JARMAC Editors Choice: September 2024

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Applying Cognitive Psychology to Improve Learning: Current Developments and Future Directions

Sean H. K. Kang

Developments in cognitive psychology have advanced our understanding of human learning and yielded practical implications for improving learning. The studies reported in this special section offer contributions to both theory and practice, especially in the area of learning strategies. Although translating a given research finding into educational practice is not straightforward, the articles in the special section provide suggestions for strategies that students and teachers should have in their repertoire.

Turn off, Tune Out? Testing the Effects of Webcam Use and on Learning in Synchronous Online Classrooms

Oscar D. Ramirez Perez, Annie S. Ditta, Julia S. Soares

Synchronous online classes have grown in popularity, sparking debate on student webcam use. In Experiment 1, participants were assigned to attend a lecture with half instructed to turn their webcam on and half instructed to turn their webcam off (interpolated testing was also examined as a buffer against webcam effects). A webcam effect was observed: webcam-on participants outperformed webcam-off participants. Experiment 2 manipulated class-wide webcam use by creating uniform groups in which participants all had webcams on or off at the same time and mixed groups in which webcam use was evenly split. The webcam effect replicated in the mixed condition, but the effect was attenuated in the uniform condition, suggesting that the webcam effect is larger in mixed webcam classes. Additional findings suggest that feelings of accountability and reduced media multitasking for webcam-on participants could contribute to the webcam effect more than social presence.

Interleaved Pretesting Enhances Category Learning and Classification Skills

Steven C. Pan, Ganeash Selvarajan, Chanda S. Murphy

Alternating between concepts during learning (interleaving) and making guesses about to-be-learned information before viewing the correct answers (pretesting) can enhance learning relative to focusing on one concept at a time (blocking) and studying, respectively. We investigated the potential benefits of interleaving and pretesting for acquiring categorical knowledge and classification skills. In three experiments, participants learned about psychopathological disorders from interleaved or blocked case studies and via pretesting or studying. A 5-min delayed test (Experiment 1) showed that interleaving and pretesting improved the ability to classify new and previously viewed case studies. Moreover, their combination had at least additive effects, yielding the best overall performance. Similar results occurred on a 48-hr delayed test (Experiment 2) and under conditions of equivalent time on task (Experiment 3). Overall, this study reveals that an effective scheduling approach paired with a beneficial learning activity forms a potent combination (interleaved pretesting) that is uniquely capable of enhancing learning.

JARMAC Editor's Choice: December 2022

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Memory sins in applied settings: What kind of progress?

AUTHORS: DANIEL L. SCHACTER

Over two decades ago, Schacter proposed that memory errors could be classified into seven basic categories or sins, including three “sins of omission” that refer to different kinds of forgetting and four “sins of commission” that refer to cases in which memory is present but either wrong or unwanted. In this article, the author discusses research conducted during the past 2 decades that has examined several of the memory sins in everyday settings. They conclude that we have made impressive progress in understanding how memory sins impact our function in everyday settings and generating steps to counter them, identify gaps in our knowledge and future research directions, and discuss implications for our understanding of the reliability of human memory.

Fair lineups improve outside observers’ discriminability, not eyewitnesses’ discriminability: Evidence for differential filler-siphoning using empirical data and the WITNESS computer-simulation architecture.

AUTHORS: Andrew M. Smith, Laura Smalarz, Gary L. Wells, James M. Lampinen, Simona Mackovichova

Fair lineups lead to a better trade-off between guilty-suspect identifications and innocent-suspect identifications than biased lineups. Why are fair lineups better? Some researchers argue that fair lineups increase the ability of eyewitnesses to discriminate between the guilty and the innocent, whereas others argue that fair lineups simply spread identifications across fillers and that this filler-siphoning process is more pronounced when the suspect is innocent than when the suspect is guilty (differential filler siphoning). In Experiment 1, fair lineups led to fewer guilty-suspect identifications and a similar rate of correct rejections compared to biased lineups, which is inconsistent with the improved discriminability account. In Experiment 2, computational modelling demonstrated that a spreading effect (differential filler-siphoning) produced a fair-lineup advantage even when the psychology of simulated witnesses was held constant across fair and biased lineups. Together, these findings support differential filler-siphoning and the idea that fair lineups enhance outside observers' discriminability, not eyewitnesses' discriminability.

A new method to implant false autobiographical memories: Blind implantation.

AUTHORS: Henry Otgaar, Georgiana Moldoveanu, Victorien Melis, Mark L. Howe

In this article, the authors offer an elegant new paradigm to implant false autobiographical memories. Participants received a list of 20 autobiographical events including a critical false event (i.e., swimsuit falling off) and indicated whether they had experienced these events. After 1 week, participants who had not experienced the false event received a second survey suggesting that they had experienced the false event either once (Single group) or repeatedly (Repeated group). Participants provided belief and recollection ratings and event-related details. Depending on memory type, false memory implantation ranged from 9% (for false memories) to 30% (for detailed false reports). Furthermore, false beliefs were most likely to be elicited in the Single group. This novel paradigm can offer new insights on how false autobiographical memories can be implanted.