Testing facilitates subsequent learning of new information, a phenomenon known as the forward testing effect. The effect is often investigated in multilist procedures, where studied lists are followed by a retrieval test, or a control task such as restudying, and learning is compared on the final list. In most studies of the effect, tests include all material from the preceding list. We report four experiments, three of which were preregistered, to determine whether tests that are partial (not including all studied items) and distributed (including retrieval of items from earlier lists) are effective in enhancing new learning. The results show that testing of all studied material is not necessary to produce beneficial effects on new learning or to reduce intrusions. The beneficial effects of testing were substantially mediated by reduced proactive interference. Importantly, there was minimal evidence that the forward learning benefits of partial and distributed tests are offset by a cost to untested items via retrieval-induced forgetting. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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部分和分布式测试是否增强了新的学习？

测试有助于后续学习新信息，这种现象称为前向测试效应。这种效果通常在多列表程序中进行研究，其中学习列表之后是​​检索测试，或控制任务（例如重新学习），并且在最终列表上比较学习。在大多数效果研究中，测试包括前面列表中的所有材料。我们报告了四个实验，其中三个是预先注册的，以确定部分测试（不包括所有研究项目）和分布式测试（包括从早期列表中检索项目）是否有效增强新学习。结果表明，没有必要对所有研究材料进行测试以对新学习产生有益影响或减少干扰。测试的有益效果主要是通过减少主动干扰来实现的。重要的是，几乎没有证据表明部分和分布式测试的前向学习好处被通过检索引起的遗忘对未测试项目的成本所抵消。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2023 APA，保留所有权利）。