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Improving Control at Retrieval Via Direct Instruction
Although research on improving self-directed learning has largely emphasized pro-
cesses at encoding, there is also potential for making improvements at retrieval (cf.
Adams, 1985).
In recognition memory tasks, learners study a list of items and are later given
a test containing some studied items and some unstudied items. Their task is to
identify the studied items as “old” and the unstudied items as “new.” Each individ-
ual's performance consist of two components: the sensitivity of his or her memory
to this distinction and his or her response bias (a.k.a. criterion): a tendency to say
“old” more often than “new” or vice versa (for further discussion see Rotello and
Macmillan, 2008). Postma (1999) found that response bias can be manipulated via
instructions to respond liberally (to say “old” if “they had even only a weak notion
that they had studied it previously”) or conservatively (to say “old” only to items for
“which they were very certain”).
Reder (1987) presents evidence that learners can make use of different strate-
gies in answering questions about material they have learned. Specifically, they may
use a strategy of directly retrieving specific information from memory to answer
the question or a strategy of inferring an answer based on the gist of the material
or on related retrieved information. In one experiment, learners read short stories
(e.g., about a village in Burma that hires a hunter to kill a man-eating tiger) and
were then given sentences that had either been presented in the story or not and that
varied in their plausibility in the overall context of the story (e.g., “The villagers
were afraid of the tiger” [plausible] and “The villagers make their living primar-
ily by hunting” [implausible]). The task for each sentence was to judge whether it
was plausible or implausible. Each sentence was also preceded by advice on which
strategy to use: either to “try to retrieve a specific fact to use in judgment” or to “try
to infer the answer.” Advice was manipulated within-subjects on an item-by-item
basis. Results showed that advice to infer led to greater sensitivity (as measured by
response time) to the plausibility of the sentence than did advice to retrieve, while
advice to retrieve led to greater sensitivity to whether the sentence was presented
or not than did advice to infer. Furthermore, performance was enhanced when the
advice given was appropriate (retrieve advice for items actually presented and infer
advice for items not presented). These results demonstrate that learners can indeed
use their memories differently in response to instructions, and this can influence
their performance.
Williams and Hollan (1981) described numerous retrieval strategies sponta-
neously used as learners tried to recall as many names as possible of classmates
from high school. A number of these strategies have been experimentally demon-
strated to be effective in improving the amount of accurate recall. One such strategy
is the adoption of more than one perspective at retrieval. In a study by Anderson and
Pichert (1978), learners read a brief story about a house after first being instructed
to adopt the perspective (a.k.a. schema) of a burglar, or of a homebuyer. After a
12-min delay, learners were given a first free recall test, on which they were
