cues for target words (e.g., HAND). In the Congruent condition, participants generated errors that were semantically related to the target (e.g., finger), and which could have provided a semantic mediator. In the Incongruent condition they generated errors that were unrelated to the target (e.g., coconut), and which, therefore, should not have provided a semantic mediator. The Congruent and Incongruent conditions both produced an error-generation benefit–contradicting the Semantic Mediation hypothesis. Experiment 2 showed that the error-generation benefit only occurred when the original error was also recollected on the final memory test. Indeed, in the Incongruent condition, when the error was not, itself, recalled, error generation resulted in a deficit in memory for the correct response. These results point to episodic/explicit, rather than semantic/implicit memory, as the locus of the ‘learning from errors’ benefits.
Learning from failure: Errorful generation improves memory for items, not associations
2019, Journal of Memory and Language
Citation Excerpt :
Students do not always do well on tests though, which might lead educators to worry whether failed tests could do more harm than good. What has become increasingly clear in recent years, however, is that even unsuccessful tests improve retention (e.g., Kane & Anderson, 1978; Slamecka & Fevreiski, 1983). Kornell, Hays, and Bjork (2009), for example, asked participants to study and remember weakly associated word pairs (e.g., freckle-mole).
Potts and Shanks (2014) recently reported that making mistakes improved the encoding of novel information compared with simply studying. This benefit of generating errors is counterintuitive, since it resulted in less study time and more opportunity for proactive interference. Five experiments examined the effect of generating errors versus studying on item recognition, cued recall, associative recognition, two-alternative forced choice and multiple-choice performance. Following Potts and Shanks (2014), participants first attempted to learn the English definitions of either very rare English words or Euskara nouns. During encoding, participants either guessed the definition (and almost always made an error) before the correct definition was revealed, or simply studied the words for an equivalent period. Experiments 1–4 used rare English words. In these experiments, generating errors led to better subsequent recognition of both the cues and targets compared with studying (Experiments 1 and 3). Tests of cued recall and associative recognition, by contrast, revealed no significant benefit of generating errors over studying (Experiments 1–3). Generating errors during encoding also improved performance on a two-alternative forced choice test when the correct target was presented with a novel foil, but not when the familiarity of the target and the foil was matched (Experiment 4). In Experiment 5, a different set of materials – Euskara nouns – and a different (intermixed) encoding procedure was adopted. Here, guessing improved target recognition (performance was improved on a multiple-choice test with unfamiliar foils), but impaired cued recall performance. These results suggest that, when learning word pairs that do not have a pre-existing semantic association, generating errors strengthens the cues and targets in isolation, but does not strengthen the cue-target associations.
Toward consilience in the use of task-level feedback to promote learning
2018, Psychology of Learning and Motivation - Advances in Research and Theory
Citation Excerpt :
The paradigm used in research on test-potentiated learning includes an initial study phase, and thus subjects are attempting to retrieve newly acquired information (i.e., episodic memory). In contrast, the paradigm used in research on generate-potentiated learning does not include an initial study phase because it involves attempting to generate answers using information stored in semantic memory (Slamecka & Fevreiski, 1983). For example, Kornell, Hays, and Bjork (2009) gave one group of subjects a cue (e.g., whale-?)
Over the past 50 years, the effects of task-level feedback on learning have been investigated within three relatively isolated research traditions: experimental laboratory research, applied research in the classroom, and research on using computers for individual instruction. Within each of these areas, the accumulation of empirical findings has far outpaced the development of theory. In addition, numerous discrepancies have emerged within and among these research traditions, which is problematic for existing theory and making recommendations for educational practice. The goal of this review is to make sense of a fragmented feedback literature that is rife with (seemingly) contradictory findings by introducing theoretical ideas from other areas of human learning. We begin by providing some context through a brief history of feedback research and then describe some common flaws in feedback research that have caused much confusion in the literature. Next, we discuss three well-replicated findings from the literature that are critical to understanding how people learn from feedback and introduce new theoretical ideas that may help to explain these phenomena. Finally, we describe a few future directions for feedback research and some guidelines for how feedback can be used to promote learning in educational practice.
Does delayed corrective feedback enhance acquisition of correct information?
2017, Acta Psychologica
Many studies concerned with misinformation correction during learning report that delayed corrective feedback is superior to immediate feedback. However, the mechanism for this effect has not been confirmed. The interference-perseveration theory predicts that immediate feedback following participants' wrong responses elicits proactive interference that deteriorates acquisition of feedback information. In contrast, delayed feedback following errors leads to participants' forgetting these errors during the delay period; consequently, in the latter, interference should decline leading to superior acquisition of corrective information. However, results of these studies have been inconsistent. The present study manipulated whether initial errors were visually cued before feedback (no error-cueing, error-cueing) along with the timing of the feedback (immediate, delayed). The interference-perseveration theory predicts that when errors are not cued, delayed feedback should result in superior acquisition of correct information compared to immediate feedback. When errors are cued, proactive interference should effect a deterioration in acquisition of corrective feedback. Results confirmed neither of these predictions, thus challenging the interference-perseveration hypothesis. Moreover, additional analysis suggested that memory for errors has the ability to enhance the retention of correct answers and it does not hinder recall.

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: This research was supported by Grant A7663 from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

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The generation effect when generation fails

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

Meaningful processing of sentences

Journal of Educational Psychology

Some general constraints on learning and memory research

A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales

Educational and Psychological Measurement

Retrieval difficulty and subsequent recall

Memory & Cognition