The ability to control encoding and retrievalprocessesstrategicallyis criticalfor the efficientuse of memory. We examined the ability of younger and older adults to selectively remember words on the basis of their arbitrary point values by using a technique developed by Watkins and Bloom (1999). In the first three experiments, younger subjects recalled more words than did older subjects, but an independent index of recall selectivity showed that older subjects were apparently more successful in selecting higher valued words. However, a fourth experiment showed that this superior selectivityon the part of older adults was attributable to their greaterproportional reliance on primary memory recall. Overall, the data suggest that although older adults recall fewer words than do younger adults, they exert as much control over some aspects of encoding.

The advantages provided to memory by the distribution of multiple practice or study opportunities are among the most powerful effects in memory research. In this paper, we critically review the class of theories that presume contextual or encoding variability as the sole basis for the advantages of distributed practice, and recommend an alternative approach based on the idea that some study events remind learners of other study events. Encoding variability theory encounters serious challenges in two important phenomena that we review here: superadditivity and nonmonotonicity. The bottleneck in such theories lies in the assumption that mnemonic benefits arise from the increasing independence, rather than interdependence, of study opportunities. The reminding model accounts for many basic results in the literature on distributed practice, readily handles data that are problematic for encoding variability theories, including superadditivity and nonmonotonicity, and provides a unified theoretical framework for understanding the effects of repetition and the effects of associative relationships on memory.Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in the advantages provided to memory by the distribution of multiple practice or study events. This interest owes in part to the ramifications such results have for developing effective training, educational, and athletic regimens, and to the impressive success researchers have had in importing interventions out of the laboratory and into training settings, the classroom, and the practice field. The effects of distributing practice are extremely robust and cross-cutting-the advantages are evident in basic memory tasks using words (Cepeda, Pashler, Vul, Wixted, & Rohrer, 2006;Janiszewski, Noel, & Sawyer, 2003) and pictures (Hintzman & Rogers, 1973), in motor skill acquisition (Lee & Genovese, 1988), and with more complex educationally relevant materials (Krug, Davis, & Glover, 1990). Almost every major textbook on cognitive psychology and on human memory discusses the advantages of distributed learning, and such effects are among the keystone results that contending theoretical models of learning and memory must dutifully explain.The results from experiments on distributed practice have informed memory theory principally insofar as those theories successfully handle the difference between massed and spaced practice conditions (the spacing effect; Ebbinghaus, 1885) or between differentially spaced conditions (the lag effect; Melton, 1967), as well as how they account for differences arising from intentionality of learning during study or from different memory tests (Challis, 1993;Greene, 1989;Russo, Parkin, Taylor, & Wilks, 1998). Here we make the case that the superadditivity effect (Begg & Green, 1988;Watkins & Kerkar, 1985;Glanzer, 1969;Waugh, 1963), which concerns the relationship between memory for single events and memory for multiple events, and the nonmonotonicity effect, which concerns the shape of the lag function, are empirical

The effects of pitch accenting on memory were investigated in three experiments. Participants listened to short recorded discourses that contained contrast sets with two items (e.g. British scientists and French scientists); a continuation specified one item from the set. Pitch accenting on the critical word in the continuation was manipulated between non-contrastive (H* in the ToBI system) and contrastive (L+H*). On subsequent recognition memory tests, the L+H* accent increased hits to correct statements and correct rejections of the contrast item (Experiments 1–3), but did not impair memory for other parts of the discourse (Experiment 2). L+H* also did not facilitate correct rejections of lures not in the contrast set (Experiment 3), indicating that contrastive accents do not simply strengthen the representation of the target item. These results suggest comprehenders use pitch accenting to encode and update information about multiple elements in a contrast set.

A tacit but fundamental assumption of the Theory of Signal Detection (TSD) is that criterion placement is a noise-free process. This paper challenges that assumption on theoretical and empirical grounds and presents the Noisy Decision Theory of Signal Detection (ND-TSD). Generalized equations for the isosensitivity function and for measures of discrimination that incorporate criterion variability are derived, and the model's relationship with extant models of decision-making in discrimination tasks is examined. An experiment that evaluates recognition memory for ensembles of word stimuli reveals that criterion noise is not trivial in magnitude and contributes substantially to variance in the slope of the isosensitivity function. We discuss how ND-TSD can help explain a number of current and historical puzzles in recognition memory, including the inconsistent relationship between manipulations of learning and the slope of the isosensitivity function, the lack of invariance of the slope with manipulations of bias or payoffs, the effects of aging on the decision-making process in recognition, and the nature of responding in Remember/Know decision tasks. ND-TSD poses novel and theoretically meaningful constraints on theories of recognition and decision-making more generally, and provides a mechanism for rapprochement between theories of decision-making that employ deterministic response rules and those that postulate probabilistic response rules.

Metacognitive monitoring and control must be accurate and efficient in order to allow self-guided learners to improve their performance. Yet few examples exist in which allowing learners to control learning produces higher levels of performance than restricting learners’ control. Here we investigate the consequences of allowing learners to self-pace study of a list of words on later recognition, and show that learners with control of study-time allocation significantly outperformed subjects with no control, even when the total study time was equated between groups (Experiments 1 and 2). The self-pacing group also outperformed a group for which study time was automatically allocated as a function of normative item difficulty (Experiment 2). The advantage of self-pacing was apparent only in subjects who utilized a discrepancy reduction strategy—that is, who allocated more study time to normatively difficult items. Self-pacing can improve memory performance, but only when appropriate allocation strategies are used.

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