Learning From Errors Lecture Slides PDF

LEARNING FROM ERRORS PSYC1022: LEARNING TO LEARN DR TINA SEABROOKE LECTURE OUTLINE Traditional views on errors in learning Early research on errors in learning: Generation effect More recent research on errors in learning: Pretesting effect Hypercorrection effect Traditi...

LEARNING FROM ERRORS PSYC1022: LEARNING TO LEARN DR TINA SEABROOKE LECTURE OUTLINE Traditional views on errors in learning Early research on errors in learning: Generation effect More recent research on errors in learning: Pretesting effect Hypercorrection effect Traditional views on errors in learning QUESTION PROMPT How many bones are in an adult human body? A COMMON LAYPERSON VIEW Avoid Nobody wants to make mistakes in a high-stakes situation – such errors! mistakes can be devastating But what about in low-stakes situations? They can be uncomfortable, but do we learn from them? When learning and preparing for a high-stakes situation, should we Allow ourselves to commit errors and (hopefully) learn from them? Avoid committing errors in the first place? There are different schools of thought…  TRADITIONAL LEARNING THEORISTS Traditional learning theorists thought that errors were bad Skinner If somebody wants to avoid errors on a test that counts, they should avoid errors during the learning process as well Erroneous answers will become stronger (“stamped in”) in memory à more likely to be repeated Terrace Bandura Led to influential errorless learning approaches Step by step guidance that ensures no errors are made Positive reinforcement for correct answers Incorrect answers ignored PROACTIVE INTERFERENCE Proactive interference: when old memories interfere INTERFERENCE with the acquisition and retrieval of newer memories Errors might interfere with memory for the correct answer CORRECT Would expect errors to be repeated ERROR on the final test ANSWER AN ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVE Carefully controlled experiments from cognitive psychology challenge the errorless learning view Engaging errors can promote active and deep learning Feedback is crucial The Generation Effect Example, classic study, definition, and application THE GENERATION EFFECT - EXAMPLE The executive The executive sat behind his went to shop large oak for a new DESK DESK ________ ________ THE GENERATION EFFECT – A CLASSIC STUDY Cued recall Generation produced better subsequent 80% 78% recall of the correct answers than reading 77% 75% Similar pattern for the undetermined 69% 70% 66% sentences, where generations were almost 65% always wrong at encoding 60% Determined Undetermined Incorrect generation didn’t harm Sentence completion Reading only learning! Kane and Anderson (1978) THE GENERATION EFFECT - SUMMARY Definition Application The Generation Effect: A Active learning is important phenomenon in which people Try to generate answers typically remember information yourself rather than re- that they have generated reading your notes themselves better than Don’t worry too much about information that has been making mistakes generated for them The Pretesting Effect THE PRETESTING EFFECT - KORNELL ET AL. (2009) Pretest condition Fill in the blank Water? Fish? Pond - Fish Frog? Frog ×ü Participants studied weakly related word pairs Tadpole? No exposure to the answers before the pretest Participants guesses mostly incorrect Any correct guesses removed from dataset Figure from Mera et al. (2022) KORNELL ET AL. (2009) RESULTS Testing improved learning, even when all answers were wrong Errors fostered learning Many replications of this effect Participants often believe that they will remember more from simple reading than generating errors (cf. metacognitive illusions) SEARCH SET THEORY Producing a guess causes activation of related concepts E.g. Pond - ? might activate lily, tadpole, water, frog…. Partial activation of the correct answer (frog) allows it to be encoded more effectively when it is revealed Prediction: pretesting should only be beneficial for related word pairs, where the target will be part of the search set Figure from Mera et al. (2022) SET SEARCH THEORY – EVIDENCE GRIMALDI & KARPICKE (2012) Same experiment as Kornell et al. (2009), but using weakly related and unrelated pairs E.g., pong-frog vs. pillow-leaf Pretesting improved recall of related word pairs, but not unrelated pairs “Shot in the dark” guesses don’t improve recall INCREASED MOTIVATION TO LEARN SEABROOKE ET AL. (2019) Participants gave higher motivation ratings to learn facts that they had guessed than not-guessed SUMMARY OF THEORIES Several theories have been proposed for the pretesting effect – we have covered just a few Most theories have consistent evidence, but more research needed The theories are not mutually exclusive! Confidence in Errors: The Hypercorrection Effect QUESTION PROMPT (2) What is the driest place on Earth? BUTTERFIELD AND METCALFE (2001) Participants answered questions and rated their confidence for each What poison did Socrates take at his Feedback provided after each answer execution? 5 min retention interval -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 Cued recall final test Sure wrong Not sure Sure correct High confidence errors more likely to be corrected than low-confidence errors SURPRISE AND ATTENTION BUTTERFIELD AND METCALFE (2006) Participants completed a hypercorrection task Participants also asked to detect soft tones Participants missed more tones that were presented with feedback following high- confidence errors than low-confidence errors Suggests that participants’ attention was captured by the feedback TAKE-HOME MESSAGE FOR UNDERGRADUATES When you are asked a If you answer correctly, If you answer incorrectly, especially if question, don’t be you’ll benefit from you really thought you were correct, afraid to answer generating the answer you’ll probably pay attention and yourself (backwards testing remember the correct answer when it effect) counts SUMMARY – WHAT HAVE WE COVERED? Traditionally, learning and memory theorists thought errors were harmful The general public tend to feel the same way…. Carefully controlled experiments often suggest the opposite! Generation effect Pretesting effect Hypercorrection effect INDEPENDENT STUDY ACTIVITY (1) Without using your notes, define proactive interference Can you think of your own real-life example? Recall the key details from Kane and Anderson’s (1978) study on the Generation effect Afterwards, you can look at your notes and fill in any gaps in your answer INDEPENDENT STUDY ACTIVITY (2) Choose one of the theories that we discussed on the pretesting effect Without using your notes, briefly explain the theory in 2 mins Afterwards, you can look at your notes and fill in any gaps in your answer INDEPENDENT STUDY ACTIVITY (3) Butterfield and Metcalfe (2006) looked at whether the hypercorrection effect is driven by participants paying more attention to feedback following high- confidence errors Without using your notes, what details of their method and results can you remember? Afterwards, you can look at your notes and fill in any gaps in your answer