Learning
Why can easier practice feel more effective than it is?
Open access · CC BY 4.0 · source: Europe PMC
People rated blocked object-colour study as better even when interleaving improved the final test; judgments tracked immediate performance more closely than later retention.
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
A feeling of fluency can reflect immediate performance rather than later retention.
In two object-colour experiments, interleaving colour categories improved final within-session recall even though judgments favoured blocked study. The second experiment showed an immediate blocked-practice advantage, and judgments tracked that immediate performance.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
The object-colour benefits came from final tests within a single session, whereas classroom studies assessed learning after longer delays. These outcome windows cannot be treated as interchangeable.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Open questions
Tensions this paper is part of
From concept pages' “where studies disagree.” Disagreement means the same question; scope means different assays, populations, or outcomes.
The object-colour benefits came from final tests within a single session, whereas classroom studies assessed learning after longer delays. These outcome windows cannot be treated as interchangeable.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Human experiment — Three within-participant experiments manipulating category order
- N
- Samples of 60, 77 and 85 across three experiments
- Population
- Adults ages 18–35 recruited online or through a university course
- Outcome
- Colour-reproduction error and judgments of learning
- Comparison
- Blocked versus interleaved colour categories; a third experiment blocked object categories
- Test delay
- Immediate tests after sequences and final tests within the same session; no multi-day follow-up
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
Inspect source passages
Why can easier practice feel more effective than it is?
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
Who participated and how large was the analysed sample?
As preregistered (https://osf.io/ket4p?view_only=2edb4b71379a4250a0a1103227970ec3), we collected a sample of 60 participants online on the platform Prolific.
What was the main finding?
Whilst blocked learning led to poorer performance in the final test, it boosted performance in the immediate test.
Key findings
In the first two experiments, interleaving colour categories improved final recall accuracy, while participants gave higher learning judgments to blocked study. In the second, blocked study improved immediate recall, and judgments followed that immediate advantage. In the third, blocking object categories did not reliably change immediate performance, final performance, or judgments. The findings support an immediate-performance explanation of the bias rather than habit alone.
Methodology
Three experiments used object-colour associations and judgments of learning. Samples were 60, 77, and 85 participants aged 18–35. The first compared colour-category blocking with interleaving on an end-of-session colour-reproduction test. The second also measured immediate recall after each sequence. The third instead blocked object categories, testing whether the judgment bias persisted when blocking no longer improved immediate performance.
Limitations
These were short, within-session object-colour tasks, not school examinations or retention over weeks. Changing from colour categories to object categories changed the manipulation; the null third experiment is not a failure to replicate an identical intervention. The work does not prove that difficult practice always helps or that all learners misjudge every study technique.
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