The influence of feedback on predictions of future memory performance

Kornell and Rhodes (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 19, 1–13, 2013) reported that correct answer feedback impairs the accuracy of prospective memory judgments. The current experiments explored the boundaries of this effect. In Experiment 1, participants studied Lithuanian-English word pairs, took an initial test, and were either given correct answer feedback or no feedback at all. They then made a judgment of learning (JOL) regarding the likelihood of correctly recalling the English translation on a later test. Presenting the correct answer as feedback increased average JOLs but impaired relative accuracy on a final test. Therefore, Experiments 2–4 aimed to specifically ameliorate impairments in relative accuracy following feedback. Participants in Experiment 2 were exposed to right/wrong feedback, no feedback, and correct answer feedback while making JOLs. Using such a within-subjects design did not improve relative accuracy following correct answer feedback. Experiment 3 showed that previous exposure to a test-feedback-test cycle did not improve relative accuracy. In Experiment 4, feedback was scaffolded such that the correct answer was progressively revealed. Participants corrected more errors if they could generate the correct response with fewer letter cues. However, relative accuracy did not improve in comparison to the previous experiments. Accordingly, the current experiments suggest that participants may understand that feedback is beneficial, but receiving feedback diminishes prediction accuracy for specific items and participants do not appreciate the magnitude of the benefits of feedback.