The effects of "effort after meaning" on recall: Differences in within- and between-subjects designs

Abstract

What is the relationship between comprehension and memory? Ebbinghaus (1885Ebbinghaus ( /1964 began the scientific study of memory by attempting to avoid this question. By studying memory for three-letter trigrams under controlled experimental conditions, he assumed that he would not have to be concerned about the variability in how subjects understood or related to the stimuli. Nonetheless, Ebbinghaus noted that the lists of syllables he memorized exhibit very important and almost incomprehensible variations as to the ease or difficulty with which they are learned. It even appears from this point of view as if the differences between sense and nonsense material were not nearly as great as one would be inclined a priori to imagine. (p. 23) Others who followed in Ebbinghaus's footsteps measured differences in the meaningfulness of nonsense syllables (e.g., Archer, 1960;Glaze, 1928;Hull, 1933) in order to afford researchers better experimental control over these presumed variations in learning (see also Jenkins, 1985). Even the plainest materials seem to require an effort to find meaningfulness in order to comprehend and remember them (e.g., Prytulak, 1971).In contrast to Ebbinghaus's (1885/1964) approach, Bartlett (1932) presumed a direct relationship between processes involved in comprehension and acts of remembering. Specifically, Bartlett proposed that individuals engaged in a process of "effort after meaning," of which he wrote, it is fitting to speak of every human cognitive reaction-perceiving, imaging, remembering, thinking, and reasoning-as an effort after meaning. Certain of the tendencies which the subject brings with him into the situation with which he is called upon to deal are utilized so as to make his reaction the "easiest," or the least disagreeable, or the quickest and least obstructed that is at the time possible. When we try to discover how this is done we find that always it is by an effort to connect what is given with something else. (p. 44) In experiencing the world, humans presumably bring their past knowledge to bear on understanding current happenings. When it comes to remembering past occurrences, Bartlett argued that people attempt to make their recollections conform to cultural expectations, prior background knowledge, or the current context.To directly examine effort after meaning as it relates to memory, Auble and Franks (1978) developed an ingenious experimental paradigm in which subjects heard and later attempted to recall ambiguous sentences, such as "The clothes were ruined because the sign vanished," that were presented with or without disambiguating cues (i.e., wet paint). Where cues were provided, their conditions of presentation varied. In a control condition, the cue was meaningfully embedded within the sentence (i.e., "The clothes were ruined because the wet paint sign vanished"). In other conditions, the sentence preceded the cue. In four experiments, we examined free recall of ambiguous sentences with or without corresponding cues to facilitate comprehension, using A...

Waiting for feedback helps if you want to know the answer: the role of curiosity in the delay-of-feedback benefit

“…was followed by a pause of a few seconds, versus no pause, before presenting the final word ("broom"). Interestingly, Zaromb and Roediger (2009) found that this effect only occurred in a within-subjects design in which, on a random half of trials, the disambiguating word was either embedded in the sentence or delayed by several seconds after presentation of the sentence. When participants were given only sentences in which the disambiguating word was either embedded or delayed, the delay was not beneficial.…”

The Effects of Arts Integration on Long‐Term Retention of Academic Content

“…On the basis of the idea that rehearsal of information consolidates memories for long‐term storage (Kandel, ), Hardiman (, ) posited that AI instruction improves retention by prompting students to rehearse content through the use of various visual and performing arts activities which may enhance student engagement (e.g., Smithrim & Upitis, ). Further, Rinne, Gregory, Yarmolinskaya, and Hardiman () argue that the arts may engage learners in thinking about new information in ways that improve retention, for example through semantic elaboration (e.g., Craik & Tulving, ), generation of information from a cue (e.g., Slamecka & Graf, ), enactment (e.g., Mohr, Engelkamp, & Zimmer, ), oral production (MacLeod, Gopie, Hourihan, Neary, & Ozubko, ), “effort after meaning” (e.g., Zaromb & Roediger, ), emotional arousal (e.g., Cahill & McGaugh, ), and pictorial representation (e.g., Paivio, ). The theory that arts integration improves retention of content is derived from the notion that the arts naturally take advantage of these strategies whereas conventional instruction typically does not.…”

Why Arts Integration Improves Long‐Term Retention of Content

“…More recently, however, Zaromb and Roediger (2009) have argued in a manner similar to McDaniel and Bugg (2008) that the memory advantage attributed to effort after meaning may instead arise for the same reason as the generation, enactment, and perhaps production effects—exerting unique effort to understand target material may be a relatively unusual occurrence, and this may lead to additional processing of information. One final note about effort after meaning is that, interestingly, Zaromb, Karpicke, and Roediger (2010) found that individuals have essentially no metacognitive awareness of any resulting gains in retention of information.…”