The simultaneous learning effect: why does simultaneous task learning improve retention?

Full Abstract

Despite the prevalence of encoding variables that have been shown to influence the rate of learning, very few affect the rate of forgetting of verbal material. However, when a list of words is learned simultaneously with other lists, the rate of forgetting is markedly lower than that of single-task learning. Although the magnitude of this simultaneous learning effect is large compared with typical list learning effects, it has received little empirical attention. Experiments 1 and 2 tested the hypothesis that the simultaneous learning effect is the result of a differential contribution of short-term memory during encoding. The results showed that the advantage for simultaneous task learning was obtained even under conditions that minimized the potential effects of short-term memory. Experiment 3 revealed that the simultaneous learning effect was larger when the specific items learned simultaneously were the same on each learning trial than when they were different. This finding supported a cuing explanation of the effect:
the items from the other lists act as retrieval cues during delayed recall.

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Author information

Author/s: Burns, Daniel J (DJ); Ladd, Mara V (MV);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Union College, Schenectady, NY 12308, USA. burnsd(-atsign-)union.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: The American journal of psychology (Am J Psychol), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-; vol 119 (issue 3) : pp 385-405

Dates: Created 2006/10/25; Completed 2007/01/10;

PMID: 17061692, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Cues
Humans
Learning

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