Practice tests help you remember—even if you don’t check if you’re correct

Ars Technica » Scientific Method 2016-12-05

(credit: Joshua Brown)

For more than a decade, neuroscientists have known that stress impairs memory performance—an effect likely due to the influence of stress-related hormones. A recent article in Science shows that a specific technique—taking practice recall tests—can help people overcome the memory problems associated with stress. And it even works if you aren't told how well you did when practicing.

For this work, 120 participants were asked to study lists of nouns one at a time. After studying the list, half of the participants engaged in a cognitive task known as “study practice” in which they re-studied the list by re-reading it. The other 60 participants engaged in a “retrieval practice” task, in which they tried to recall as many nouns on the list as they could, using practice tests. The retrieval practice participants did not receive feedback on their performance—they didn’t know if they were doing a good job of recalling the nouns or not.

One day after this memory related task, half of the study practice participants and half of the retrieval practice participants were subjected to a high-stress situation known as the Tier Social Stress Test, a procedure that placed them in a situation in which they will be harshly judged. The rest completed a non-stressful task of equal duration. The authors measured their physical state via a wristband that measured interbeat interval (heart rate) and blood volume pulse (arterial translucency) to confirm that the stress experience produced the expected response—which it did.

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