We examined whether normal aging spares or compromises cue-driven spontaneous retrieval processes that support prospective remembering. In Experiment 1, young and older adults performed prospective-memory tasks that required either strategic monitoring processes for retrieval (nonfocal) or for which participants relied on spontaneous retrieval processes (focal). We found age differences for nonfocal, but not focal, prospective-memory performance. Experiments 2 and 3 used an intention-interference paradigm in which participants were asked to perform a prospective-memory task (e.g., press "Q" when the word money appears) in the context of an image-rating task and were then told to suspend their prospective-memory intention until after completing an intervening lexical-decision task. During the lexical-decision task, we presented the exact prospective-memory cue (e.g., money; Experiments 2 and 3) or a semantically related lure (e.g., wallet; Experiment 3), and we inferred spontaneous retrieval from slowed lexical-decision responses to these items relative to matched control items. Young and older adults showed significant slowing when the exact prospective-memory cue was presented. Only young adults, however, showed significant slowing to the semantically related lure items. Collectively, these results partially support the multiprocess theory prediction that aging spares spontaneous retrieval processes. Spontaneous retrieval processes may become less sensitive with aging, such that older adults are less likely to respond to cues that do not exactly match their encoded targets.

Educators and researchers who study human learning often assume that feedback is most effective when given immediately. However, a growing body of research has challenged this assumption by demonstrating that delaying feedback can facilitate learning. Advocates for immediate feedback have questioned the generalizability of this finding, suggesting that such effects only occur in highly controlled laboratory settings. We report a pair of experiments in which the timing of feedback was manipulated in an upperlevel college engineering course. Students practiced applying their knowledge of complex engineering concepts on weekly homework assignments, and then received feedback either immediately after the assignment deadline or 1 week later. When students received delayed feedback, they performed better on subsequent course exams that contained new problems about the same concepts. Although delayed feedback produced superior transfer of knowledge, students reported that they benefited most from immediate feedback, revealing a metacognitive disconnect between actual and perceived effectiveness.

An important recent finding is that testing improves learning and memory. In this article, the authors describe a demonstration that illustrates this principle and helps students incorporate more testing into their learning. The authors asked students to read one text using a Study-Study strategy and one text using a Study-Test strategy. One week later, the authors tested students' memory for both texts with short-answer quizzes. The results revealed the standard testing effect and served as the basis for a laboratory report that required students to analyze and interpret the results and to answer questions about the testing effect and the experimental design. At the end of the term, students indicated that they were engaging in more testing during their studying. Keywords testing effect, meta-cognitionIn recent years, psychologists have developed an impressive body of results showing that introducing testing into one's learning produces powerful benefits for memory-benefits that exceed those produced by comparable amounts of time engaging in additional study (see Roediger & Karpicke, 2006a). Interestingly, the available evidence indicates that college students are unaware of the mnemonic benefits of self-testing. Karpicke, Butler, and Roediger (2009) found that only 11% of students reported self-testing as a study strategy and only 1% listed it as their top strategy. By contrast, 84% listed rereading as a study strategy and 55% listed it as their top strategy. In this article, we describe a laboratory that illustrates the importance of testing for long-term retention and helps students incorporate this principle into their own learning.Roediger and Karpicke's (2006b) research is a particularly clear example of the benefits of testing for memory. They presented participants with prose passages to learn and varied whether they (a) studied one passage for 7 min and then studied it again for 7 min (Study-Study condition) or (b) studied it for 7 min and then tested their memory for it for 7 min (Study-Test condition). During the Test phase in the Study-Test condition, participants simply recalled as much as they could and did not get feedback on their recall. Participants then recalled the passages 5 min, 2 days, or 1 week later. The interesting finding is that memory was nominally lower in the Study-Test condition at the 5-min delay but significantly higher at the 2-day and 1-week retention intervals. Thus, even though both groups spent the same amount of time engaged with the material, testing dramatically lessened forgetting. Indeed, forgetting from 5-min recall to 1-week recall was 35% in the Study-Study condition and only about half of that (18%) in the Study-Test condition.Recent research also shows that testing produces benefits for academic performance on materials and formats that students typically encounter in college courses. McDaniel, Anderson, Derbish, and Morrisette (2007) encouraged students to use a course website to review materials from the textbook and generally found that test performance was hig...

We examined the effects of divided attention on the spontaneous retrieval of a prospective memory intention. Participants performed an ongoing lexical decision task with an embedded prospective memory demand, and also performed a divided-attention task during some segments of lexical decision trials. In all experiments, monitoring was highly discouraged, and we observed no evidence that participants engaged monitoring processes. In Experiment 1, performing a moderately demanding divided-attention task (a digit detection task) did not affect prospective memory performance. In Experiment 2, performing a more challenging divided-attention task (random number generation) impaired prospective memory. Experiment 3 showed that this impairment was eliminated when the prospective memory cue was perceptually salient. Taken together, the results indicate that spontaneous retrieval is not automatic and that challenging divided-attention tasks interfere with spontaneous retrieval and not with the execution of a retrieved intention.