Strategies in study time allocation: Why is study time sometimes not effective?

Abstract

Five experiments were conducted to explore the effect of task constraints on memorability ratings and on study time allocation strategies and to examine the conditions under which an item labor-in-vain effect is found (i.e., items studied for a long time are not recalled equally or better than items studied for a short time). Results show that the strategy of time allocation was influenced by the outcome of a previous memory test (Experiment 1), by the final memory test (Experiment 4), and by the total available time (Experiment 5). None of these manipulations eliminated the labor-in-vain effect, which is not due to the subjects' inability to manage the study time (Experiment 3) and which disappeared only when the time was experimenter paced (Experiment 2). Results are discussed in terms of a cost-benefit strategy.