Integrating educational knowledge: Reactivation of prior knowledge during educational learning enhances memory integration

Knowledge construction is often suggested to happen through reactivation of previously learned information during new learning, leading to integration of old and new memories. Additionally, congruency with prior knowledge is shown to enhance subsequent memory. However, it is unknown how reactivation and congruency jointly influence learning in an educational context. In two experiments, we investigated this question using an AB-AC inference paradigm where we tested first-year university students studying either psychology or family studies. Participants studied congruent and incongruent BC-associations (pictures and descriptions) linked by a common, unknown word (A), and were instructed to report the strength of B-reactivation during AC-learning. We expected that both subjective reactivation and congruency would enhance subsequent associative memory for the inferred BC-association, which was corroborated in both experiments. These outcomes can be of interest for educational practice, where effectively building knowledge through reactivation is imperative for success.