Do Unsuccessful Retrieval Attempts Enhance Learning

Retrieval practice effect also known as test effect its strong role in promotingknowledge and learning have been different forms of learning materials and testrepeatedly confirmed, not only that, studies have shown that even when unsuccessfulretrieval attempt also enhance subsequent learning, which a discovery greatlyencouraged the researchers advocate the practice as a learning strategy to extract indaily learning.However, in these studies,have had participants try to generate or guessthe target member on test trials without them having had previous episodic experiencewith the given cue-target pairs. Thus, evidence on the effects of unsuccessful retrievalattempts is currently restricted to the generation of information from one’s semanticknowledge (i.e., words associated to a presented cue),which the situation is notconsistent with the real-life test or student self-test. Therefore, this study determined ifthe observed influences of unsuccessful retrieval attempts extend to conditions thatare more similar to educational tests—retrieval from a previous episodic experience,in order to provide reference for the education practice.In the initial phase,120words were presented on the screen one at a time,thewords that were presented in the first phase served as the cue–target pairs in thesecond phase.For30of the trials intact pairs were presented for13s and participantswere instructed to study the cue–target pairs, for the other30trials a cue waspresented with question marks appearing beside it. On these trials participant weretold to use the word as a cue to recall a word from the first phase. They were told thatthe cue and the target had appeared in the earlier phase and the target would be relatedor associated to the cue.In the third phase, participants completed a cued-recall test.Items that participants responded to correctly were excluded from further analysis ona participant-byparticipant basis.The results showed that:(1) better cued-recallaccuracy was observed for the test pairs relative to the re-studying pairs, thatunsuccessful episodic retrieval attempts also enhance subsequent learning;(2) thebenefit of unsuccessful episodic retrieval attempts not limited to the retrieved items,but also facilitate recall of information that was present on the test but was notretrieved; when the final memory test is different from the initial test, unsuccessfulepisodic retrieval attempts also enhance learning;(3) relative to repeated encoding,unsuccessful episodic retrieval attempts followed by feedback， bothimmediate or delayed feedback can better enhance the retention of memory both inimmediate tests and delayed tests, unsuccessful episodic retrieval attempts not onlyimprove short-term memory but also to promote long-term memory; However,immediate feedback and delayed feedback accuracy in immediate tests and delayedtests in a larger difference, delay feedback its correct rate decreased, indicatingunsuccessful episodic retrieval attempts had forgotten after retrievaled two days later.These results demonstrate that unsuccessful episodic retrieval attempts enhance futurelearning; and this promotion is not limited to the retrieved items, the form of retrievedand test interval.Based eliminate-delimite theory, unsuccessful episodic retrievalattempts, unsuccessful retrieval does not mean not retrieval, the effectiveness ordiagnostic value of retrieval cues for solving this discrimination problem is a functionof how well a cue specifies certain candidates to the exclusion of othercompetitors.Thsu, practicing retrieval enhances learning by improving the diagnosticvalue of retrieval cues.