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Cued recall of word pairs is improved by asking participants to combine items in an interactive image. Meanwhile, interactive images facilitate serial-recall (Link Method), but even better when each item is imagined alongside a previously learned peg-word (Peg List Method). We asked if a peg system could support memory for pairs, hypothesising it would outperform interactive imagery. Tested with cued recall, five study strategies were manipulated between-subjects, across two experiments: (1) Both words linked to one peg; (2) Each word linked to a different peg; (3) Peg list method but studying as a serial list; (4) Interactive imagery (within-pairs); (5) Link Method. Participants were able to apply peg-list strategies to pairs, as anticipated by mathematical modelling. Error-patterns spoke to mathematical models; peg lists exhibited distance-based confusability, characteristic of positional-coding models, and errors tended to preserve within-pair position, even for inter-item associative strategies, suggesting models of association should incorporate position. However, the peg list strategies came with a speed-accuracy tradeoff and did not challenge the superiority of the interactive imagery strategy. Without extensive practice with peg list strategies, interactive imagery remains superior for associations. Peg strategies may excel instead in tasks that primarily test serial order or with extensive training.

Changes in context across instances of memory retrieval have been shown to impair memory for acts of prior remembering. The present study examined how self-referential encoding influences memory for prior remembering that occurred with or without context change. At encoding, participants processed each target in cue-target word pairs in relation to themselves or another person. During an initial cued-recall test, targets were tested with either the studied cues or semantically related, but previously unseen cues. During a second cued-recall test, all targets were tested with the studied cues, and participants judged whether they remembered retrieving each target during the first test. Regardless of self/other-reference, semantic context change across the two tests impaired memory for prior remembering. Furthermore, the magnitude of this impairment was larger for strongly self-associated vs. other-associated targets. Our findings suggest that self-referential encoding does not benefit memory for prior remembering in the face of contextual change.

Do students learn better with material that is perceptually hard to process? While evidence is mixed, recent claims suggest that placing materials in Sans Forgetica, a perceptually difficult-to-process typeface, has positive impacts on student learning. Given the weak evidence for other similar perceptual disfluency effects, we examined the mnemonic effects of Sans Forgetica more closely in comparison to other learning strategies across three preregistered experiments. In Experiment 1, participants studied weakly related cue-target pairs with targets presented in either Sans Forgetica or with missing letters (e.g., cue: G_RL, the generation effect). Cued recall performance showed a robust effect of generation, but no Sans Forgetica memory benefit. In Experiment 2, participants read an educational passage about ground water with select sentences presented in either Sans Forgetica typeface, yellow pre-highlighting, or unmodified. Cued recall for select words was better for pre-highlighted information than an unmodified pure reading condition. Critically, presenting sentences in Sans Forgetica did not elevate cued recall compared to an unmodified pure reading condition or a pre-highlighted condition. In Experiment 3, individuals did not have better discriminability for Sans Forgetica relative to a fluent condition in an old-new recognition test. Our findings suggest that Sans Forgetica really is forgettable.

We examined the effects of retrieval practice for students who varied in working memory capacity as a function of the lag between study of material and its initial test, whether or not feedback was given after the test, and the retention interval of the final test. We sought to determine whether a blend of these conditions exists that maximises benefits from retrieval practice for lower and higher working memory capacity students. College students learned general knowledge facts and then restudied the facts or were tested on them (with or without feedback) at lags of 0-9 intervening items. Final cued recall performance was better for tested items than for restudied items after both 10 minutes and 2 days, particularly for longer study-test lags. Furthermore, on the 2-day delayed test the benefits from retrieval practice with feedback were significantly greater for students with lower working memory capacity than for students with higher working memory capacity (r = -.42). Retrieval practice may be an especially effective learning strategy for lower ability students.

Information about others' success in remembering is frequently available. For example, students taking an exam may assess its difficulty by monitoring when others turn in their exams. In two experiments, we investigated how rememberers use this information to guide recall. Participants studied paired associates, some semantically related (and thus easier to retrieve) and some unrelated (and thus harder). During a subsequent cued recall test, participants viewed fictive information about an opponent's accuracy on each item. In Experiment 1, participants responded to each cue once before seeing the opponent's performance and once afterwards. Participants reconsidered their responses least often when the opponent's accuracy matched the item difficulty (easy items the opponent recalled, hard items the opponent forgot) and most often when the opponent's accuracy and the item difficulty mismatched. When participants responded only after seeing the opponent's performance (Experiment 2), the same mismatch conditions that led to reconsideration even produced superior recall. These results suggest that rememberers monitor whether others' knowledge states accord or conflict with their own experience, and that this information shifts how they interrogate their memory and what they recall.

Previous research has shown that multiple choice tests often improve memory retention. However, the presence of incorrect lures often attenuates this memory benefit. The current research examined the effects of "all of the above" (AOTA) options. When such options are correct, no incorrect lures are present. In the first three experiments, a correct AOTA option on an initial test led to a larger memory benefit than no test and standard multiple choice test conditions. The benefits of a correct AOTA option occurred even without feedback on the initial test; for both 5-minute and 48-hour retention delays; and for both cued recall and multiple choice final test formats. In the final experiment, an AOTA question led to better memory retention than did a control condition that had identical timing and exposure to response options. However, the benefits relative to this control condition were similar regardless of the type of multiple choice test (AOTA or not). Results suggest that retrieval contributes to multiple choice testing effects. However, the extra testing effect from a correct AOTA option, rather than being due to more retrieval, might be due simply to more exposure to correct information.

In a novel event method directed forgetting task, instructions to Remember (R) or Forget (F) were integrated throughout the presentation of four videos depicting common events (e.g., baking cookies). Participants responded more accurately to cued recall questions (E1) and true/false statements (E2-4) regarding R segments than F segments. This was true even when forced to attend to F segments by virtue of having to perform concurrent discrimination (E2) or conceptual segmentation (E3) tasks. The final experiment (E5) demonstrated a larger R >F difference for specific true/false statements (the woman added three cups of flour) than for general true/false statements (the woman added flour) suggesting that participants likely encoded and retained at least a general representation of the events they had intended to forget, even though this representation was not as specific as the representation of events they had intended to remember.

Names are more difficult to remember than other personal information such as occupations. The current research examined the influence of assigned point value on memory and metamemory judgements for names and occupations to determine whether incentive can improve recall of proper names. In Experiment 1 participants studied face-name and face-occupation pairs assigned 1 or 10 points, made judgements of learning, and were given a cued recall test. High-value names were recalled more often than low-value names. However, recall of occupations was not influenced by value. In Experiment 2 meaningless nonwords were used for both names and occupations. The name difficulty disappeared, and value influenced recall of both names and occupations. Thus value similarly influenced names and occupations when meaningfulness was held constant. In Experiment 3 participants were required to use overt rote rehearsal for all items. Value did not boost recall of high-value names, suggesting that differential processing could not be implemented to improve memory. Thus incentives may improve memory for proper names by motivating people to engage in selective rehearsal and effortful elaborative processing.

The repeated suppression of thoughts in response to cues for their expression leads to forgetting on a subsequent test of cued recall (Anderson & Green, 2001). We extended this effect by using homograph cues and presenting them for free association following suppression practice. Cue-target pairs were first learned under integrating imagery instructions; then in the think/no-think phase students practised suppressing thoughts connected to some homograph cues, with or without the assistance of thought substitutes that changed their meaning. Below-baseline forgetting on the subsequent free-association test was found in the production of suppressed targets. Following aided suppression this effect was also obtained in the production of other responses denoting the target-related meaning of the homograph cues. Discussion emphasises the ecological value of the test; rarely do people deliberately attempt recall of unwanted thoughts.

The current study examined the degree to which predictions of memory performance made immediately or at a delay are sensitive to confidently held memory illusions. Participants studied unrelated pairs of words and made judgements of learning (JOLs) for each item, either immediately or after a delay. Half of the unrelated pairs (deceptive items; e.g., nurse-dollar) had a semantically related competitor (e.g., doctor) that was easily accessible when given a test cue (e.g., nurse-do_ _ _r) and half had no semantically related competitor (control items; e.g., subject-dollar). Following the study phase, participants were administered a cued recall test. Results from Experiment 1 showed that memory performance was less accurate for deceptive compared with control items. In addition, delaying judgement improved the relative accuracy of JOLs for control items but not for deceptive items. Subsequent experiments explored the degree to which the relative accuracy of delayed JOLs for deceptive items improved as a result of a warning to ensure that retrieved memories were accurate (Experiment 2) and corrective feedback regarding the veracity of information retrieved prior to making a JOL (Experiment 3). In all, these data suggest that delayed JOLs may be largely insensitive to memory errors unless participants are provided with feedback regarding memory accuracy.

A common finding in the emotion-memory literature is that memory is enhanced for positively arousing stimuli and negatively arousing stimuli relative to neutral stimuli. We tested the notion that post-stimulus elaboration is responsible for these effects. Post-stimulus elaboration refers to the process of thinking about an event (after its offset) more frequently or more in-depth. We tested the hypothesis by presenting participants with 36 slides depicting events that varied in arousal (low and high) and valence (positive and negative). The opportunity for elaboration was manipulated by requiring participants, during the interslide interval, to complete addition problems, simply view the addition problems, or view a blank slide. Cued recall memory was tested for central and background details. Based on the post-stimulus elaboration hypothesis it was expected that the greatest memory decline would occur for the central details of negatively and positively arousing slides when participants were required to complete addition problems (i.e., a distractor task x arousal x detail interaction). Contrary to the hypothesis, we found that filling the inter-slide interval with a distractor task decreased memory for negative stimuli compared to positive stimuli. This effect was independent of arousal. We also found that arousal increased central detail memory for positive and negative stimuli and background detail memory for positive stimuli but not for negative stimuli. This interaction was explained on the basis of pre-attentive encoding and cue utilisation. It was concluded that in order to understand the complex relationship between emotion and memory, future studies should include, as a minimum, the variables of valence, arousal, and detail.

A large number of experiments have found a moderate degree of dependence between subsequent tests of recognition and cued recall as described by the TWfunction. This paper investigates the dependence in word pair recognition. Tests of word pair recognition are conducted with the subsequent test being free recall, cued recall, recognition, and cued recognition. The dependence is compared to subsequent tests of cued recognition (i.e. recognition of a target with the presence of a cue). The results are related to a general theory of memory called TECO (Target, Event, Cue, & Object, see Sikstrom 1996b). This theory makes different quantitative predictions depending on the number of shared connections in the subsequent tests. Using a function suggested by TECO, different degrees of dependencies are predicted for pair and cued recognition. The predictions of the TECO-function show a non-significant deviation from observed data, whereas those of the TW-function deviate significantly in all conditions.

We report two experiments designed to test a multifactor transfer-appropriate processing explanation of generation effects, and the lack thereof, in free recall and cued recall. The basic argument is that the act of generating a target enhances the processing of one or more possible types of information (e.g. target-specific information, cue-target relationships, or target-target relationships) and that subsequent retention tests will reveal an advantage (or disadvantage) of such generation (compared to a "read" control) to the degree that a test is sensitive to the information on which processing was focused during study. Across the two experiments, manipulations of identical stimulus materials forced subjects to process different types of information in order to generate targets, producing a striking reversal in the relative levels of free recall and cued recall for targets that had been generated vs. read, and lending strong support to the transfer-appropriate processing aspect of the proposed framework for explaining generation effects.

Toddlers of 14 and 18 months learned to produce target actions for six activities, were allowed to forget their training, and were reminded of the activities 8 or 10 weeks later, depending on their age. Reminders were administered in a memory-reactivation paradigm in which toddlers were shown the target actions of three of the six activities but were not allowed to imitate the modelled actions. Toddlers were tested for their recall of all six activities 24 hours after the reactivation treatment. Toddlers who were passively exposed to three activities during the reactivation session recalled more activities than controls who either were not reminded or did not originally engage in the activities. This study reveals that 14- and 18-month-olds encode components of an event associatively and that they are able to remember seemingly forgotten components through passive re-exposure to other components of the event.