How "none of the above" (NOTA) affects the accessibility of tested and related information in multiple-choice...

Answering multiple-choice questions increases accessibility of the tested information and can improve accessibility of related information. However, multiple-choice questions with "none of the above" (NOTA) as a choice hurts accessibility of the previously tested information when NOTA serves as the correct answer (NOTA_correct). Would prompting participants to recall an answer when choosing NOTA, and then providing feedback, reduce the costs of NOTA_correct items? In the present experiments, participants answered general knowledge questions in multiple-choice (with a NOTA alternative) or cued-recall formats; half of the participants, when choosing NOTA, were prompted to provide an answer. Half of the participants received feedback. On a final cued-recall test assessing performance for previously tested and nontested related information, we found that NOTA_correct questions hurt performance for previously tested items as compared to the cued-recall condition; but they facilitated recall of related information. Feedback improved performance for all previously tested information, but performance was still worse for NOTA_correct questions than for cued-recall questions. The addition of a cued-recall component on NOTA questions did not influence accessibility. The results have implications for using NOTA in practice tests and help explain why using NOTA_correct items hurt learning, even with feedback, supporting a proactive interference account.