Retrieving a subset of items can cause the forgetting of other items, a phenomenon referred to as retrieval-induced forgetting. According to some theorists, retrieval-induced forgetting is the consequence of an inhibitory mechanism that acts to reduce the accessibility of nontarget items that interfere with the retrieval of target items. Other theorists argue that inhibition is unnecessary to account for retrieval-induced forgetting, contending instead that the phenomenon can be best explained by noninhibitory mechanisms, such as strength-based competition or blocking. The current article provides the first major meta-analysis of retrieval-induced forgetting, conducted with the primary purpose of quantitatively evaluating the multitude of findings that have been used to contrast these 2 theoretical viewpoints. The results largely supported inhibition accounts but also provided some challenging evidence, with the nature of the results often varying as a function of how retrieval-induced forgetting was assessed. Implications for further research and theory development are discussed.

Researchers' and educators' enthusiasm in applying cognitive principles to enhance educational practices has become more evident. Several published reviews have suggested that some potent strategies can help students learn more efficaciously. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, students do not report frequent reliance on these empirically supported techniques. In the present review, we take a novel approach, identifying study strategies for which students have strong preferences and assessing whether these preferred strategies have any merit given existing empirical evidence from the cognitive and educational literatures. Furthermore, we provide concrete recommendations for students, instructors, and psychologists. For students, we identify common pitfalls and tips for optimal implementation for each study strategy. For instructors, we provide recommendations for how they can assist students to more optimally implement these study strategies. For psychologists, we highlight promising avenues of research to help augment these study strategies.

Learning naturalistic categories, which tend to have fuzzy boundaries and vary on many dimensions, can often be harder than learning well defined categories. One method for facilitating the category learning of naturalistic stimuli may be to provide explicit feature descriptions that highlight the characteristic features of each category. Although this method is commonly used in textbooks and classrooms, theoretically it remains uncertain whether feature descriptions should advantage learning complex natural-science categories. In three experiments, participants were trained on 12 categories of rocks, either without or with a brief description highlighting key features of each category. After training, they were tested on their ability to categorize both old and new rocks from each of the categories. Providing feature descriptions as a caption under a rock image failed to improve category learning relative to providing only the rock image with its category label (Experiment 1). However, when these same feature descriptions were presented such that they were explicitly linked to the relevant parts of the rock image (feature highlighting), participants showed significantly higher performance on both immediate generalization to new rocks (Experiment 2) and generalization after a 2-day delay (Experiment 3). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

The keyword mnemonic and retrieval practice are two cognitive techniques that have each been identified to enhance foreign language vocabulary learning. However, little is known about the use of these techniques in combination. Previous demonstrations of retrieval-practice effects in foreign language vocabulary learning have tended to use several rounds of retrieval practice. In contrast, we focused on a situation in which retrieval practice was limited to twice per item. For this situation, it is unclear whether retrieval practice will be effective relative to restudying. We advance the view that the keyword mnemonic catalyzes the effectiveness of retrieval practice in this learning context. Experiment 1 (48-h delay) partially supported this view, such that there was no testing effect with retrieval practice alone, but the keyword-retrieval combination did not promote better retention than keyword alone. Experiments 2 and 3 (1-week delay) supported the catalytic view by showing that the keyword-retrieval combination was better than keyword alone, but in the absence of keyword encoding there was no retrieval practice effect (replicating Experiment 1). However, with four rounds of retrieval practice, a marginally significant testing effect emerged (Experiment 3). Moreover, the routes through which participants reached each answer were identified by asking retrieval-route questions in Experiments 2 and 3. Keyword-mediated retrieval, which was observed sometimes even in no-keyword instructed conditions, was shown to be more effective than unmediated retrieval. Our findings suggest that incorporating effective encoding techniques prior to retrieval practice could augment the effectiveness of retrieval practice, at least for vocabulary learning.

Little research has examined the fruitfulness of flashcards for improving learning outcomes of authentic classroom material. In Experiment 1, across different content areas flashcards did not significantly increase performance on a final test relative to the free-study condition. Experiment 2 investigated whether providing conceptual flashcards would aid participants' learning relative to detailed flashcards (the kind generated most frequently by participants). Conceptual flashcards produced superior short-answer test performance than detailed flashcards for less able learners (low structure builders) but not for more able learners (high structure builders). The limited benefits of flashcards appear to reflect several factors: the current sample of students generally recruited effective study strategies (in the free-study condition) and the preponderance of detailed flashcards in both textbook provided materials and studentgenerated flashcards. Consistent with the material-appropriate processing framework, detailed but not conceptual flashcards would be redundant with encoding normally invited by didactic materials.