Effects of collaboration on the qualities of autobiographical recall in strangers, friends, and siblings: both remembering partner and communication processes matter

The detrimental and beneficial effects of collaboration are sensitive to both collaborative frequency and collaborative order but not to the encoding task

Extensive attention has been dedicated to studying the influence of others on genuine or false memory during ongoing and post-collaboration. These studies have revealed both detrimental and beneficial effects on episodic memory. Although ongoing effects such as collaborative inhibition have been examined in the semantic situation, the post-collaboration effects have not received the same level of scrutiny To address this gap, the current study instructed participants to either generate or remember idioms during the study phase, which encompassed semantic and episodic encoding. There were three recall sessions, during which four groups were designated: individual (III), preceding collaboration (CII), following collaboration (ICI), and multiple collaboration (CCI). The main results and implications of the study are outlined below. (a) The detrimental effect of collaborative inhibition was found to be sensitive to collaborative frequency, indicating that the contribution of retrieval strategy disruption proposed by the Retrieval Strategy Disruption Hypothesis (RSDH) is conditional. (b) We observed a reliable beneficial effect of error pruning, as evidenced by smaller errors in collaborators compared to individual participants. Furthermore, this beneficial effect was consistently evident in both ongoing and post-collaboration scenarios for the two encoding tasks. (c) The post-collaborative memory benefit was observed in both Recall 2 and Recall 3. This suggests that mechanisms such as relearning, cross-cueing, re-exposure, and pruning errors may have contributed to this effect. (d) The observation of the beneficial effects of picked-up and shared memory indicates the contribution of similar mechanisms as to post-collaborative memory benefit. (e) These effects were observed regardless of the encoding task, but they were influenced by both collaborative frequency and collaborative order. The results are discussed in terms of the RSDH and other relevant theories. Additionally, future research directions are provided.

Collaborative learning of new information in older age: a systematic review

Ageing is accompanied by a multitude of changes in cognitive abilities, which in turn affect learning. Learning collaboratively may benefit older adults by negating some of these age-related changes. However, studies on collaborative learning in older age differ in their methodology and findings. This systematic review provides an overview of the current research on collaborative learning in older age, exploring what factors influence collaborative learning in this age group. The titles and abstracts of imported 6629 works were screened, as well as four works added manually, which resulted in 29 studies. These studies were conducted across five countries (Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Switzerland and Belgium) between 1993 and 2023. Most studies were quantitative with a non-randomized (n = 16) design. Of the 29 studies, almost all studied collaboration in pairs (n = 28). The results suggest that the benefits of collaborating in older age may depend on the type of learning material, that familiarity between partners does not affect learning, and that age differences appear to decrease or disappear when older adults are provided with adequate time or trials. In addition, this systematic review identifies several gaps in the literature that future research should investigate further. This study was preregistered prior to its commencement on 21 January 2022. The accepted Stage 1 manuscript, unchanged from the point of in-principle acceptance, may be viewed at https://osf.io/tj4w7/. The data and materials of this study can be found at https://osf.io/8xvqf/.

Benefits of collaborative remembering in older and younger couples: the role of conversation dynamics and gender

We experimentally explored whether and how conversation dynamics would benefit collaborative remembering in intimate couples over time. To this end, we ran a study with a three-factor mixed design with relationship type (couples vs. strangers) and age (older adults vs. younger adults) as between-participants variables, and remembering condition (collaborative vs. individual) as a within-participants variable. Thirty pairs of intimate couples (fifteen long-term relationship older couples, fifteen short-term relationship younger couples) and thirty pairs of corresponding stranger-pairs (including older strangers and younger strangers) were compared with respect to recall accuracy and conversation dynamics, specifically considering the role of gender. Results revealed significant collaborative facilitation only in older couples. Also, females' communication behaviours facilitated males' collaborative remembering performance only in older (vs. younger) couples. In addition, a gender-specific pattern of shifts from the individual to collaborative context emerged only in older couple (vs. strangers). The findings are consistent with the notion that a longer experience of collaboration and more effective conversation dynamics allow older (vs. younger) couples to perform better at collaborative remembering. We discuss processes underlying the observed gender differences, and the social and motivational implications of collaborative remembering.