Guessing can benefit memory for related word pairs even when feedback is delayed.

Trying to guess what the correct answer to a question might be can facilitate future learning of this answer when presented in the form of corrective feedback. One issue that determines the effectiveness of guessing as a learning strategy is the timing of the presentation of feedback: it can be presented either immediately after the guess, or after a delay. Whereas the timing of feedback is of little importance for complex materials such as trivia questions, previous research suggests that for simpler materials such as related word pairs guessing seems to benefit learning only when feedback is immediate. In order to test whether this always has to be the case, we conducted two experiments in which we increased the richness of study materials by superimposing the to-be-learned word pairs over unrelated context pictures. We then manipulated the match between contexts at study and at test (Experiment 1) and at the time of feedback delivery (Experiment 2). Contrary to previous studies showing no benefits of guessing with delayed feedback, our results show that learning related word pairs can benefit from guessing even when feedback is delayed. These benefits of guessing occur if participants are reminded via reinstated contexts of the guessing stage at the time of feedback delivery. Our results help constrain theories of guessing benefits and extend theories of reminding.

You won't guess that: On the limited benefits of guessing when learning a foreign language.

Guessing the meaning of a foreign word before being presented with the right answer benefits recognition performance for the translation compared to reading the full translation outright. However, guessing does not increase memory for the foreign-word-to-translation associations, which is crucial for language acquisition. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether this disadvantage of guessing for performance in cued-recall tests would be eliminated if a restudy phase was added. In Experiments 1-3, we consistently demonstrated that guessing resulted in lower cued-recall performance compared to reading, both before and after restudy. Even for items for which participants successfully recalled their initial guesses on the cued-recall test, accuracy levels did not exceed those from the reading condition. In Experiment 4, we aimed to generalize our findings concerning restudy to a different set of materials - weakly associated word pairs. Even though this time guessing led to better performance than reading, consistent with previous studies, this guessing benefit was not moderated by adding a restudy phase. Our results thus underscore the importance of the initial learning phase for future learning and retention, while undermining the usefulness of the learning-through-guessing strategy for acquiring foreign language vocabulary.