Errorful and Errorless Learning of Chinese Pseudocharacters with High and Low Orthography-to-Phonology Constraints: Behavioral and ERP Studies

• Main Authors: Ya-Wei Huang, 黄雅爲
• Other Authors: Shih-Kuen Cheng
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/45synq

碩士 === 國立中央大學 === 認知與神經科學研究所 === 105 === According to previous studies, testing produced better long-term retention than repeated studying because retrieval practices are needed in testing which is known as testing effect. However, it is not clear whether and how retrieval errors affect the mnemonic benefits of testing. The very few studies that examined this issue gave rise to inconsistent results. Therefore, this thesis employed Chinese pseudocharacters- ZhuYin FuHao associations to examine the following issues in the same task: (a) Does test-errorless learning and test-errorful learning benefits memory retention compared with study-only (no-test) learning? (b) How does the errorful and errorless learning affect by cue-target constraint levels? (c) How does the information conveyed by words modulate electrophysiological correlates of the testing effect? In the current study, orthography-to-phonology consistency was applied to define the constraints between Chinese pseudocharacters-ZhuYin FuHao associations. In both high-constraint and low-constraint associations, half of associations was assigned to no-test learning condition, the other half was assigned to testing condition. During analysis, the recall rates of testing condition were further calculated for errorful and errorless trials. In Experiment 1 to 3, participants’ performance on high-constraint characters was always better than low-constraint characters. The results of Experiment 2 revealed that no-test (study-only) learning group and test self-generated learning group led to better performance than test with 2 alternatives learning group. The results of the Experiment 2-2 and 3 both revealed that errorless learning led to better performance than no-test (study-only) learning, and no-test learning led to better performance than errorful learning. The ERP results revealed that high-constraint characters elicited a more negative N400 wave than low-constraint characters, and the mean amplitudes of low-constraint characters were more positive than high-constraint characters in the time windows from 1000 to1900ms. The ERPs elicited by the ZhuYin FuHao revealed that common pronunciations marginally elicited more positive P300 than uncommon pronunciations for low-constraint condition but not for high-constraint condition. In addition, mean amplitudes difference between common and uncommon pronunciations was greater on high-constraint characters in the time windows from 1200 to1900ms. The current findings suggested that test with error occurred decreased the benefit of testing on learning. Errorful learning led to the worse retention, and errorless learning led to better retention than no-test learning whether the cue-target constraint was high or low. In addition, except for ERP results revealed consistency (cue-target constraint) and oddball effects at N400 and P300, the novel prolonged pN400FP like effects were found, which might suggested that more efforts were needed to override a strongly held prediction than weakly held prediction.