Explicit Learning of a Dynamic System with a Non-salient Pattern

We examine the hypothesis that a specific goal leads to implicit learning, whereas a nonspecific goal leads to explicit learning, even though the pattern to be learnt is non-salient. Subjects learned a dynamic control task (Berry & Broadbent, 1984). One group of subjects had a specific control goal, the second group had a non-specific pattern-search goal, and the third group had both goals. On measures of learning (control performance, prediction, and general questions), the non-specific group learnt explicitly, outperforming the other two groups on all learning measures. The specific group performed next best on control performance and prediction questions but performed very poorly on general questions. The dual-goal group performed poorly on all measures. Non-specific subjects predicted well on both familiar and unfamiliar situations. Specific-goal subjects predicted well on familiar situations, regardless of whether their previous response had been correct or incorrect. Dual-goal subjects predicted well only on familiar correct situations. We conclude that the non-specific group learned through explicit hypothesis testing, the specific group learned through a mixture of explicit problem solving and implicit instance learning, and the dual-goal group learned instances. Results are discussed in terms of dual-space models of problem solving and hypothesis testing and in terms of implicit instance learning. We consider how the choice of learning goal affects the cognitive processes used during learning and suggest that having subjects learn the same information implicitly or explicitly is potentially useful for drawing clearer distinctions between implicit and explicit modes of learning.     

Learning and transfer of a relative phase pattern and a joint amplitude ratio in a rhythmic multijoint arm movement

According to the coordination dynamics perspective, one can characterize the learning of novel relative phase patterns as the formation of a stable attractor in the coordination landscape of the order parameter relative phase. The authors examined 18 participants' learning and transfer of a 90 degrees relative phase pattern and a 0.6-joint-amplitude ratio between the elbow and wrist. Variability in the relative phasing and the joint amplitude ratio between the elbow and wrist decreased with practice. Positive transfer of the 90 degrees relative phase pattern was not dependent on the learning arm (dominant or nondominant). Positive transfer of the joint amplitude ratio was dependent on the learning arm and the direction of transfer. The results demonstrated that relative phase is an order parameter that characterizes the coordination dynamics of learning and transferring multijoint arm movements, and they provide preliminary evidence that joint amplitude ratios act as order parameters in the learning and transfer of multijoint arm movements.     

Learning Journals as a Counseling Strategy

This article explores the use of learning journals as a counseling strategy that can be used to complement a counselor's therapeutic orientation. The authors postulate that learning journals will have therapeutic effects on clients that will lead to enduring positive changes, discuss the development of appropriate learning taxonomies to evaluate learning journals, and make recommendations for practice.     

Implicit sequence learning in a search task

This study investigated the effects of selection demands on implicit sequence learning. Participants in a search condition looked for a target among seven distractors and responded on the target identity. The responses followed a deterministic sequence, and sequence learning was compared to that found in two control conditions in which the targets were presented alone, either at a central location or over a series of unpredictable locations. Sequence learning was obtained in all conditions, and it was equivalent for the two variable location conditions, regardless of the perceptual demands. Larger effects of learning were observed in the central location, both on the indirect measures and on the measures taken from a cued-generation task. The expression of learning decreased selectively in this condition when the sequence validity was reduced over a test block. These results are consistent with the claims that implicit and explicit learning are mixed in this central condition and that implicit learning is not affected by selection difficulty.     

Implicit sequence learning in a search task

This study investigated the effects of selection demands on implicit sequence learning. Participants in a search condition looked for a target among seven distractors and responded on the target identity. The responses followed a deterministic sequence, and sequence learning was compared to that found in two control conditions in which the targets were presented alone, either at a central location or over a series of unpredictable locations. Sequence learning was obtained in all conditions, and it was equivalent for the two variable location conditions, regardless of the perceptual demands. Larger effects of learning were observed in the central location, both on the indirect measures and on the measures taken from a cued-generation task. The expression of learning decreased selectively in this condition when the sequence validity was reduced over a test block. These results are consistent with the claims that implicit and explicit learning are mixed in this central condition and that implicit learning is not affected by selection difficulty.     

Learning in a simple motor system

Motor learning is a very basic, essential form of learning that appears to share common mechanisms across different motor systems. We evaluate and compare a few conceptual models for learning in a relatively simple neural system, the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) of vertebrates. We also compare the different animal models that have been used to study the VOR. In the VOR, a sensory signal from the semicircular canals is transformed into a motor signal that moves the eyes. The VOR can modify the transformation under the guidance of vision. The changes are persistent and share some characteristics with other types of associative learning. The cerebellar cortex is directly linked to the VOR reflex circuitry in a partnership that is present in all vertebrates, and which is necessary for motor learning. Early theories of Marr, Albus, and Ito, in which motor memories are stored solely in the cerebellar cortex, have not explained the bulk of the experimental data. Many studies appear to indicate a site of learning in the vestibular nuclei, and the most successful models have incorporated long-term memory storage in both the cerebellar cortex and the brainstem. Plausible cellular mechanisms for learning have been identified in both structures. We propose that short-term motor memory is initially stored in the cerebellar cortex, and that during consolidation of the motor memory the locus of storage shifts to include a brainstem site. We present experimental results that support our hypothesis.     

Repetition of a cognitive task promotes motor learning

Motor learning plays an important role in the acquisition of new motor skills. In this study, we investigated whether repetition of a cognitive task promoted motor learning. Fifty-one young adults were assigned to either the early, late, or control groups. All participants completed a mouse tracking task in which they manipulated a mouse to track a moving target on a screen. The cursor was rotated 165° in the counterclockwise direction from the actual mouse position, requiring participants to learn how to use a new tool. To determine the task performance, we calculated the distance between the cursor and target position. In addition, to assess the effects of a cognitive task on the progress of motor learning, curve fitting of the learning curves was performed for the total distance. Experiments were conducted as per the following schedule: learning day 1 (L1), learning day 2 (L2: the day after learning day 1), retention day 1 (R1: 2 weeks after learning day 1), and retention day 2 (R2: 4 weeks after learning day 1). Participants underwent mouse tracking for 20 min on L1 and L2 and for 3 min on R1 and R2. As a cognitive task, we adopted the N-back task. The early or late group performed the N-back task for 20 min before performing motor tracking task on L1 or L2, respectively. The control group did not perform the N-back task. Based on curve fitting analysis, it was observed that the rate of change for motor learning in the early group was higher than that in the control group. The retention of motor learning did not differ between all groups. Our results indicate that the repetition of a cognitive task enhanced in the early phase of motor learning of the mouse tracking task.     

Parent Roles and Facilitation Strategies as Influenced by a Mobile-Based Technology During a Family Nature Hike

Abstract

Families use mobile technologies in many educational spaces, such as museums or other informal learning venues to support their social learning experience. This trend encourages parents to take on new facilitation roles during their children’s technologically driven learning experiences. This study provides an in-depth look at how one type of mobile technology shaped parent roles, facilitation, and family learning in an outdoor setting. The qualitative case study uses sociocultural learning theory with a lens toward parent roles during a mobile-based family learning experience in the outdoors to analyze the 1-hour hike of one case study family. Findings from a thematic analysis of the video data resulted in 6 parental roles embodied by the parents during their hike with an e-Trailguide. A secondary analysis provided evidence that the e-Trailguide facilitated collaborative observations of the natural world for the parents and children. Recommendations for mobile-based designs that support family, outdoor learning are included.     

BUCKLE: a model of unobserved cause learning

Dealing with alternative causes is necessary to avoid making inaccurate causal inferences from covariation data. However, information about alternative causes is frequently unavailable, rendering them unobserved. The current article reviews the way in which current learning models deal, or could deal, with unobserved causes. A new model of causal learning, BUCKLE (bidirectional unobserved cause learning) extends existing models of causal learning by dynamically inferring information about unobserved, alternative causes. During the course of causal learning, BUCKLE continually computes the probability that an unobserved cause is present during a given observation and then uses the results of these inferences to learn the causal strengths of the unobserved as well as observed causes. The current results demonstrate that BUCKLE provides a better explanation of people's causal learning than the existing models.     

Fimbria/fornix lesions facilitate the learning of a nonspatial response task

The spatial cognitive map theory of O’Keefe and Nadel (1978) predicts that lesions of the hippocampal system should impair learning on spatial tasks but not learning on nonspatial tasks. However, there is evidence that such lesions can facilitate learning on certain nonspatial tasks. Their theory does not predict such facilitation. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to expect that animals possessing a spatial cognitive map would have an inherent bias to engage a mapping strategy and thus be at a disadvantage on certain nonspatial tasks in comparison with animals without the mapping capacity and bias. In the present study, fimbria/fornix lesions impaired learning on a spatial task, but actually facilitated learning on a nonspatial task of equal difficulty. Thus, brain lesions that interfere with map functioning can facilitate learning on tasks for which a mapping strategy interferes with task solution. The results require a modification of the spatial cognitive map theory.     

Implicit sequence learning in a continuous pursuit-tracking task

Assessing implicit learning in the continuous pursuit-tracking task usually concerns a repeated segment of target displacements masked by two random segments, as referred to as Pew’s paradigm. Evidence for segment learning in this paradigm is scanty and contrasts with robust sequence learning in discrete tracking tasks. The present study investigates this issue with two experiments in which participants (N = 56) performed a continuous tracking task. Contrary to Pew’s paradigm, participants were presented with a training sequence that was continuously cycled during 14 blocks of practice, but Block 12 in which a transfer sequence was introduced. Results demonstrate sequence learning in several conditions except in the condition that was obviously the most similar to previous studies failing to induce segment learning. Specifically, it is shown here that a target moving too slowly combined with variable time at which target reversal occurs prevents sequence learning. In addition, data from a post-experimental recognition test indicate that sequence learning was associated with explicit perceptual knowledge about the repetitive structure. We propose that learning repetition in a continuous tracking task is conditional on its capacity to (1) allow participants to detect the repeated regularities and (2) restrict feedback-based tracking strategies.     

Learning on a response continuum: Comparison of a linear change and a functional learning model

Two reinforcement schedules were used to compare the predictive validity of a linear change model with a functional learning model. In one schedule, termed “convergent,” the linear change model predicts convergence to the optimum response, while in the other, termed “divergent,” this model predicts that a subject's response will not converge. The functional learning model predicts convergence in both cases. Another factor that was varied was presence or absence of random error or “noise” in the relationship between response and outcome. In the “noiseless” condition, in which no noise is added, a subject could discover the optimum response by chance, so that some subjects could appear to have converged fortuitously. In the “noisy” conditions such chance apparent convergence could not occur.The results did not unequivocally favor either model. While the linear change model's prediction of nonconvergence in the divergent conditions (particularly the “noisy” divergent condition) was not sustained, there was a clear difference in speed of convergence, counter to the prediction inferred from the functional learning model. Evidence that at least some subjects were utilizing a functional learning strategy was adduced from the fact that subjects were able to “map out” the relation between response and outcome quite accurately in a follow-up task. Almost all subjects in the “noisy” conditions had evidently “learned” a strong linear relation, with slope closely matching the veridical one.The data were consistent with a hybrid model assuming a “hierarchy of cognitive strategies” in which more complex strategies (e.g., functional learning) are utilized only when the simpler ones (e.g., a linear change strategy) fail to solve the problem.     

Counselling and psychotherapy as a form of learning: some implications for practice

This paper explores counselling and psychotherapy as a form of learning. Previous experiences may create distortions in meaning-making perspectives, distortions that create templates for evaluating future experience. These templates act as barriers to being open to experience; thus there is an inability to learn from experience. The process of therapy can provide a learning milieu for the exploration and working through of these barriers, with a potential outcome of a return to learning from experience. It is suggested here that intrinsic to the learning milieu created in therapy there are elements of significant, transformative and emotional learning. Therapy is thus a reparative discourse that facilitates a return to learning from experience. A deconstruction of this concept is provided here as a way of developing the exploration of counselling and psychotherapy as a form of learning.     

Effector-dependent learning by observation of a finger movement sequence

Can observational learning be effector dependent? In 3 experiments, observers watched a model respond to a 6-item unique sequence in a serial reaction time task. Their sequence knowledge was then compared with that of controls who had performed an unrelated task or observed a model responding to random targets. Observational learning was indicated when the introduction of a new sequence was associated with more reaction time elevation in observers than in controls. The authors found evidence of observational learning only when observers used the finger movement sequence that they observed during training, not when they responded at the same sequence of locations using different digits. Free generation and recognition tests also detected observational learning. These results imply that observational learning can be both explicit and effector dependent.     

The effects of intention and practice on a non-motor duration estimation task

It has already been shown that the intention to reproduce a motor task in the future improves its learning. Here, we tested whether intention had a similar effect on learning to perform a non-motor duration estimation task, and if intention interacted with the amount of practice. Participants learned to estimate and compare two different durations, with or without intending to reproduce this learning in the future, and with two different amounts of practice. The results showed that intention and practice enhanced task learning independently. Moreover, only practice enhanced learning in over-estimation strategy. These finding are discussed with respect to a possible mechanism by which intention and practice might improve the learning of a duration task.     

Connectionist models of social learning: a case of learning by observing a simple task]

This article proposes a connectionist model of the social learning theory developed by Bandura (1977). The theory posits that an individual in an interactive situation is capable of learning new behaviours merely by observing them in others. Such learning is acquired through an initial phase in which the individual memorizes what he has observed (observation phase), followed by a second phase where he puts the recorded observations to use as a guide for adjusting his own behaviour (reproduction phase). We shall refer to the two above-mentioned phases to demonstrate that it is conceivable to simulate learning by observation otherwise than through the recording of perceived information using symbolic representation. To this end we shall rely on the formalism of ecological neuron networks (Parisi, Cecconi, & Nolfi, 1990) to implement an agent provided with the major processes identified as essential to learning through observation. The connectionist model so designed shall implement an agent capable of recording perceptive information and producing motor behaviours. The learning situation we selected associates an agent demonstrating goal-achievement behaviour and an observer agent learning the same behaviour by observation. Throughout the acquisition phase, the demonstrator supervises the observer's learning process based on association between spatial information (input) and behavioural information (output). Representation thus constructed then serves as an adjustment guide during the production phase, involving production by the observer of a sequence of actions which he compares to the representation stored in distributed form as constructed through observation. An initial simulation validates model architecture by confirming the requirement for both phases identified in the literature (Bandura, 1977) to simulate learning through observation. The representation constructed over the observation phase evidences acquisition of observed behaviours, although this phase alone is not sufficient to ensure accurate reproduction and must be made functional through the production phase (Deakin & Proteau, 2000). Results obtained through a second simulation replicate those produced by Bandura & Jeffery (1973), who observed that the individual tested following the retention phase recalled recorded information better than he realized in the production phase. The outcome of a third simulation shows that, when performing the transfer task, agents performed the task all the more effectively when they were required to learn a simple path which facilitated knowledge transfer to an adjacent situation. New explanatory assumptions of the mechanics of learning through observation may be produced through OLEANNet. Thus, observed deterioration between memorization and production is caused by successive approximations which occur in the acquisition phase then in the production phase. Further, depending on the type of learning undergone by agents, use of representation as a production guide induces a more or less stringent constraint in the approximation of actual behaviour. This results, during the transfer task, in the ability to effectively generalize acquired knowledge where such knowledge is not specifically related to the task at hand. In conclusion, connectionist model architecture appears valid for modeling learning through observation as defined by Bandura (1977). However, certain limitations appear during implementation, especially in terms of the observed behaviour's availability and the planning of produced behaviours that future developments are liable to counter.     

Modeling implicit learning in a cross-modal audio-visual serial reaction time task

This study examined implicit learning in a cross-modal condition, where visual and auditory stimuli were presented in an alternating fashion. Each cross-modal transition occurred with a probability of 0.85, enabling participants to gain a reaction time benefit by learning the cross-modal predictive information between colors and tones. Motor responses were randomly remapped to ensure that pure perceptual learning took place. The effect for the implicit learning was extracted from the data by fitting five different models to the data, which was highly variable due to motor variability. To examine individual learning rates for stimulus types of different discriminability and modality, the models were fitted per stimulus type and individually for each participant. The model selection identified the model that included motor variability, surprise effects for deviants and a serial position for effect onset as the most explanatory (Akaike weight 0.87). Further, there was a significant global cross-modal implicit learning effect for predictable versus deviant transitions (40 ms reaction time difference, p < 0.004). The learning rates over time differed for both modality and the stimuli within modalities, although there was no correlation to global error rates or reaction time differences between the stimulus types. These results demonstrate a modeling method that is well suited to extract detailed information about the success of implicit learning from high variability data. It further shows a cross-modal implicit learning effect, which extends the understanding of the implicit learning system and highlights the possibility for information to be processed in a cross-modal representation without conscious processing.     

Learning as a task or a virtue: U.S. And Chinese preschoolers explain learning

The purpose of this study was to examine cultural influences on conceptual orientations of learning in U.S. and Chinese preschoolers. A sample of 188 preschoolers 4-6 years of age provided free-narrative responses to 2 story beginnings about the learning behavior of 2 protagonists, 1 who worked hard and 1 who gave up. Results showed that despite some differences in the younger age groups, children from both cultures valued learning similarly at age 6. However, important cultural differences emerged in children's construals of the learning process. U.S. children showed a heightened awareness of the mind/task attributes of the learner, that is, ability, task attempting, and strategy use. By contrast, Chinese children perceived more the learner's dispositional qualities of diligence, persistence, and concentration. These trends increased as children's age increased. The U.S. findings are interpreted as reflecting the U.S. cultural emphasis on learning as a task, and the Chinese results, as reflecting the Chinese cultural focus on learning as a process of cultivating personal virtue.     

Learning and extrapolating a periodic function

How people learn continuous functional relationships remains a poorly understood capacity. In this article, I argue that the mere presence of nonmonotonic extrapolation of periodic functions neither threatens existing theories of function learning nor distinguishes between them. However, I show that merely learning periodic functions is extremely difficult. It is only when stimuli are presented numerically, rather than as numberless quantities, that participants learn anything like a periodic function. In addition, I show that even then, people do not regularly extrapolate periodically. The lesson is that careful methodologies will be required to understand a psychological capacity that is as idiosyncratic as the learning of complex functions appears to be.     

Sequence learning in a dual-stimulus setting

Is sequence learning an autonomous process that relies on independent resources? In this paper, I attempt to answer this question by exploring whether sequence learning occurs even despite the availability of reliable explicit information about the material to be learned. I report on a series of experiments during which participants performed a sequential choice reaction task. On each trial, participants were exposed to a stimulus and to a cue of varying validity which, when valid, indicated where the next stimulus would appear. Participants could therefore optimize their performance either by implicitly encoding the sequential constraints contained in the material or by explicitly relying on the information conveyed by the cue. Some theories assume that implicit learning does not rely on the same processing resources as those involved in explicit learning. Such theories would thus predict that sensitivity to sequential constraints should not be affected by the presence of reliable explicit information about sequence structure. Other theories, by contrast, would predict that implicit learning would not occur in such cases. The results are consistent with the former theories, but simulation work meant to enable the implications of these contrasting theories to be explored suggests that such results are also obtainable in architectures in which two processing pathways share resources.