title: The simultaneous learning effect: why does simultaneous task learning improve retention?
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Union College, Schenectady, NY 12308, USA. burnsd@union.edu
authors.forename: Daniel J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Burns
authors.forename: Mara V
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Ladd
mesh_terms: D003463:Cues; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D013997:Time Factors