The purpose of this study was to describe the association between the learning strategy preference of the learners as identified by "Assessing The Learning Strategies of AdultS" (ATLAS) and the individual personality traits as defined by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The sample was 553 adults in Canada and the United States.…

Soliciting predictions about hypothetical memory performance (without having participants engage in a related memory task) is a simple way for researchers to examine people's metacognitive beliefs about how memory functions. Using this methodology, researchers can vary what information is provided as part of the scenario or how the memory…

Recent research suggests that human memory systems evolved to remember animate things better than inanimate things. In the present experiments, we examined whether these effects occur for both free recall and cued recall. In Experiment 1, we directly compared the effect of animacy on free recall and cued recall. Participants studied lists of…

Framing metacognitive judgments of learning (JOLs) in terms of the likelihood of forgetting rather than remembering consistently yields a counterintuitive outcome: The mean of participants' forget-framed JOLs is often higher (after reverse-scoring) than the mean of their remember-framed JOLs, suggesting greater confidence in memory. In the present…

Initial learning can interfere with subsequent learning (proactive interference [PI]), but recent work indicates initial testing can reduce PI. Here, we tested 2 alternative hypotheses of this effect: Does testing reduce PI by constraining retrieval to the target list, or by facilitating a postretrieval monitoring process? Participants first…

Four experiments examined the decontextualization of memories, the stage of learning in which memories can be recalled in the absence of episodic memory cues. Face--name pairs were studied with video-recorded environmental contexts in the background, and after 5 practice trials, recall of names associated with faces was tested in the absence of…

This study was designed to investigate the extent to which the presentation of an auditory model prior to learning a novel melody affects performance during active practice and the overnight consolidation of procedural memory. During evening training sessions, 32 nonpianist musicians practiced a 13-note keyboard melody with their left…

To test the extent to which learners performing a simple keyboard passage would be affected by directing their focus of attention to different aspects of their movements, 16 music majors performed a brief keyboard passage under each of four focus conditions arranged in a counterbalanced design--a total of 64 experimental sessions. As they…

Thirty-six nonmusicians practiced a five-element key-press sequence on a digital piano, repeating the sequence as quickly and accurately as possible during twelve 30-s practice blocks alternating with 30-s pauses. Twelve learners rested for 5 min between Blocks 3 and 4, another 12 learners rested for 5 min between Blocks 9 and 10, and the…

Most modern research on the effects of feedback during learning has assumed that feedback is an error correction mechanism. Recent studies of feedback-timing effects have suggested that feedback might also strengthen initially correct responses. In an experiment involving cued recall of trivia facts, we directly tested several theories of…

A team of teachers, scientists, and high school students at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston has developed activities to teach concepts in learning through an inquiry-based laboratory method. The Learning Education and Research Network (LEARN) activities were field tested at the Society for Neuroscience Conference, in the…