The Effect of Post-Learning Wakeful Rest on the Retention of Second Language Learning Material over the Long Term

Abstract

Evidence exists that a brief period of wakeful rest after learning supports memory retention, while interference after learning weakens memory retention. We tested this so-called resting effect for second language learning material. In two counterbalanced within-subject designs, participants were involved in two identical successive learning phases. In each phase, they learned one of two second language stories, immediately followed by a recall phase in the first language. The critical manipulation took place after the immediate recall. Here, participants either rested or worked on a distractor task for 8 min. In Experiment 1, participants worked on a spot-the-difference task (visual distractor condition), and in Experiment 2, they read a New York Times article (verbal distractor condition). After 7 days, all participants were again invited to a second experimental session, where a surprise free recall test took place. Our results showed that second language story retention over a period of 7 days was not supported by a brief period of wakeful rest following learning and recall, independent of the distractor condition. Our findings contribute to an important characterization of the wakeful resting effect in younger adults, which is discussed in the light of existing studies.

Post‐encoding wakeful resting supports the retention of new verbal memories in children aged 13–14 years

“…‘Resting effects’ on memory retention were found in healthy elderly and younger adults as well as amnesic and Alzheimer's disease patients with different encoding material and post‐encoding interference tasks (Alber, Della Sala, & Dewar, ; Cowan, Beschin, & Della Sala, ; Craig, Dewar, Della Sala, & Wolbers, ; Della Sala, Cowan, Beschin, & Perini, ; Dewar, Alber, Butler, Cowan, & Della Sala, ; but see Martini, Riedlsperger, Maran, & Sachse, ; Varma et al ., for inconsistent findings). Neuroscientific evidence exists that during resting previously encoded information is replayed (Deuker et al ., ; Tambini, Ketz, & Davachi, ).…”

Effects of wakeful resting versus social media usage after learning on the retention of new memories

“…For instance, Varma et al () found no differences in forgetting rates when researchers asked participants to wakefully rest after encoding, compared with participants who worked on a two‐back task or even on a cognitively more effortful three‐back task. Similarly, Martini, Riedlsperger, Maran, and Sachse () found no differences between wakeful resting and task‐related cognitive engagement when they asked participants to encode texts in their second language, independent of whether participants were involved in a verbal (reading a newspaper article) or visuospatial (finding errors in pictures) filler task after encoding (see also Fatania & Mercer, ; Martini, Zamarian, Sachse, Martini, & Delazer, ). These results suggest that under certain conditions, task‐related cognitive and sensory engagement compared with wakefully resting do not differ in their impact on memory.…”

Wakeful rest benefits memory when materials can be rehearsed

“…Importantly, we are not the first group to report null effects in a variant of the wakeful rest paradigm. Indeed, recent failures to extend the effect have been reported for both free recall Wakeful Rest 38 and recognition tests of verbal target materials (28,29). One account of some of these failures is provided by Varma and colleagues (28).…”

“…In a separate account of null effects in a wakeful rest paradigm, Martini and colleagues (29) suggest that their particular encoding paradigm might have produced highly elaborated memory traces, since they gave participants unlimited time to study emotionally arousing narratives (i.e., crime and accident scenes), under unusual testing conditions (i.e., narratives were studied in participants' second language and tested in their first language). Consequently, memory for the passages might be particularly stable and less affected by intervening distractors, limiting the sensitivity of their comparison across conditions.…”

“…Varma and colleagues (28) concluded that, since the n-back task did not demand hippocampal-dependent autobiographical processing, such as other common distractors used in the wakeful rest paradigm, it did not interfere with consolidation processes. Additionally, Martini and colleagues (29) failed to demonstrate a wakeful rest effect in two experiments that used a recall task in the participants' first language (i.e., German) for prose passages studied in a second proficient language (i.e., English), suggesting that the wakeful rest effect might not be generalizable to a wide range of testing conditions. Given these recent failures to extend the wakeful rest effect, it is important to consider to what extent the effect is robust and generalizable.…”