Cognitive Psychology and Education

Essay 1Essay 2

The Importance of Multiple Retrieval Paths

The chapter discusses evidence for the idea that memory performance is generally better if there’s a “match” between your perspective and circumstances at the time of learning and your perspective and circumstances at the time of test. Hence, if you learn materials in a particular room, you’ll have an advantage if the test is given in that same room. If you focus on the sounds within the materials at the time of learning, you’ll be well served if you again focus on sounds at the time of the test.

These observations have three pragmatic implications: First, if you can predict in advance when, where, and how you’ll be retrieving material, you might want to “tune” your study efforts accordingly, so that your learning will be properly aligned with the subsequent context of memory retrieval. That way, you’ll ensure from the start that there will be a “match” between your learning and test circumstances. Thus, if you know in advance that your instructor will be providing German words and asking for the English translation, you should study with the vocabulary items in that same format. Likewise, if you know that your instructor will be naming organic molecules and asking for their pKa values, again you should structure your studying in the same way.

Second, you can often improve your memory by means of context reinstatement—doing what you can, at the time of memory retrieval, to re-create the circumstances of learning. Let’s emphasize, though, that what matters here is the mental context, and not the physical context. Thus, if you studied in your dorm room or apartment, context reinstatement doesn’t require you to take the test in that same location. Instead, all you need to do is spend a moment, early in the exam, thinking back to how you felt while in your dorm room, and how the world around you looked, and perhaps what other thoughts were in your mind. Likewise, if, during the exam, you’re having trouble recalling what you heard in the professor’s lecture, it will help to spend a moment “resetting the stage.” Think about where you were in the room on the day that lecture was given. Think about who was next to you. Think about what others issues in the lecture might have caught your attention. By creating this mental perspective, you’ll often help yourself recall bits you otherwise would miss!

The third implication, though, is the most important: You know in advance that you’ll be well served by a “match” between your learning perspective and your perspective at the time of memory retrieval. But you often have no way of predicting what your perspective will be later on. Will you need the information you’re studying when, later, you take an exam? Or will you need it as a useful illustration in a class discussion, or as a good fact to use in an argument with your mother? Usually, there’s no way to forecast these things.

How, therefore, should you proceed? The answer is obvious: If you establish many retrieval paths, all leading to the target information, you’ll be able to reach that information from many different starting points. In that case, you’re ready for anything! But how can you establish that variety of paths? The answer returns us to a theme we’ve met several times before: When you understand an explanation (or a diagram, or a story), you see how the elements of the explanation are linked to each other, and how they’re linked to other things you know. And the deeper your understanding, the more links you see.

Understanding, in other words, creates multiple connections—and hence multiple retrieval paths, so that well-understood materials can be retrieved from many directions. In studying, then, you shouldn’t worry about memorizing, and you probably shouldn’t worry about setting up the right retrieval paths. Instead, make sure you understand the material. Can you explain the material in your own words? Can you answer a friend’s questions about the material? Can you trace out some of the implications of the material? If you can do these things, the retrieval paths are in place, and good memory is assured.

Critical Questions

1.
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Describe what is meant by the statement “matching is important,” with respect to memory retrieval.
2. You know you will be taking your final in the lecture hall, but you cannot study in that lecture hall. What could you do to facilitate retrieval during the test?
3. Your friend is studying for a biology test by using flashcards to memorize bits of information. You suggest that the two of you talk through the material instead, but your friend scoffs at that idea. Explain to your friend why your approach is likely to result in superior testing performance.

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