Week 2 Discussion - Science of Learning and history and Methodology

Learning

Lasting improvement, visible in any context, long term

Performance

Immediate improvement, context dependent, short term

Learning v Performance - Simon and Bjork

• 2 groups had to learn different keyboard patterns

  • Done in blocked (1 sequence) vs mixed (trial by trial mixed)

• Blocked did better at first during the initial practice

• Interleaved outperformed in a later test = better learning

Boost learning - study techniques

• Highlighting and rereading = low

• Generating questions and interleaving practice = moderate

• Testing and Distributed practice (breaks in between) = high

Highlighting

• Peterson study

  • Found that all groups (underlining) performed the same on factual tests

  • However, underlining group did worse on inferences

    • Maybe because underlining isolates facts and it’s hard to distinguish the central idea

Rereading

• Rothkopf

  • Students filled in key words after rereading various times, after some number of exposures, performance stagnates

• Rereading doesn’t involve deep processing = doesn’t improve comprehension or performance

Generating explanations

• Works, Presley et al.

  • Group who generated their own explanation did the best

Interleaved practice

• Roher and Taylor

  • Blocked > in practice performance

  • Interleaved > in exam performance

Distributed practice

• Spreading out sutdy with breaks, time between practices

• Bahrick experiments

  • Cramming = short term gains quick forgetting

  • Spaced = better retention

    • 30 days = worst short term performance, but best in exam performance

Testing

• Highly effective

• Butler experiment

  • Restudying vs testing

    • Testing showed higher retention on both facts and concepts

Bjork reading

• Desirable difficulties

  • Vary conditions of learning (different places = better learning memory)

  • Spacing out study sessions

  • Interleaving = better on long term

  • Testing > Rereading

  • Generation effects - generate answer, solution, or procedure

Putnam reading

• Take notes by hand > good for learning

Introspectionism

• Look and observe what is inside

• Study the mind by looking yourself (inward)

  • Internal experiences are all we need (own thoughts and feelings)

  • Researchers doing experiments on their own

• Problems:

  • Difficult to verify, own experiences and private events

  • Only looks at end product of cognition

• Wundt and Titchener

Behaviorism

• Behavior is all that’s needed, not mind

• Only studied what could be directly observed - stimulus and response

• Mind is unobservable “black box”

  • Ignores it completely

• Problems:

  • Can’t explain diversity of behavior - language

  • Not all science is directly observable

Cognitivism

• Looking at mental process

• Mind can be INFERRED from behavior

• Mind is like a computer (computation view of the mind)

  • Info processing in the mind is similar to that of a computer

Structuralism

• Understanding the structures of the mind by dividing it into components

  • Introspectionists (Wundt and Titchener)

• Humans are passive receivers of sensations to analyze

Functionalism

• Understanding WHAT people do and WHY they do it

  • Pragmatists (William James and Dewey)

  • Purpose and adaptive functions of mental processes

Main Effect vs Interaction

• Main effect - effect of 1 IV (or several) on the DV

• Interaction - when the effect of an IV on the DV depends on the level of another IV (if lines for plotted variables are parallel, there’s an interaction)

Donder’s Study - Mental Chronometry

• Time mental processes

• Mental processes take time and can be measured

• Typically splits processing up into stages

• Lead to subtractive method

Subtractive method

• Proposes we can infer processing time of certain stages by subtracting other stages

• Was used for trying to measure decision time

  • Simple reaction time task - press button when you see a red or green light

  • Choice - press left for green or right for red buttons

Subtractive Method issues

• Assumption of pure insertion

  • Assumes all stages remain same even if new is added, but adding decision stage could influence other stages

• Assumption of additivity

  • Assumes each stage occurs sequentially, but some might operate in parallel

• Assume we know what all stages are

  • Probably do not

Modern Cogpsych

• Eliminate alternative explanations

  • Confirming evidence is weak, so useful technique is to rule out alternatives

  • The mind isn’t directly observable

• Huppert and Piercy

  • Amenesiacs could not remember images - why?

  • Encoding, storage, or retrieval?

Huppert and Piercy

• Groups given study time until 80% correct, stored same amount of learning

• Tested normal from amnesiacs after 10 minutes, 1 day, and 7 days

  • Both groups forgot info at same rate

  • If storage was problem (info leaking), the amnesic would have forgotten much faster

  • But since both forgot at equal rate, rule out storage deficit