A carregar...
Projeto de investigação
Can we learn from errors?
Financiador
Autores
Publicações
What does young adults' and adolescents' learning have in common? : a comparison of the immediate testing effect
Publication . Barros, Marta Ganso Queiroz; Raposo, Ana Luísa Nunes, 1978-
Retrieval practice is a learning strategy that involves the active retrieval, via a test (e.g., cued-recall), of information learnt prior to an evaluative test. The comparison of retrieval practice with restudying the information learnt produces a robust effect – testing effect – which demonstrates that testing studied material results in better learning than merely reading or restudying it. Importantly, this research has focused largely on long-term effects and the adult population, making it critical to expand knowledge to immediate testing and to younger participants due to applications in learning. To address this issue, in the present study, adolescents (12-17 years old) and young adults (22-27 years old) underwent a memory task with three phases. During encoding, participants studied sentences. In the intermediate phase, for half of the sentences, participants performed an active recognition task, providing a response, whereas for the other half, they read someone else’s responses (passive recognition), followed by corrective feedback. In the final cued-recall phase, the proportion of correct responses and memory errors were evaluated. Results replicated the testing effect in adults and adolescents, by showing both higher proportion of correct responses and lower rate of memory errors in the active compared to the passive condition. These findings demonstrate that adolescents and young adults’ memory performance benefits from retrieval practice with corrective feedback. The results show that the testing effect is observed in immediate testing, which may have important applications to be implemented in learning environments.
Can we learn from errors? Retrieval facilitates the correction of false memories for pragmatic inferences
Publication . Maraver, María J.; Lapa, Ana; Garcia-Marques, Leonel; Carneiro, Paula; Raposo, Ana
Errorful learning suggests that, when perfect learning has not yet been attained, errors can
enhance future learning if followed by corrective feedback. Research on memory updating
has shown that after retrieval, memory becomes more malleable and prone to change.
Thus, retrieval of a wrong answer might provide a good context for the incorporation of feedback. Here, we tested this hypothesis using sentences including pragmatic sentence implications, commonly used for the study of false memories. Across two experiments with
young adults, we hypothesized that corrective feedback would be more efficient at reducing
false memories if provided immediately after retrieval, when memory is more malleable than
after being exposed to the material. Participants’ memory was assessed as a function of the
type of learning task (Experiment 1: retrieval vs. restudy; and Experiment 2: active vs. passive recognition); and whether participants received corrective feedback or not. In both
experiments, we observed that retrieval not only improved correct recall (replicating the testing effect) but also promoted the correction of false memories. Notably, corrective feedback
was more effective when given after errors that were committed during retrieval rather than
after restudy (Experiment 1) or after passive recognition (Experiment 2). Our results suggest
that the benefits of retrieval go beyond the testing effect since it also facilitates false memories correction. Retrieval seems to enhance memory malleability, thus improving the incorporation of feedback, compared to the mere presentation of the information. Our results
support the use of learning strategies that engage in active and explicit retrieval because,
even if the retrieved information is wrong—when immediate feedback is provided—memory
updating is promoted and errors are more likely to be corrected.
Imagination Reduces False Memories for Everyday Action Sentences: Evidence From Pragmatic Inferences
Publication . Maraver, María J.; Lapa, Ana; Garcia-Marques, Leonel; Carneiro, Paula; Raposo, Ana
Human memory can be unreliable, and when reading a sentence with a pragmatic
implication, such as “the karate champion hit the cinder block,” people often falsely
remember that the karate champion “broke” the cinder block. Yet, research has shown
that encoding instructions affect the false memories we form. On the one hand, instructing
participants to imagine themselves manipulating the to-be-recalled items increase false
memories (imagination inflation effect). But on the other hand, instructions to imagine
have reduced false memories in the DRM paradigm (imagination facilitation effect). Here,
we explored the effect of imaginal encoding with pragmatic inferences, a way to study
false memories for information about everyday actions. Across two experiments,
we manipulated imaginal encoding through the instructions given to participants and the
after-item filler task (none vs. math operations). In Experiment 1, participants were either
assigned to the encoding condition of imagine + no filler; pay attention + math; or
memorize+math. In Experiment 2, the encoding instructions (imagine vs. memorize) and
the filler task (none vs. math) were compared across four separate conditions. Results
from the two experiments showed that imagination instructions lead to better memory,
by showing a higher proportion of correct responses and better performance in a memory
benefit index. Similarly, a significant reduction of false memories was observed across
both experiments, even though a complementary Bayesian analysis only supported this
conclusion for Experiment 1. The findings show that imaginal encoding improves memory,
suggesting the engagement of a distinctiveness heuristic and source-monitoring process.
Unidades organizacionais
Descrição
Palavras-chave
Contribuidores
Financiadores
Entidade financiadora
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Programa de financiamento
Concurso para Financiamento de Projetos de Investigação Científica e Desenvolvimento Tecnológico em Todos os Domínios Científicos - 2017
Número da atribuição
PTDC/PSI-ESP/28414/2017