Concepts are crucial in all scientific fields. They permit us to conceive of the phenomena studied in certain ways and, as the history of science teaches, they can prevent us from seeing these phenomena in other ways. The current chapter reviews and analyzes sixteen concepts critical to the study of learning and memory: Learning, plasticity, memory, encoding, consolidation, coding and representation, working memory, persistence (storage), retrieval, remembering, transfer, context, forgetting, inhibition, memory systems, and phylogeny and evolution. Of course, many other important concepts exist, but these are essential. Psychology and neuroscience seem to accrue new concepts and rarely is a concept abandoned.

For researchers seeking to improve education, a common goal is to identify teaching practices that have causal benefits in classroom settings. To test whether an instructional practice exerts a causal influence on an outcome measure, the most straightforward and compelling method is to conduct an experiment. While experimentation is common in laboratory studies of learning, experimentation is increasingly rare in classroom settings, and to date, researchers have argued it is prohibitively expensive and difficult to conduct experiments on education in situ. To address this challenge, we present Terracotta (Tool for Education Research with RAndomized COnTrolled TriAls), an open-source web application that integrates with a learning management system to provide a comprehensive experimental research platform within an online class site. Terracotta automates randomization, informed consent, experimental manipulation of different versions of learning activities, and export of de-identified research data. Here we describe these features, and the results of a live classroom demonstration study using Terracotta, a preregistered replication of McDaniel et al. (Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 1(1), 18–26, 2012). Using Terracotta, we experimentally manipulated online review assignments so that consenting students alternated, on a weekly basis, between taking multiple-choice quizzes (retrieval practice) and reading answers to these quizzes (restudy). Students' performance on subsequent exams was significantly improved for items that had been in retrieval practice review assignments. This successful replication demonstrates that Terracotta can be used to experimentally manipulate consequential aspects of students’ experiences in education settings.

For researchers seeking to improve education, a common goal is to identify teaching practices that have causal benefits in classroom settings. To test whether an instructional practice exerts a causal influence on an outcome measure, the most straightforward and compelling method is to conduct an experiment. While experimentation is common in laboratory studies of learning, experimentation is increasingly rare in classroom settings, and to date, researchers have argued it is prohibitively expensive and difficult to conduct experiments on education in situ. To address this challenge, we present Terracotta (Tool for Education Research with RAndomized COnTrolled TriAls), an open-source web application that integrates with a learning management system to provide a comprehensive experimental research platform within an online class site. Terracotta automates randomization, informed consent, experimental manipulation of different versions of learning activities, and export of de-identified research data. Here we describe these features, and the results of a live classroom demonstration study using Terracotta, a preregistered replication of McDaniel, Wildman, and Anderson (2012). Using Terracotta, we experimentally manipulated online review assignments so that consenting students alternated, on a weekly basis, between taking multiple-choice quizzes (retrieval practice) and reading answers to these quizzes (restudy). Students' performance on subsequent exams was significantly improved for items that had been in retrieval practice review assignments. This successful replication demonstrates that Terracotta can be used to experimentally manipulate consequential aspects of students’ experiences in education settings.

The COVID-19 pandemic created a unique set of circumstances in which to investigate collective memory and future simulations of events reported during the onset of a potentially historic event. Between early April and late June 2020, we asked over 4,000 individuals from 15 countries across four continents to report on remarkable (a) national and (b) global events that (i) had happened since the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, and (ii) they expected to happen in the future. Whereas themes of infections, lockdown, and politics dominated global and national past events in most countries, themes of economy, a second wave, and lockdown dominated future events. The themes and phenomenological characteristics of the events differed based on contextual group factors. First, across all conditions, the event themes differed to a small yet significant degree depending on the severity of the pandemic and stringency of governmental response at the national level. Second, participants reported national events as less negative and more vivid than global events, and group differences in emotional valence were largest for future events. This research demonstrates that even during the early stages of the pandemic, themes relating to its onset and course were shared across many countries, thus providing preliminary evidence for the emergence of collective memories of this event as it was occurring. Current findings provide a profile of past and future collective events from the early stages of the ongoing pandemic, and factors accounting for the consistencies and differences in event representations across 15 countries are discussed.

The relation between recall and recognition has been debated in various contexts, and researchers have asked whether these tasks lie on a single continuum depending on the type of retrieval cues or whether they represent distinctly different processes. In the current experiment, we considered the continuity hypothesis, which states that recall and recognition are different only in cue information available, and we asked whether retrieval experience during various tests can further inform the nature of this relationship. Participants studied lists of 5-letter words and were tested with either no overt cues (free recall) or with the first 2 letters, first 3 letters, first 4 letters, or all 5 letters (recognition) of a word as retrieval cues. We used the remember/know/guess paradigm and asked participants to report their retrieval experience to infer the underlying experiences of recollection and familiarity. Accuracy increased continuously as the number of letter cues increased. This continuity was reflected in experiences of recollection, but familiarity increased nonlinearly across cue conditions. Our results show some support for the continuity hypothesis; however, recall and recognition do differ in that recall relies more heavily on recollection, whereas recognition relies on both recollection and familiarity.

Testing with various formats enhances long-term retention of studied information; however, little is known whether true-false tests produce this benefit despite their frequent use in the classroom. We conducted four experiments to explore the retention benefits of true-false tests. College students read passages and reviewed them by answering true-false questions or by restudying correct information from the passages. They then took a criterial test 2 days later that consisted of short-answer questions (Experiments 1 and 2) or short-answer and true-false questions (Experiments 3 and 4). True-false tests enhanced retention compared to rereading correct statements and compared to typing those statements while rereading (the latter in a mini meta-analysis). Evaluating both true and false statements yielded a testing effect on short-answer criterial tests, whereas evaluating only true statements produced a testing effect on true-false criterial tests. Finally, a simple modification that asked students to correct statements they marked as false on true-false tests improved retention of those items when feedback was provided. True-false tests can be an effective and practical learning tool to improve students' retention of text material. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Reinstating encoding conditions at retrieval typically enhances recall and recognition, but are encoding/retrieval interactions driven by remembering, knowing, or both? To address this question, we used the remember/know paradigm in two cued recall experiments that varied the match between encoding and retrieval conditions. Participants studied words with associate or rhyme cues and were tested with associate or rhyme cues, resulting in two match and two mismatch conditions. In both experiments, recall was generally higher in the match conditions relative to the mismatch conditions, especially with associate cues. We assessed retrieval experience by asking participants to judge whether they remembered, knew or guessed each word they recalled. We estimated recollection and familiarity from these responses, and we found that both processes contribute to increased recall when encoding and retrieval conditions match. Thus, both recollection and familiarity contribute to successful retrieval with powerful retrieval cues.

Retrieval practice enhances learning of short passages, but its effectiveness for authentic educational materials such as textbook chapters is not well established. In the current experiment, students studied a 40-page textbook chapter on biology. Retrieval practice with correct-answer feedback was manipulated within subjects: some questions appeared only after a chapter section, others only after the whole chapter, and yet others at both times. Two groups served as controls: the reread group read the feedback presented in the retrieval practice condition, and the other group simply read the chapter once. Students took a final test two days later. Practicing retrieval resulted in greater recall relative to the two control groups. On the final test, the two single testing conditions produced comparable benefits, but testing twice produced the greatest benefit. Retrieval practice is effective in learning from authentic text material and placement of the initial test does not matter. General Audience Summary In educational settings, testing is typically used to assess knowledge of students; however, research has shown that testing can be a powerful tool to enhance learning. This outcome is referred to as the retrieval practice effect, or the testing effect. Most laboratory studies examining this effect use simple materials, but it is not clear whether testing can be an effective study strategy when students read entire textbook chapters, which is the task faced by many students in introductory courses. Because a textbook chapter is lengthy and complex, a critical issue is where to place practice tests: after each section, after the whole chapter, or both? In the current study, we asked students to study a biology textbook chapter and we tested them two days later with short-answer questions from the chapter. One group of students read the chapter once, another group read the chapter and then reread critical information from the chapter, and a final group read the chapter and answered practice questions on it. The questions could occur after each section, after the entire chapter, or both. We found that answering questions once while reading the chapter increased recall two days later relative to the two control groups. Where the questions were placed did not matter on the final test; however, answering questions twice increased recall more than answering questions once. When studying from textbook chapters, students can use self-testing to improve their grades. Whether they test themselves during reading of the chapter or after reading the chapter does not matter, so long as feedback is provided. To receive the greatest benefit, students should test themselves more than once.