Cognition: Week 1 Lecture PDF

PSYC21081 Cognition: &21181 Week 1 FACTORS THAT FACILITAT E Learning Overview: How can we learn more effectively? Total Time Hypothesis Practice & repetition Spacing effect Testing effect Motivation The Total Time Hypothesis Practice & Repetition ...

PSYC21081 Cognition: &21181 Week 1 FACTORS THAT FACILITAT E Learning Overview: How can we learn more effectively? Total Time Hypothesis Practice & repetition Spacing effect Testing effect Motivation The Total Time Hypothesis Practice & Repetition  Ebbinghaus § Scientific study of learning and memory § Tested only one participant – himself § nonsense syllables (consonant-vowel- consonant items, e.g., caz, wux). § Avoided associations with real words! § Explored the rate of learning and forgetting. Hermann Ebbinghaus: Image from Wikipedia Rate of Learning: The Total Time Hypothesis The amount learned is a function of the time spent learning The Total Time Hypothesis Experiment: § Lists of 16 syllables § learned a new list each day – reciting the syllables at a constant rate § 24 hours later he recorded how much more time (number of trials) he needed to relearn the list Result: Learning linearly related to amount of study. “Practice makes perfect”  § Rule of thumb for over a century § Applies not only to word learning, but also to skills e.g., writing, chess, typing, ”Practice makes music etc. perfect” § The effect of extensive practice levels out (Ericsson, 2013) § Practice drives brain plasticity  Brain undergoes structural changes in response to learning or environmental Practice drives demands structural plasticity Studies exploring structural changes in the brain due to expertise (long practice) or new learning  Expertise and brain plasticity London Taxi Drivers study (Maguire et al., 2000) § Compared brain volume in taxi drivers relative to healthy controls § The posterior hippocampus of the taxi drivers was consistently larger § The size of the posterior hippocampus significantly correlated with the time they have spent as taxi drivers  New learning and brain plasticity Draganski et al. (2006) Experiment: § Medical students scanned at three intervals § Before, during and after intensive exams Result: Increases in gray matter volume in the parietal cortex (A) and in the posterior hippocampus (B) These remained even three months after studying From Draganski et al. (2006)  These changes are assumed to be part of the process that optimises learning, but the structural changes are not perpetual Practice Over time, the brain renormalizes the volume in the regions drives enhanced by practice structural plasticity Some structural changes (related to learning a task) may be selected and others dropped (expansions normalization hypothesis) Repetition Simple repetition with no attempt to organize the material might not lead to learning. Exercise Draw the back of a penny (Don’t look at a penny before you attempt this) Repetition Simple repetition with no attempt to organize the material might not lead to learning § Especially if information is complex and is not perceived as useful § Memory and attention are very selective – even after extensive practice/exposure information is not registered if not deemed important Distributed practice/ Spacing effect Distributed Practice Distributed Practice § Distribute learning trials sparsely across a period of time § Faster improvement rates of learning and less forgetting § Caveats: § Distributed practice takes longer (i.e., less actual time but more days) – not always practical or convenient. § Individuals may feel “less efficient” Distributed practice: Experimental evidence Melton (1970): spaced learning of word stimuli increases subsequent recall Experiment: § List of words (one at a time), some presented once and some twice § Those presented twice appeared after variable lags (from 0 to 40 intervening words) § Also varied the duration of the presentation of each word (1.3s, 2.3s, 4.3s) Results: § Benefits to memory occur despite total study time was the same between 2 word presentations § Only the spacing differed § Lag effect = benefit of repeated study increases as the lag between study occasions increases From Melton (1970)  Distributed practice: Experimental evidence Baddeley and Longman (1978): Rate of learning typing skills under 4 training schedules 11 weeks 1h/day 2h/day 4h/day 4 weeks From Baddeley and Longman (1978)  Distributed practice: Experimental evidence Kornell and Bjork (2008): Spacing and participants’ views § Spaced presentation led to much better identification of new paintings by the same artist § Participants reported superiority of massed learning despite showing the opposite effect From Kornell and Bjork (2008) The Testing Effect/ Generation effect The Testing Effect/Generation effect Karpicke and Roediger (2008) § To showcase the importance of testing they assigned 4 groups to learn Swahili-English word pairs over the course of a week  § Group 1 (ST): Word pairs repeatedly studied and tested. § Group 2 (SNTN): After successful recall, the word was not studied or tested further. Karpicke and § Group 3 (STN): After successful recall, the word was not tested Roediger (2008) (they continued to be studied). § Group 4 (SNT): After successful recall, the word was not studied (they continued to be tested).  § Results: G1 G4 No continuous test Karpicke and Roediger (2008) G3 G2 Continued tested From Karpicke and Roediger (2008)  Conclusion: Karpicke and Roediger The presence of tests had a major effect on (2008) what was remembered 1 week later. The Testing Effect § The effect shows that having to retrieve the answer, rather than being presented with, leads to greater retention. Feedback! § Errors in recall when training may affect later recall unless corrective feedback is provided § The erroneous retrieval may be strengthened in memory  The Testing Effect Butler & Roediger, 2008 § The effect shows that having to retrieve the answer, rather than being presented with, leads to greater retention. Feedback! § Errors in recall when training may affect later recall unless corrective feedback is provided § The erroneous retrieval may be strengthened in memory Retrieval practice combined with feedback had bigger effect on memory  Testing promotes deeper learning Karpicke & Blunt (2011) Experiment: § 4 groups studied a science text § Group 1: Studied passage once § Group 2: Studied passage 4 consecutive times § Group 3: Studied text + created a concept map (graphical diagrams of concept relationships) § Group 4: Studied text + test (recall) immediately Tested 1 week later: § Testing (G4) promoted superior memory for facts but also inferential questions from the text § Students believed retrieval practice to be the least effective method of study Expanding Retrieval Method Landauer & Bjork (1978) Spaced/Distributed Practice Testing/Retrieval Practice  Expanding Retrieval Method Landauer & Bjork (1978) Spacing Effect Testing Effect ▪ Spaced presentation enhances ▪ Successfully generating items memory strengthens memory than passive presentation ▪ Based on this alone, study and test should be separated as much as ▪ The sooner an item is tested after initial possible, but … presentation, the more likely it will be recalled and strengthened Expanding Retrieval Method The effect of Motivation  Ø Motivation to learn may make learning more efficient in both automatic and strategic ways Automatic: Motivation & Ø External (e.g., reward) or internal (e.g., curiosity) motives prior to exposure to stimuli improves memory even when Learning time spent studying or strategies used are controlled Strategic: Ø People use deeper and more elaborate memorization strategies for high value items  Curiosity How curious you are to learn something may affect your internal motivation to learn Gruber et al. (2014): Curiosity during learning affects later memory Being curious made memory better Enhanced memory for incidental Enhancedmaterial memory for incidental material Motivation: Conclusion ØInternal motivation, such as curiosity has a major effect on successful encoding, not just for the item triggering curiosity but for other incidentally presented stimuli ØCuriosity creates a powerful state that favours encoding of new information (even incidental) ØSimilar findings have been found when external incentives - e.g., reward or exploration of novel situations – are involved ØAll of these states have been shown to be associated with changes in a network of brain regions that critically involve the hippocampus  This week’s reading Baddley, Eyesenck, Anderson (2020). Memory. Chapter 5 (pages 113 – 137 & 150 -152) Activities, practice questions and further material in the Softchalk lesson on BB References Draganski, B., Gaser, C., Kempermann, G., Kuhn, H. G., Winkler, J., Buchel, C., et al. (2006). Temporal and spatial dynamics of brain structure changes during extensive learning. Journal of Neuroscience, 26, 6314–6317. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4628-05.2006 Ericsson, K. A. (2013). Training history, deliberate practice and elite sports performance: An analysis in response to Tucker and Collins review—“What makes champions?” British Journal of Sports Medicine, 47, 533–535. Maguire, E. A., Gadian, D. G., Johnsrude, I. S., Good, C. D., Ashburner, J., Frackowiak, R. S., & Frith, C. D. (2000). Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 97, 4398–4403 Melton, A. W. (1970). The situation with respect to the spacing of repetitions and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Ver bal Behavior, 9(5), 596–606. Baddeley, A. D., & Longman, D. J. A. (1978). The influence of length and frequency of training sessions on the rate of learning to type. Ergonomics, 21, 627–635 Kornell, N., & Bjork, R. A. (2008). Learning concepts and categories: Is spacing the “enemy of induction”?. Psychological Science, 1 9(6), 585–592. Xue, G., Dong, Q., Chen, C., Lu, Z., Mumford, J. A., & Poldrack, R. A. (2010). Greater neural pattern similarity across repetitions is associated with better memory. Science, 330(6000), 97–101. Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger III, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319, 966–968. Butler, A. C., & Roediger, H. L. (2008). Feedback enhances the positive effects and reduces the negative effects of multiple-choice testing. Memory & Cognition, 36(3), 604–616. Karpicke, J. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2011). Retrieval practice produces more learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping. Science, 331(6018), 772–775. Landauer, T. K., & Bjork, R. A. (1978). Optimum rehearsal patterns and name learning. In M. M. Gruneberg, P. E. Morris, & R. N. Sykes (Eds.), Practical aspects of memory (pp. 625–632). London: Academic Press. Gruber, M. J., Gelman, B. D., & Ranganath, C. (2014). States of curiosity modulate hippocampus-dependent learning via the dopaminergic circuit. Neuron, 84(2), 486–496. Bliss, T. V. P., & Lømo, T. (1973). Long-lasting potentiation of synaptic transmission in the dentate area of the unanaesthestized rabbit following stimulation of the perforant path. Journal of Physiology, 232, 331–356. Lisman, J., Cooper, K., Sehgal, M., & Silva, A. J. (2018). Memory formation depends on both synapse -specific modifications of synaptic strength and cell-specific increases in excitability. Nature Neuroscience, 21(3), 309–314.