The benefits and costs of repeated testing on the learning of face-name pairs in healthy older adults.
We compared the benefits of repeated testing and repeated study on cued recall of unfamiliar face-name pairs in healthy middle-aged and older adults. We extended Karpicke and Roediger's (2008) paradigm to compare the effects of repeated study versus repeated testing after each face-name pair was correctly recalled once. The results from Experiment 1, which provided no feedback during the acquisition phase, yielded a crossover interaction: Middle-aged adults showed the expected benefit of repeated testing, whereas older adults produced a benefit of repeated study. When participants were given feedback in Experiment 2, both middle-aged and older adults benefited from repeated testing. We suggest that for face-name pairs, feedback may be particularly important for individuals who have relatively poor memory to produce benefits from repeated testing.
Tse
Chi-Shing
CS
Department of Educational Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China. cstse@cuhk.edu.hk
Balota
David A
DA
Roediger
Henry L
HL
D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged / Q000523:psychology*; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001245:Association Learning; D005145:Face; D030141:Feedback, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests