Katie and Alana are roommates taking the same psychology class. They have a test in four days during a 10:00-11:00 AM class period. Both women intend to study for three hours, but because of different work schedules, Katie will study one hour for each of the next three days, while Alana will study three hours the day before the exam. What could you predict about their performances?
A) Katie and Alana should perform equally well, because each studied the same time overall (supporting the equal-time hypothesis).
B) Alana will perform better because of a long-term memory recency effect.
C) Katie should perform better because of the spacing effect.
D) State-dependent learning predicts that Katie should perform better, because the exam takes place during a one-hour class period.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The spacing effect suggests that information is better retained when studied over a longer period of time with breaks in between, rather than cramming all at once. Therefore, Katie's spaced out studying over three days may lead to better performance on the exam compared to Alana's cramming. Choice A is incorrect because studying for the same amount of time does not necessarily equate to equal performance. Choice B is incorrect because there is no evidence presented to suggest that Alana's memory recency effect will have a significant impact on her performance. Choice D is incorrect because state-dependent learning (where memory is better retrieved when in the same state as when it was encoded) is not relevant to this scenario as the exam taking place during a one-hour class period is not a specific "state" that either Katie or Alana can "encode" their studying in.

Katie and Alana Are Roommates Taking the Same Psychology Class