Soliciting judgments of forgetting reactively enhances memory as well as making judgments of learning: Empirical and meta-analytic tests

Abstract

Recent studies found that making judgments of learning (JOLs) can reactively facilitate memory, a phenomenon termed the reactivity effect of JOLs. The current study was designed to explore (1) whether making judgments of forgetting (JOFs) can also enhance memory and (2) whether there is any difference between the reactivity effects of JOFs and JOLs. Experiment 1 found that soliciting JOFs significantly enhanced retention of single words. Experiments 2 and 3 observed minimal difference in reactivity effects between JOFs and JOLs on learning of single words and word pairs. Finally, a meta-analysis was conducted to integrate results across studies to explore whether retention of items studied with JOLs differed from that of items studied with JOFs. The meta-analytic results showed minimal difference. Overall, the documented findings imply that (1) making JOFs reactively enhances memory, and (2) there is little difference in reactivity effects between JOFs and JOLs. These findings support the positive-reactivity theory to account for the reactivity effect.