ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Cognition
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1638780
Interaction of repetition and retention interval influences the transfer effect after answer feedback for episodic memory
Provisionally accepted
- Peking University, Beijing, China
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Retrieval practice with answer feedback is an efficient way to enhance episodic memory, but previous studies fail to find a robust transfer of learning for non-trained information. To clarify the boundary conditions for the transfer effect after answer feedback, two groups of participants learned episodic sentences through single or repeated study and training (ST, SSTT), then they were tested at 10 min, 1 day and 1 week. During the training phase, only half of the items were trained under conditions of feedback, no feedback, or restudy, while the other half items were not trained. The results showed that the transfer effect (i.e., feedback vs. restudy condition for the non-trained items) appeared at 10 min after SSTT, but it declined over time, and was significantly lower than chance level at 1 week. The results suggest that the transfer effect after answer feedback could be obtained after repeated study and training for the episodic information, but it is short-lived. They also highlight the time change of memory specificity and generalization due to answer feedback.
Keywords: transfer effect, Answer feedback, repetition, Retention Interval, episodic memory
Received: 31 May 2025; Accepted: 15 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang and Yang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jiongjiong Yang, yangjj@pku.edu.cn
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