Is overt retrieval practice more effective than covert?

In the cognitive science literature, “thinking an answer to yourself” and “providing the answer explicitly” are called “covert” and “overt” retrieval practice, respectively. One might imagine that overt retrieval practice would better support long-term memory, since it might avoid self-grading mistakes/misdirections, and since it requires coupled motor action. Anki, Supermemo, etc are covert by default (motivated at least in part by Self-graded spaced repetition memory systems are more efficient than machine-graded systems).

• Tauber, S. K., Witherby, A. E., Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Putnam, A. L., & Roediger, H. L. (2018). Does covert retrieval benefit learning of key-term definitions? Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 7(1), 106–115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2016.10.004
  • “Students’ final recall was greater after overt retrieval practice than after covert retrieval practice or restudy, with a continuously cumulating meta-analysis establishing the effect as moderate in size (pooled d = 0.43).” (that’s a pretty big effect!)
  • the authors suggest that covert retrieval may not exhaustively retrieve elements which “feel familiar”
• Lindsey, R. (2014). Probabilistic Models of Student Learning and Forgetting. University of Colorado. chapter 6
  • ran a series of experiments comparing covert and overt retrieval practice (over Swahili word associations, undergrads, maximum retrieval interval of one week) and found no clear winner.

Related: To what extent do people “lie” when self-grading spaced repetition prompts?