All varieties of encoding variability are not created equal: Separating variable processing from variable tasks

Abstract

Whether encoding variability facilitates memory is shown to depend on whether item-specific and relational processing are both performed across study blocks, and whether study items are weakly versus strongly related. Variable-processing groups studied a word list once using an item-specific task and once using a relational task. Variable-task groups’ two different study tasks recruited the same type of processing each block. Repeated-task groups performed the same study task each block. Recall and recognition were greatest in the variable-processing group, but only with weakly related lists. A variable-processing benefit was also found when task-based processing and list-type processing were complementary (e.g., item-specific processing of a related list) rather than redundant (e.g., relational processing of a related list). That performing both item-specific and relational processing across trials, or within a trial, yields encoding-variability benefits may help reconcile decades of contradictory findings in this area.

Late consequences of early selection: When memory monitoring backfires

“…These benefits of processing variability are reminiscent of similar ideas revealed in studies of encoding. Recently, Huff and Bodner (2014) re--examined the old issue of encoding variability and showed that what ultimately matters for effective encoding is the variability in processing to which repeatedly presented study items are subjected. The apparent similarities between the roles of encoding and retrieval variability in supporting accurate remembering are perhaps unsurprising given the latest focus on how encoding and retrieval processes are interleaved and thus at least to some extent governed by similar principles (see, e.g., Tullis, Benjamin, & Ross, 2014).…”

The costs and benefits of testing and guessing on recognition memory.

“…It is possible that guessing produces a greater memory improvement when study information shares semantic associations rather than categorical relations. This possibility is particularly likely if participants are engaging in task-expectancy processes such as relational processing, which is likely the default processing used when list items are related (Huff & Bodner, 2014; Hunt & Seta, 1984). …”

“…For ad hoc lists, two sets were similarly created such that each contained four broad categories (Set A = things that are green, things that make noise, liquids, and things that are soft; Set B = things that are black, things made of wood, things in a kitchen, and things women wear; Hunt & Einstein, 1981; Van Overschelde, Rawson, & Dunlosky, 2004). As in the categorized lists, the top 25 exemplars from each category were taken and the top 5 were designated as critical items and the remaining 20 as study items (see Huff & Bodner, 2014 for a similar procedure). Categorized list items were found to be both longer in word length and occurred more frequently in language in the Hyper Analogue to Language database (Lund & Burgess, 1996) using the English Lexicon Project (Balota et al, 2007), t s > 2.31, p s < .01.…”

List blocking and longer retention intervals reveal an influence of gist processing for lexically ambiguous critical lures

“…For instance, free recall is greater from semantically related word lists than from unrelated word lists (Huff, Meade, & Hutchison, 2011; Hunt & Einstein, 1981; Rabinowitz, Craik, & Ackerman, 1982), and participants are likely to cluster conceptually similar items together (Bousfield, 1953; Mandler, 1967; Zaromb & Roediger, 2010), even when the items are not organized by similarity at study (Cofer, 1975). Furthermore, clustering by similarity at retrieval is also found when participants study words using relational (vs. item-specific) processing tasks that facilitate an organizational structure at encoding (Hunt & Einstein, 1981; although see Huff & Bodner, 2014, for exceptions). Thus, increased processing of semantic relations through either encoding instructions or blocking the study materials by meaning increases participants’ clustering of related items at recall.…”