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Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 1980The study compared the acquisition, generalization, transfer, and maintenance of language comprehension and production responses by persons at two IQ levels: mentally...
The study compared the acquisition, generalization, transfer, and maintenance of language comprehension and production responses by persons at two IQ levels: mentally retarded (N=10) and nonretarded (N=10). The two levels of the IQ Level factor were combined factorially with two levels of a Training Condition factor: Comprehension-Production and Production Only. Participants in the former groups were trained sequentially to (a) comprehend coin labels by pointing and then (b) produce verbally the correct coin label. Participants in the Production Only groups were trained on the latter response only. A three-factor mixed design with one repeated measure plus a multiple baseline across coin responses was employed. Results indicated that both mentally retarded and nonretarded subjects attained a high level of acquisition and maintained their performance on 1- and 4-week follow-up tests. No difference occurred between mentally retarded and nonretarded participants in magnitude of acquisition, but the mentally retarded groups took approximately three times as many trials to complete training. Data also suggested, contrary to past research, that generalization from comprehension to production was bidirectional, with no difference in magnitude between mentally retarded and nonretarded subjects. Transfer from comprehension to production occurred in both nonretarded and retarded subjects; comprehension training facilitated a savings of trials in production training. These results show that language differences between retarded and nonretarded persons are quantitative rather than qualitative as some past research may have suggested.
Topics: Adolescent; Child, Preschool; Concept Formation; Education of Intellectually Disabled; Female; Generalization, Psychological; Humans; Intelligence; Male; Speech Perception; Speech Production Measurement; Transfer, Psychology
PubMed: 7380754
DOI: 10.1901/jaba.1980.13-315 -
The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Aug 2020Humans can draw insight from previous experiences to quickly adapt to novel environments that share a common underlying structure. Here we combine functional imaging and...
Humans can draw insight from previous experiences to quickly adapt to novel environments that share a common underlying structure. Here we combine functional imaging and computational modeling to identify the neural systems that support the discovery and transfer of hierarchical task structure. Human subjects (male and female) completed multiple blocks of a reinforcement learning task that contained a global hierarchical structure governing stimulus-response action mapping. First, behavioral and computational evidence showed that humans successfully discover and transfer the hierarchical rule structure embedded within the task. Next, analysis of fMRI BOLD data revealed activity across a frontoparietal network that was specifically associated with the discovery of this embedded structure. Finally, activity throughout a cingulo-opercular network supported the transfer and implementation of this discovered structure. Together, these results reveal a division of labor in which dissociable neural systems support the learning and transfer of abstract control structures. A fundamental and defining feature of human behavior is the ability to generalize knowledge from the past to support future action. Although the neural circuits underlying more direct forms of learning have been well established over the last century, we still lack a solid framework from which to investigate more abstract, higher-order human learning and knowledge generalization. We designed a novel behavioral paradigm to specifically isolate a learning process in which previous knowledge, rather than directly indicating the correct action, instead guides the search for the correct action. Moreover, we identify that this learning process is achieved via the coordinated and temporally specific activity of two prominent cognitive control brain networks.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Bayes Theorem; Brain; Brain Mapping; Computer Simulation; Female; Generalization, Psychological; Humans; Learning; Learning Curve; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Models, Psychological; Neural Pathways; Reinforcement, Psychology; Transfer, Psychology; Young Adult
PubMed: 32690614
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0847-20.2020 -
Gait & Posture May 2019Previous studies have shown that the extent to which learning with one limb transfers to the opposite, untrained limb (i.e., interlimb transfer) is proportional to the...
BACKGROUND
Previous studies have shown that the extent to which learning with one limb transfers to the opposite, untrained limb (i.e., interlimb transfer) is proportional to the amount of prior learning (or skill acquisition) that has occurred in the training limb. Thus, it is likely that distributed practice-a training strategy that is known to facilitate learning-will result in greater interlimb transfer than massed practice.
RESEARCH QUESTION
To evaluate the effects of massed and distributed practice on acquisition and interlimb transfer of leg motor skills during walking.
METHODS
Forty-five subjects learned a new gait pattern that required greater hip and knee flexion during the swing phase of gait. The new gait pattern was displayed as a foot trajectory in the sagittal plane and participants attempted to match their foot trajectory to this template. Subjects in the massed practice group (n = 20) learned the task on a single day, whereas subjects in the distributed practice group (n = 25) learned the task that was spaced over two consecutive days (training phase). Following completion of training, subjects in both groups practiced the task with their untrained, opposite leg to evaluate interlimb transfer (transfer phase).
RESULTS
Results indicated that the amount of skill acquisition (i.e., reductions in tracking error) on the training leg was significantly higher (P < 0.05) in the distributed practice group when compared with the massed practice group. Similarly, the amount of interlimb transfer was also significantly higher (P < 0.05) in the distributed practice group both at the beginning and end of the transfer phase.
SIGNIFICANCE
The findings indicate that acquisition and interlimb transfer of leg motor skills are significantly greater when the task was learned using distributed practice, which may have implications for gait rehabilitation in individuals with unilateral deficits, such as stroke.
Topics: Adult; Female; Gait; Humans; Learning; Male; Motor Skills; Transfer, Psychology; Young Adult
PubMed: 30831544
DOI: 10.1016/j.gaitpost.2019.02.019 -
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Dec 2018Outcome-response (O-R) priming is at the core of various associative theories of human intentional action. This is a simple and parsimonious mechanism by which... (Review)
Review
Outcome-response (O-R) priming is at the core of various associative theories of human intentional action. This is a simple and parsimonious mechanism by which activation of outcome representations (e.g. thinking about the light coming on) leads to activation of the associated motor patterns required to achieve it (e.g. pushing the light switch). In the current manuscript, we review the evidence for such O-R associative links demonstrated by converging (yet until now, separate) strands of research. While there is a wealth of evidence that both the perceptual and motivational properties of an outcome can be encoded in the O-R association and mediate O-R priming, we critically examine the integration of these mechanisms and the conditions under which motivational factors constrain the sensory O-R priming effect. We discuss the clinical relevance of this O-R priming mechanism, whether it can satisfactorily account for human goal-directed behaviour, and the implications for theories of human action control.
Topics: Association Learning; Conditioning, Classical; Conditioning, Operant; Female; Goals; Humans; Intention; Memory; Models, Theoretical; Motivation; Motor Activity; Psychological Theory; Transfer, Psychology
PubMed: 29468416
DOI: 10.3758/s13423-018-1449-2 -
Journal of Neurophysiology Mar 2017When training bimanual skills, such as playing piano, people sometimes practice each hand separately and at a later stage combine the movements of the two hands. This...
When training bimanual skills, such as playing piano, people sometimes practice each hand separately and at a later stage combine the movements of the two hands. This poses the critical question of whether motor skills can be acquired by separately practicing each subcomponent or should be trained as a whole. In the present study, we addressed this question by training human subjects for 4 days in a unimanual or bimanual version of the discrete sequence production task. Both groups were then tested on trained and untrained sequences on both unimanual and bimanual versions of the task. Surprisingly, we found no evidence of transfer from trained unimanual to bimanual or from trained bimanual to unimanual sequences. In half the participants, we also investigated whether cuing the sequences on the left and right hand with unique letters would change transfer. With these cues, untrained sequences that shared some components with the trained sequences were performed more quickly than sequences that did not. However, the amount of this transfer was limited to ∼10% of the overall sequence-specific learning gains. These results suggest that unimanual and bimanual sequences are learned in separate representations. Making participants aware of the interrelationship between sequences can induce some transferrable component, although the main component of the skill remains unique to unimanual or bimanual execution. Studies in reaching movement demonstrated that approximately half of motor learning can transfer across unimanual and bimanual contexts, suggesting that neural representations for unimanual and bimanual movements are fairly overlapping at the level of elementary movement. In this study, we show that little or no transfer occurred across unimanual and bimanual sequential finger movements. This result suggests that bimanual sequences are represented at a level of the motor hierarchy that integrates movements of both hands.
Topics: Adult; Female; Fingers; Generalization, Psychological; Humans; Male; Motor Skills; Transfer, Psychology; Young Adult
PubMed: 27974447
DOI: 10.1152/jn.00387.2016 -
Alcoholism, Clinical and Experimental... Dec 2018Low working memory (WM) capacity is associated with alcohol use disorders (AUDs). The importance of WM to adaptive functioning has led to a recent influx of studies... (Randomized Controlled Trial)
Randomized Controlled Trial
BACKGROUND
Low working memory (WM) capacity is associated with alcohol use disorders (AUDs). The importance of WM to adaptive functioning has led to a recent influx of studies attempting to improve individual WM capacity using various cognitive training methods. The present study aimed to examine the efficacy of complex WM training for improving WM capacity among individuals with AUD.
METHODS
Individuals were randomized to complete either adaptive WM training or active control training. We applied a methodologically rigorous and structured approach, including a battery of near and moderate transfer measures in those with AUDs and a control group. Additionally, we examined cognitive factors (at baseline) and other predictors of adherence, training task improvement, and transfer.
RESULTS
Results suggest improved WM in individuals with AUDs and controls, as evidenced by improved scores on several transfer measures, after adaptive WM training. However, individuals with AUDs showed poorer adherence and less improvement on the training tasks themselves. Neither IQ, WM, sex, nor condition predicted adherence. Level of training task performance, baseline WM, and IQ predicted transfer task improvement.
CONCLUSIONS
This is the first study to rigorously examine both the efficacy of WM training in those with AUDs, and predictors of successful training program adherence and transfer in a large sample. Among study completers, results suggest that AUD status does not predict training improvement and transfer. However, AUD status did predict lower program adherence. WM training was more effective in those with higher cognitive ability at baseline. This study provides direct translation to the development of cognitive interventions for treating AUD.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Alcoholism; Cognition; Executive Function; Female; Humans; Intelligence Tests; Learning; Male; Memory, Short-Term; Patient Compliance; Psychomotor Performance; Transfer, Psychology; Treatment Outcome; Young Adult
PubMed: 30247753
DOI: 10.1111/acer.13892 -
The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Sep 2016The dual n-back working memory (WM) training paradigm (comprising auditory and visual stimuli) has gained much attention since studies have shown widespread transfer...
UNLABELLED
The dual n-back working memory (WM) training paradigm (comprising auditory and visual stimuli) has gained much attention since studies have shown widespread transfer effects. By including a multimodal dual-task component, the task is demanding to the human cognitive system. We investigated whether dual n-back training improves general cognitive resources or a task-specific WM updating process in participants. We expected: (1) widespread transfer effects and the recruitment of a common neuronal network by the training and the transfer tasks and (2) narrower transfer results and that a common activation network alone would not produce transfer, but instead an activation focus on the striatum, which is associated with WM updating processes. The training group showed transfer to an untrained dual-modality WM updating task, but not to single-task versions of the training or the transfer task. They also showed diminished neuronal overlap between the training and the transfer task from pretest to posttest and an increase in striatal activation in both tasks. Furthermore, we found an association between the striatal activation increase and behavioral improvement. The control groups showed no transfer and no change in the amount of activation overlap or in striatal activation from pretest to posttest. We conclude that, instead of improving general cognitive resources (which would have required a transfer effect to all transfer tasks and that a frontal activation overlap between the tasks produced transfer), dual n-back training improved a task-specific process: WM updating of stimuli from two modalities.
SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT
The current study allows for a better understanding of the cognitive and neural effects of working memory (WM) training and transfer. It shows that dual n-back training mainly improves specific processes of WM updating, and this improvement leads to narrow transfer effects to tasks involving the same processes. On a neuronal level this is accompanied by increased neural activation in the striatum that is related to WM updating. The current findings challenge the view that dual n-back training provokes a general boosting of the WM system and of its neural underpinnings located in frontoparietal brain regions. Instead, the findings imply the relevance of task-specific brain regions which are involved in important cognitive processes during training and transfer tasks.
Topics: Adaptation, Physiological; Adult; Attention; Auditory Perception; Cognition; Conditioning, Psychological; Corpus Striatum; Executive Function; Female; Humans; Male; Memory, Short-Term; Nerve Net; Neuronal Plasticity; Practice, Psychological; Task Performance and Analysis; Transfer, Psychology; Visual Perception; Young Adult
PubMed: 27683914
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2305-15.2016 -
Psychological Research Jun 2021Content variability was previously suggested to promote stronger learning effects in cognitive training whereas less variability incurred transfer costs (Sabah et al....
Content variability was previously suggested to promote stronger learning effects in cognitive training whereas less variability incurred transfer costs (Sabah et al. Psychological Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1006-7 , 2018). Here, we expanded these findings by additionally examining the role of learners' control in short-term task-switching training by comparing voluntary task-switching to a yoked control forced task-switching condition. To this end, four training conditions were compared: (1) forced fixed content, (2) voluntary fixed content, (3) forced varied content, and (3) voluntary varied content. To further enhance task demands, bivalent stimuli were used during training. Participants completed baseline assessment commencing with task-switching and verbal fluency blocks, followed by seven training blocks and last by task-switching (near transfer) and verbal fluency (far transfer) blocks, respectively. For the baseline and transfer task-switching blocks, we used the exact same baseline and first transfer block from Sabah et al. (Psychological Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1006-7 , 2018), employing univalent stimuli and alternating-runs task sequence. Our results pointed again to the contribution of content variability to task-switching performance. No indications for far transfer were observed. Allowing for learners' control was not found to produce additional transfer gains beyond content variability. A between-study comparison suggests that enhanced task demands, by means of bivalency, promoted higher transfer gains in the current study when compared to Sabah et al. (Psychological Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1006-7 , 2018). Taken together, the current results provide further evidence to the beneficial impact of variability on training outcomes. The lack of modulatory effect for learners' control is discussed in relation to possible methodological limitations.
Topics: Adult; Attention; Female; Humans; Learning; Male; Motor Skills; Photic Stimulation; Reaction Time; Transfer, Psychology; Visual Perception
PubMed: 32303843
DOI: 10.1007/s00426-020-01335-y -
PloS One 2013Observers often fail to notice even dramatic changes to their environment, a phenomenon known as change blindness. If training could enhance change detection performance...
Observers often fail to notice even dramatic changes to their environment, a phenomenon known as change blindness. If training could enhance change detection performance in general, then it might help to remedy some real-world consequences of change blindness (e.g. failing to detect hazards while driving). We examined whether adaptive training on a simple change detection task could improve the ability to detect changes in untrained tasks for young and older adults. Consistent with an effective training procedure, both young and older adults were better able to detect changes to trained objects following training. However, neither group showed differential improvement on untrained change detection tasks when compared to active control groups. Change detection training led to improvements on the trained task but did not generalize to other change detection tasks.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Automobile Driving; Education; Humans; Task Performance and Analysis; Transfer, Psychology; Young Adult
PubMed: 23840775
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0067781 -
Cognitive Science Jun 2014When learning a new math concept, should learners be first taught the concept and its associated procedures and then solve problems, or solve problems first even if it...
When learning a new math concept, should learners be first taught the concept and its associated procedures and then solve problems, or solve problems first even if it leads to failure and then be taught the concept and the procedures? Two randomized-controlled studies found that both methods lead to high levels of procedural knowledge. However, students who engaged in problem solving before being taught demonstrated significantly greater conceptual understanding and ability to transfer to novel problems than those who were taught first. The second study further showed that when given an opportunity to learn from the failed problem-solving attempts of their peers, students outperformed those who were taught first, but not those who engaged in problem solving first. Process findings showed that the number of student-generated solutions significantly predicted learning outcomes. These results challenge the conventional practice of direct instruction to teach new math concepts and procedures, and propose the possibility of learning from one's own failed problem-solving attempts or those of others before receiving instruction as alternatives for better math learning.
Topics: Adolescent; Female; Humans; Knowledge; Learning; Male; Mathematics; Practice, Psychological; Problem Solving; Students; Transfer, Psychology
PubMed: 24628487
DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12107