A critical look at the discrepancy reduction mechanism of study time allocation

The discrepancy reduction mechanism predicts that most study time is allocated to information for which the discrepancy between the current and the desired state of learning is perceived to be largest. The aim of the present series of two experiments was to assess this mechanism by examining the influence of prior knowledge activation on information processing. In Experiment 1, participants activated either the names of Dutch cities, the names of European cities, or animal names before studying a list comprising the names of Dutch and European cities. Subsequently, participants studied the items in the list for a following free recall task. The results revealed that the Dutch-cities group and the European-cities group spent less time on items that had already been activated. However, the between-group comparisons of the processing times of activated and nonactivated items did not demonstrate significant effects. Further, the Dutch-cities group and the European-cities group did not outperform the control group in free recall. In Experiment 2, the activation procedure was identical to the one used in Experiment 1. However, instead of asking participants to memorise the items in the learning list, participants were required to give a judgement of learning (JOL) for each item in the study list. The JOL results showed a pattern that was comparable to the pattern of processing times demonstrated in Experiment 1. On the basis of the findings in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 it was concluded that the concept of the desired state of learning should be considered as a relative rather than as an absolute criterion of study-time allocation. Furthermore, the concept of the desired state of learning should be specified in order to make predictions about the relationship between the activation of prior knowledge and study-time allocation.