Cogs 110 Integrated Test 1

When we take a language test, does increase, decrease or no change in number of correct responses indicate improvement?

Increase

When we perform a movement-related skill (playing the piano), does increase, decrease or no change in time taken to complete movements indicate improvement?

Decrease

Five Principles of Improving Performance

1. Retrieve

2. Interleave

3. Space it out

4. Elaborate

5. Sleep

Retrieve

Call to mind information that is not available 

Interleave

• Mix different concepts

• Mix new and old concepts

Space things out

Spread out study sessions

Elaborate

• Make connections with things that you already know

• Connect new and old ideas

Sleep

• Rest for the active mind

• Consolidates information in memory

• Makes learned material resistant to interference

Practice 

Perform some activity regularly

Value equation

A theory that explains why we are more motivated to perform certain activities over others → V = RxpS/ImpxD+1

Six Decision Making Principles Based on the Value Equation

1. Rewards: What do people find rewarding?

2. Perceived probability of Success: Implications of low pS

3. Delay: Implications of high D

4. Delay and procrastination

5. Habits: When we do not use the value equation

6. Solutions to high D

What do people find rewarding?

• A sense of belonging: being part of a social group

• Autonomy: freedom of choice

• Competency: having the skills to perform a task

Impact of low pS

• Lack of confidence of getting a reward leads to lack of motivation to get the reward

• If you do not believe you will get a reward for an activity, you are less likely to want to perform the activty

Impact of high delay (and high impulsivity)

• The further in the future something is, the less we care about (pay attention) to it

• More impulsive people want a reward with as little delay as possible

• Less impulsive people are more willing to delay getting (wait for) a reward

Delay and Procrastination

• Procrastination happens when what are supposed to do is not the most valuable thing to us (at the current time)

Habits

• Habits for better for worse, bypass the decision-making process used in the value equation

• An automatic response to a cue

How do we address the problem of delay?

• Shorten the delay to obtain something valuable 

• Make difficult yet achievable short-term goals

• Short term goals help with motivation 

Integrating rewards into the framework

Stimulus → response → reward

Learning

Change in response

When does learning happens

• Learning happens when what we predict to happen, does not happen

What happens wth a lot of practice?

• No change in response

• No learning 

• No change in behaviour

• People become bored 

• Novice + practice = experts

• Novice: a person new or inexperienced in a field of knowledge or situation

What happens when you engage in retrieval practice?

More frequent retrieval = Easier to find notes in storage room

The critical importance of retrieval for learning

• Retrieval important for learning 

• No retrieval = no learning 

Four conditions

1. More training pairs

2. Less training pairs

3. More retrieval 

4. Less retrieval 

Which conditions result in participants providing the highest performance on a final test

• More retrieval pairs, more training pairs

• More retrieval pairs, less training pairs

Retrieval is important for learning

• More retrieval is better than less retrieval for learning 

• Rereading notes is not effective for learning 

Do retrieval and re-reading of notes help with learning?

• Both retrieval and re-reading of notes are useful

• Retrieval is useful. Re-reading of notes do not help

Retrieval Effort Hypothesis

• If retrieval is successful, “more difficult retrievals are better for memory than less difficult retrievals”

Less difficult retrieval

• Less time between study and retrieval practice (test) session

• 1 minute

More difficult retrieval

• More time between study and retrieval practice (test) session

• 6 minutes 

What are the results of the study that tested the retrieval effort hyopthesis?

• When tested after one week, more difficult retrieval practice in higher scores than less difficult retrieval practice

• When tested after 25 minutes, more difficult retrieval practice resulted in higher scores than less retrieval practice

Is the retrieval effort hypothesis supported? The retrieval effort hypothesis is

• Supported when participants were tested at both 25 minutes and one week after the last practice session 

Improved performance

Learning has occured

Which is more effective? Retrieval with no feedback or no retrieval?

Retrieval with no feedback

Which is more effective? Retrieval with feedback or retrieval with no feedback?

Retrieval with feedback

Which is more effective? Retrieval with immediate feedback or retrieval with delayed feedback?

Retrieval with delayed feedback

Transfer of Learning 

• Use what we have learned for a task or situation and apply the information to a similar task or situation

• Shift/change

Transfer of learning in three stages

• Learn information relevant to a situation

• Retrieve information

• Apply information to a similar situation

What conditions are most effective when transfer of learning is required?

Retrieval practice

Interleaving studies typically have two conditions

• Interleaved Group

• Blocked (NOT interleaved) Group

Interleaved group

• Problems/practice movements are presented in random order

Blocked group

• Similar Problems or movements are presented in a group (a block)

• No interleaving

What does “random” mean?

Three comparisons

• Acquisition 

• Retention 

• Transfer

Which groups indicate better performance during acquisition?

• blocked training interleaved test

• Interleaved training blocked test

Which group indicates WORST performance after retention

• Interleaved training interleaved test

Is Interleaved practice better than blocked practice?

• Interleaved practice is better than blocked practice for final test, but not practice tests

Interleaved practice summary

• Interleaved practice results in worse practice performance than blocked practice

• Interleaved practice results in better test performance than blocked practice

• Test performance is least effective with blocked practice and interleaved tests

Two categories of errors

• Discrimination errors

• Fabrication errors

Discrimination errors

• Formula exists 

• Valid formula applied to inappropriate problem

Fabrication errors

• No formula exists

• Invalid formula (faulty recall)

In the interleaving study for arithmetic skills, the highest frequency of erros were observed for 

Discrimination errors during blocked practice

Analyze

• Draw connections among ideas

• What are the similarities and differences between two concepts/facts

• Connections between concepts across lectures

Remember 

• Recall facts

• Recall basic concepts

Explore

Use basic facts and concepts

• Describe a table/figure

• Explain ideas

How are problems solved in a blocked group?

• Present problem 

• Apply formula

• Present problem

• Apply Formula

How are problems solved in a interleaved group

• Present question

• Select formula

• Apply formula

Permastore

• Long term storage area for facts/information

What can we infer from the findings of the permastore study?

• Retention initially decreases, becomes stable then decreases again

What factors predict people’s long-term ability to solve algebra and geometry problems?

• long term ability = retention of facts, formulas, procedures and the conditions when they need to be applied

• Retention of facts is insufficient

Spacing Summary

• More spacing is more effective for learning than less spacing 

• More retrieval practice is effective, but only when there is spacing between practice sessions 

Longer time intervals between study sessions result in

• Worse practice performance than shorter/ no time intervals between study sessions

• Better test performance than shorter/ no time intervals between study sessions 

Study gap

• Time interval between any two consecutive study sessions 

• If you are only allowed to study once, study gap = time interval between initial presentation and only study session

Optimal Study Gap

• Most satisfactory (given the current situation)

• How much you have learned: Is higher or lower test score better

• How much study time you can save: Is larger or smaller retention interval better?

Effect

• A change which is a result or consequences of an action or a cause

Spacing effect

• A change that is result of spacing practice sessions out

• Spacing practice sessions = high test scores

• NO spacing practice sessions = NOT high test scores = low test scores

• Noticeable difference in test scores

Retention interval

Time interval from last practice session to test

What does “retention” mean?

The ability to maintain knowledge

What do you think “optimal retention” means?

Maximize ability to retain knowledge

What is a example of a study gap?

Time interval from first exposure to first practice session

What is mean by a “35 day retention interval”

Time interval from last practice session to test (35)

Line

• Temporal ridge line of best fit that passes through all the observations for a particular retention interval 

If you are presented with quiz material for the first time, when should you not study to prepare for a quiz in 7 days time

Same day (immediately after you are presented with the material)

If you are presented with quiz material for the first time, when is the optimal time to study to prepare for a quiz in 7 days time

Two days after you are presented with the material (5 day retention interval)

What is a “process”

To apply a procedure (or sequence of steps) on something

What is a “level”

A position of a real or imaginary scale of amount, quantity, extent or quality.

Implication

Something that can be compared

Graphemic Processing

Appearance

Phonetic Processing 

Sound 

Semantic Processing

Meaning

Contextual Processing

Connection to other words

Rank the levels of processing from least (most shallow) to most (deepest)

Graphemic-phonetic-semantic-contextual

Which level of processing do you think provides the highest recognition rate?

Contextual

When do people provide the highest recognition rate?

When people make connections to other words

Levels/Depth of Processing Study

Deeper processing leads to better recognition than more shallow processing

Implications of the levels of processing study

• Deeper processing → more connections → more elaboration → better recognition

• Provides evidence that elaboration is useful

Two elaboration studies

• Unprompted elaboration 

• Elaboration versus Explanation

Is there a correlation between precision of elaboration and academic success?

• Unprompted = not requested, generated by self without any requests

• Correlation means the two concepts “amount of elaboration” and “academic success” are related (does not demonstrate cause and effect)

Compared to less academically successful students, more academically successful students:

• make more connections without being prompted

• Make more connections between unrelated words or phrases

• recalled more sentences

When people told they were not going to be tested:

• People who elaborated recalled more sentences than people who read sentences

• People who elaborated recalled more sentences than people who were provided explanations

Elaboration vs Explanation study

• In the context of retaining information, elaboration is more beneficial than being given an explanation, regardless of why you are provided with the information

Elaboration summary

• Deeper levels of processing leads to better recognition

• More connections (more elaboration) leads to better recall

• The precision of elaborations is linked with academic success

• Elaboration is more useful than repeated exposure for learning 

• Elaboration is more useful than providing explanations 

What is Consolidation?

• Make something become stronger or more certain

Motor skill learning

• Motor skills are typically a sequence of movements

• Learning a motor skill implies that a person is able to retrieve and perform this sequence of movements easily

When participants were tested just after they slept, 

The increase in test performance was greater than when they were tested after remaining awake

Sleep summary

• Greatest improvement in tests of motor skill performance occur after sleep

• Sleep improves motor skills with no additional practice

• Young expert musicians value sleep

What is a declaration?

A statement that is true

Declarative Memory

Memory of true statements

Associate

Connect with something else

Students who made precise elaborations ____ than students who made imprecise elaborations

Were rated as academically successful and could recall more sentences 

Which is better for incidental and intentional learning, elaboration or being provided with an explanation

Elaboration is better than being presented with an explanation for both incidental and intentional learning