Recall of “Right” and “Wrong” Responses as a Function of Instructions for Intentional Learning and Task Familiarization
Subjects (100 first-year students of both sexes from the Law School at Leuven, Belgium) selected one of several nonsense words as a “translation” of a real word and were told whether their choice was “right” or “wrong.” Subjects who expected to have the whole series of items a number of times until the correct translation for each word was completely learned (multiple-trial condition) recalled more “right” responses than subjects who expected a single second trial (two-trial condition). A preliminary exposure to a similar but shorter task had a different influence according to the two conditions: there was a decrease in recall of response in the multiple-trial condition but an increase in the two-trial condition. The data suggest that conflicting conclusions about the difference in recall between “right” and “wrong” responses are related to differences in the instructions for intentional learning.