Testing enhances both encoding and retrieval for both tested and untested items.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Educational Psychology

Background:

• Forward testing effects demonstrate that testing improves memory for subsequent learning material.
• These effects can be item-specific (for previously studied items) or generalized (for new items).

Purpose of the Study:

• To directly compare item-specific and generalized forward testing effects.
• To differentiate testing benefits arising from encoding versus retrieval processes.

Main Methods:

• Participants studied Swahili-English word pairs across multiple lists.
• A review phase involved either cued-recall testing or restudying specific word pairs.
• Experimental manipulations varied the timing and content of the review phase relative to study lists.

Main Results:

• Initially, testing benefited both old and new word pairs equally, indicating generalized effects.
• Testing before the second study list yielded greater memory benefits than testing after.
• Experiment 3, which intermixed old and new items in testing, revealed a significant pair-specific effect for old items.

Conclusions:

• Forward testing effects stem from both enhanced encoding and retrieval.
• Generalized forward testing benefits are substantially larger than direct, pair-specific benefits.