Teachers and trainers often try to prevent learners from making errors, but recent findings (e.g., Kornell, Hays, & Bjork, 2009) have demonstrated that tests can potentiate subsequent learning even when the correct answer is difficult or impossible to generate (e.g., "What is Nate Kornell's middle name?"). In 3 experiments, we explored when and…

Tests, as learning events, can enhance subsequent recall more than do additional study opportunities, even without feedback. Such advantages of testing tend to appear, however, only at long retention intervals and/or when criterion tests stress recall, rather than recognition, processes. We propose that the interaction of the benefits of testing…

Taking tests enhances learning. But what happens when one cannot answer a test question--does an unsuccessful retrieval attempt impede future learning or enhance it? The authors examined this question using materials that ensured that retrieval attempts would be unsuccessful. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were asked fictional…

Research on retrieval-induced forgetting has demonstrated that retrieving some information from memory can cause the forgetting of other information in memory. Here, the authors report research on the relearning of items that have been subjected to retrieval-induced forgetting. Participants studied a list of category-exemplar pairs, underwent a…

Previous research indicated that learners experience an illusion of competence during learning (termed foresight bias) because judgments of learning (JOLs) are made in the presence of information that will be absent at test. The authors examined the following 2 procedures for alleviating foresight bias: enhancing learners' sensitivity to…

Judgments of learning (JOLs) underestimate the increase in recall that occurs with repeated study (the underconfidence-with-practice effect; UWP). The authors explore an account in terms of a foresight bias in which JOLs are inflated when the to-be-recalled target highlights aspects of the cue that are not transparent when the cue appears alone…

The monitoring of one's own knowledge during study suffers from an inherent discrepancy between study and test situations: Judgments of learning (JOLs) are made in the presence of information that is absent but solicited during testing. The failure to discount the effects of that information when making JOLs can instill a sense of competence…