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Psychology and Aging Dec 2008Human beings have an amazing capacity to learn new skills and adapt to new environments. However, several obstacles remain to be overcome in designing paradigms to... (Review)
Review
Human beings have an amazing capacity to learn new skills and adapt to new environments. However, several obstacles remain to be overcome in designing paradigms to broadly improve quality of life. Arguably, the most notable impediment to this goal is that learning tends to be quite specific to the trained regimen and does not transfer to even qualitatively similar tasks. This severely limits the potential benefits of learning to daily life. This review discusses training regimens that lead to the acquisition of new knowledge and strategies that can be used flexibly across a range of tasks and contexts. Possible characteristics of training regimens are proposed that may be responsible for augmented learning, including the manner in which task difficulty is progressed, the motivational state of the learner, and the type of feedback the training provides. When maximally implemented in rehabilitative paradigms, these characteristics may greatly increase the efficacy of training.
Topics: Aged; Aging; Arousal; Attention; Brain; Feedback, Psychological; Humans; Intelligence; Motivation; Music; Neuronal Plasticity; Practice, Psychological; Sports; Transfer, Psychology; Video Games
PubMed: 19140641
DOI: 10.1037/a0014345 -
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 -
Behavioural Processes May 2012Learning involving interoceptive stimuli likely plays an important role in many diseases and psychopathologies. Within this area, there has been extensive research... (Review)
Review
Learning involving interoceptive stimuli likely plays an important role in many diseases and psychopathologies. Within this area, there has been extensive research investigating the interoceptive stimulus effects of abused drugs. In this pursuit, behavioral pharmacologists have taken advantage of what is known about learning processes and adapted the techniques to investigate the behavioral and receptor mechanisms of drug stimuli. Of particular interest is the nicotine stimulus and the use of the two-lever operant drug discrimination task and the Pavlovian drug discriminated goal-tracking task. There is strong concordance between the two methods when using "standard" testing protocols that minimize learning on test days. For example, ABT-418, nornicotine, and varenicline all fully evoked nicotine-appropriate responding. Notably, research from our laboratory with the discriminated goal-tracking task has used an alternative testing protocol. This protocol assesses stimulus substitution based on how well extinction learning using a non-nicotine ligand transfers back to the nicotine stimulus. These findings challenge conclusions based on more "standard" testing procedures (e.g., ABT-418 is not nicotine-like). As a starting point, we propose Thurstone scaling as a quantitative method for more precisely comparing transfer of extinction across doses, experiments, and investigators. We close with a discussion of future research directions and potential implications of the research for understanding interoceptive stimuli.
Topics: Animals; Conditioning, Classical; Conditioning, Operant; Discrimination Learning; Extinction, Psychological; Nicotine; Nicotinic Agonists; Transfer, Psychology
PubMed: 22119845
DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2011.10.020 -
Feature-based attention enables robust, long-lasting location transfer in human perceptual learning.Scientific Reports Jul 2021Visual perceptual learning (VPL) is typically specific to the trained location and feature. However, the degree of specificity depends upon particular training...
Visual perceptual learning (VPL) is typically specific to the trained location and feature. However, the degree of specificity depends upon particular training protocols. Manipulating covert spatial attention during training facilitates learning transfer to other locations. Here we investigated whether feature-based attention (FBA), which enhances the representation of particular features throughout the visual field, facilitates VPL transfer, and how long such an effect would last. To do so, we implemented a novel task in which observers discriminated a stimulus orientation relative to two reference angles presented simultaneously before each block. We found that training with FBA enabled remarkable location transfer, reminiscent of its global effect across the visual field, but preserved orientation specificity in VPL. Critically, both the perceptual improvement and location transfer persisted after 1 year. Our results reveal robust, long-lasting benefits induced by FBA in VPL, and have translational implications for improving generalization of training protocols in visual rehabilitation.
Topics: Adult; Attention; Discrimination Learning; Female; Humans; Male; Task Performance and Analysis; Transfer, Psychology; Visual Perception; Young Adult
PubMed: 34230522
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-93016-y -
Trends in Cognitive Sciences May 2005How does the brain manage to store and process multiple languages without encountering massive interference and transfer? Unless we believe that bilinguals live in two... (Review)
Review
How does the brain manage to store and process multiple languages without encountering massive interference and transfer? Unless we believe that bilinguals live in two totally unconnected cognitive worlds, we would expect far more transfer than actually occurs. However, imaging and lesion studies have not provided consistent evidence for the strict neuronal separation predicted by the theory of modularity. We suggest that emergentist theory offers a promising alternative. It emphasizes the competitive interplay between multiple languages during childhood and by focusing on the dual action of competition and entrenchment, avoids the need to invoke a critical period to account for age of acquisition effects in second-language learning. This view instantiates the motto formulated by Elizabeth Bates that 'modules are made, not born.'
Topics: Animals; Brain; Brain Mapping; Humans; Inhibition, Psychological; Language Development; Models, Psychological; Multilingualism; Transfer, Psychology; Verbal Behavior
PubMed: 15866148
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2005.03.003 -
Behavioural Processes Aug 2017We review quantitative accounts of behavioral momentum theory (BMT), its application to clinical treatment, and its extension to post-intervention relapse of target... (Review)
Review
We review quantitative accounts of behavioral momentum theory (BMT), its application to clinical treatment, and its extension to post-intervention relapse of target behavior. We suggest that its extension can account for relapse using reinstatement and renewal models, but that its application to resurgence is flawed both conceptually and in its failure to account for recent data. We propose that the enhanced persistence of target behavior engendered by alternative reinforcers is limited to their concurrent availability within a distinctive stimulus context. However, a failure to find effects of stimulus-correlated reinforcer rates in a Pavlovian-to-Instrumental Transfer (PIT) paradigm challenges even a straightforward Pavlovian account of alternative reinforcer effects. BMT has been valuable in understanding basic research findings and in guiding clinical applications and accounting for their data, but alternatives are needed that can account more effectively for resurgence while encompassing basic data on resistance to change as well as other forms of relapse.
Topics: Extinction, Psychological; Humans; Learning; Models, Psychological; Recurrence; Reinforcement, Psychology; Transfer, Psychology
PubMed: 28465027
DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2017.04.016 -
Cognitive Priming and Cognitive Training: Immediate and Far Transfer to Academic Skills in Children.Scientific Reports Sep 2016Cognitive operations are supported by dynamically reconfiguring neural systems that integrate processing components widely distributed throughout the brain. The...
Cognitive operations are supported by dynamically reconfiguring neural systems that integrate processing components widely distributed throughout the brain. The inter-neuronal connections that constitute these systems are powerfully shaped by environmental input. We evaluated the ability of computer-presented brain training games done in school to harness this neuroplastic potential and improve learning in an overall study sample of 583 second-grade children. Doing a 5-minute brain-training game immediately before math or reading curricular content games increased performance on the curricular content games. Doing three 20-minute brain training sessions per week for four months increased gains on school-administered math and reading achievement tests compared to control classes tested at the same times without intervening brain training. These results provide evidence of cognitive priming with immediate effects on learning, and longer-term brain training with far-transfer or generalized effects on academic achievement.
Topics: Academic Success; Child; Cognition; Female; Humans; Male; Mathematics; Memory, Short-Term; Psychomotor Performance; Reading; Transfer, Psychology; Video Games
PubMed: 27615029
DOI: 10.1038/srep32859 -
Schizophrenia Bulletin Apr 2006While the role of impaired cognition in accounting for functional outcome in schizophrenia is generally established by now, the overlap is far from complete. Moreover,... (Review)
Review
While the role of impaired cognition in accounting for functional outcome in schizophrenia is generally established by now, the overlap is far from complete. Moreover, little is known about the potential mechanisms that bridge between cognition and functional outcome. The aim of this article is to aid in closing this gap by presenting a novel, more ecologically valid approach for neuropsychological assessment. The new approach is motivated by the view that metacognitive processes of self-monitoring and self-regulation are fundamental determinants of competent functioning in the real world. The new approach incorporates experimental psychological concepts and paradigms used to study metacognition into current standard neuropsychological assessment procedures. Preliminary empirical data that support and demonstrate the utility of the new approach for assessment, as well as remediation efforts, in schizophrenia are presented and discussed.
Topics: Cognition Disorders; Environment; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Humans; Neuropsychological Tests; Psychological Theory; Schizophrenia; Severity of Illness Index; Signal Detection, Psychological; Social Control, Informal; Transfer, Psychology
PubMed: 16397202
DOI: 10.1093/schbul/sbj035 -
Psychological Research Sep 2020Recent work on working memory training has produced conflicting results regarding the degree and generality of transfer to other cognitive processes. However, few...
Recent work on working memory training has produced conflicting results regarding the degree and generality of transfer to other cognitive processes. However, few studies have investigated possible mechanisms underlying transfer. The current study was designed to test the role of proactive interference in working memory training and transfer. Eighty-six young adults participated in a pretest-posttest design, with ten training sessions in between. In the two working memory training conditions, subjects performed an operation span task, with one condition requiring recall of letters on every trial (operation-letters), whereas the other condition alternated between letters, digits, and words as the to-be-remembered items across trials (operation-mix). These groups were compared to an active-control group (visual-search). Working memory, verbal fluency, and reading comprehension measures were administered in pretest and posttest sessions. All groups significantly increased their performance over the ten training sessions. There was evidence of strategy-specific benefits on transfer, such that transfer to working memory measures was higher for the operation-letters group on tasks specifically involving letters, and no differential transfer to working memory tests without letters, to verbal fluency, or to reading comprehension. The results indicate that proactive interference does not appear to play a causal role in determining transfer from working memory training, and instead a strategy account based on stimulus content provides a more parsimonious explanation for the pattern of training and transfer.
Topics: Comprehension; Female; Humans; Learning; Male; Memory, Short-Term; Mental Recall; Transfer, Psychology; Verbal Behavior; Young Adult
PubMed: 30953133
DOI: 10.1007/s00426-019-01172-8 -
Psychological Research Apr 2021In this paper, we trained people to produce 90° mean relative phase using task-appropriate feedback and investigated whether and how that learning transfers to other...
In this paper, we trained people to produce 90° mean relative phase using task-appropriate feedback and investigated whether and how that learning transfers to other coordinations. Past work has failed to find transfer of learning to other relative phases, only to symmetry partners (identical coordinations with reversed lead-lag relationships) and to other effector combinations. However, that research has all trained people using transformed visual feedback (visual metronomes, Lissajous feedback) which removes the relative motion information typically used to produce various coordinations (relative direction, relative position; Wilson and Bingham, in Percept Psychophys 70(3):465-476, 2008). Coordination feedback (Wilson et al., in J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 36(6):1508, 2010) preserves that information and we have recently shown that relative position supports transfer of learning between unimanual and bimanual performance of 90° (Snapp-Childs et al., in Exp Brain Res 233(7), 2225-2238, 2015). Here, we ask whether that information can support the production of other relative phases. We found large, asymmetric transfer of learning bimanual 90° to bimanual 60° and 120°, supported by perceptual learning of relative position information at 90°. For learning to transfer, the two tasks must overlap in some critical way; this is additional evidence that this overlap must be informational. We discuss the results in the context of an ecological, task dynamical approach to understanding the nature of perception-action tasks.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Feedback, Sensory; Female; Humans; Learning; Male; Movement; Perception; Psychomotor Performance; Transfer, Psychology; Young Adult
PubMed: 32130496
DOI: 10.1007/s00426-020-01308-1