Review Effects of Inserted Questions on Learning from Prose

Abstract

Two experiments were performed to determine whether questions inserted after prose passages initiate a review which substantially facilitates retention of the information in memory. Students listened to five prose passages, and immediately after each were asked to verify either a true inference drawn from the passage or a false statement. Subsequent free-recall data, collected under both incidental and intentional learning instructions, demonstrated the existence of a review effect (true-probed passage recall exceeded false-probe recall) and indicated selective strengthening of those relations related to the probe. When students listened to the passages and were then given the inferences exclusively as retrieval cues at the time of recall, the effect disappeared. This suggests that the backward review effect can not be attributed solely, or even substantially, to a cueing or retrieval phenomenon but rather to a strengthening or integration of the memory traces at the time of the probe.