The Impact of Depth of Encoding on the Transfer of Test Enhanced Learning

The mediator effectiveness hypothesis states the benefit of retrieval practice is a consequence of the activation of mediators linking cue and target items during review. Evidence has found that mediators are more effective at prompting recall of target words than words not associated with the original cue, a pattern that is larger following testing than restudy. The benefit of testing for unstudied cues at the final test is referred to as transfer of test-enhanced learning. The current study examined whether the activation of mediators is moderated by the depth of processing completed at encoding. During an initial study of weakly related word pairs (e.g., Mother-CHILD), participants completed an encoding task that directed deep, shallow, or no specific depth of processing. During review, participants restudied the pairs or attempted to recall the target given the original cue (e.g., Mother). On the final test, participants were presented with unstudied cues that were related to either the original cue (mediators, e.g., Father) or the target (target-related cues, e.g., Baby). The results found mediator generation during review to be greatly impaired by shallow processing tasks completed during encoding. In contrast, the effectiveness of target-related cues was not affected by depth of processing tasks.