scholarly journals Infants tailor their attention to maximize learning

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (39) ◽  
pp. eabb5053
Author(s):  
F. Poli ◽  
G. Serino ◽  
R. B. Mars ◽  
S. Hunnius
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environments ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Stimulus Sequence ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Environmental Stimuli ◽  
Environmental Structure ◽  
Complex Skills ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
Ideal Learner

Infants’ remarkable learning abilities allow them to rapidly acquire many complex skills. It has been suggested that infants achieve this learning by optimally allocating their attention to relevant stimuli in the environment, but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, we modeled infants’ looking behavior during a learning task through an ideal learner that quantified the informational structure of environmental stimuli. We show that saccadic latencies, looking time, and time spent engaged with a stimulus sequence are explained by the properties of the learning environments, including the level of surprise of the stimulus, overall predictability of the environment, and progress in learning the environmental structure. These findings reveal the factors that shape infants’ advanced learning, emphasizing their predisposition to seek out stimuli that maximize learning.

Including Nomadic People in Collaborative E-Learning

2011 ◽  
pp. 203-224
Author(s):  
Ugo Barchetti ◽  
Alberto Bucciero ◽  
Luca Mainetti
Keyword(s):  
Cooperative Learning ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Mixed Reality ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Abstract Model ◽  
Learning Session ◽  
Shared Learning ◽  
Heterogeneous Learning ◽  
E Learning ◽  
Nomadic People

The focus of this chapter is the design of a solution for Computer-Supported Cooperative Learning (CSCL) that is able to connect both stationary and mobile users in live shared-learning sessions. The authors started from experiences that were mainly technology-driven to arrive at the development of two subsystems, OpenWebTalk and MobileWebTalk, that build, flexibly and simply, mixed reality environments in which users cooperate to perform the same learning task. From these experiences, the authors argue that heterogeneous learning environments (stationary and mobile) can only be really effective if they are designed from a unique abstract model. Therefore the challenge is to derive a conceptual model to describe a collaborative learning session that can be deployed in different devices.

scholarly journals Individual-learning ability predicts social-foraging strategy in house sparrows

2010 ◽  
Vol 278 (1705) ◽  
pp. 582-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edith Katsnelson ◽  
Uzi Motro ◽  
Marcus W. Feldman ◽  
Arnon Lotem
Keyword(s):  
Personal Information ◽  
Passer Domesticus ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Foraging Strategy ◽  
Individual Learning ◽  
Social Foraging ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Foraging Strategies ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
The Individual

Social foragers can use either a ‘producer’ strategy, which involves searching for food, or a ‘scrounger’ strategy, which involves joining others' food discoveries. While producers rely on personal information and past experience, we may ask whether the tendency to forage as a producer is related to being a better learner. To answer this question, we hand-raised house sparrow ( Passer domesticus ) nestlings that upon independence were given an individual-learning task that required them to associate colour signal and food presence. Following the testing phase, all fledglings were released into a shared aviary, and their social-foraging tendencies were measured. We found a significant positive correlation between individual's performance in the individual-learning task and subsequent tendency to use searching (producing) behaviour. Individual-learning score was negatively correlated with initial fear of the test apparatus and with body weight. However, the correlation between individual learning and searching remained significant after controlling for these variables. Since it was measured before the birds entered a social group, individual-learning ability could not be the outcome of being a producer. However, the two traits may be initially associated, or individual learning could facilitate producing behaviour. To our knowledge, this is the first evidence that associates individual-learning abilities with social-foraging strategies in animal groups.

scholarly journals Does Variability in an Implicit Learning Task Help Infants Learn Faster? A Registered Report

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Kate Ward
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Learning ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
Reaction Time Task ◽  
Stimulus Presentation ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Informative Signal ◽  
Learning Tasks ◽  
Complex Skills ◽  
Serial Reaction ◽  
Multi Level

Infants are constantly inundated with sensory input, which they must somehow interpret in order to understand the world. They must do this without explicit cues about which parts of the input are going to be useful and which parts can be ignored. We know that infants do implicitly learn complex skills, which shows that they manage to separate informative signal from uninformative noise.In laboratory-based learning tasks, when the signal to be learnt is accompanied by other less reliable signals, this environmental variability seems to cue learners towards the invariant, learnable features and allows them to perform better when tested (e.g. Gómez, 2002; Tummeltshammer & Kirkham, 2013). Here, we build on these previous studies by asking whether variability in the exact realisation of events – noise within the signal to be learnt – is also influencing learning during the stimulus presentation. We will test whether this type ofvariability is, over and above a helpful cue, a crucial and fundamental ingredient for learningthat has so far been absent from most experimental paradigms.Using multi-level modelling to analyse infants’ implicit learning during a novel saccadic serial reaction time task, we aim to show how infants learn a sequence from noisy instantiations of events. If infants learn sequences with added noise faster than those without, we will claim that noise acts on expectations online to shape perception as it happens.

scholarly journals Fibroblast Memory in Development, Homeostasis and Disease

Cells ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 2840
Author(s):  
Thomas Kirk ◽  
Abubkr Ahmed ◽  
Emanuel Rognoni
Keyword(s):  
Cell Population ◽  
Structural Integrity ◽  
Tissue Homeostasis ◽  
Metabolic Memory ◽  
Anatomical Location ◽  
Environmental Stimulus ◽  
Environmental Stimuli ◽  
Biological Memory ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
And Function

Fibroblasts are the major cell population in the connective tissue of most organs, where they are essential for their structural integrity. They are best known for their role in remodelling the extracellular matrix, however more recently they have been recognised as a functionally highly diverse cell population that constantly responds and adapts to their environment. Biological memory is the process of a sustained altered cellular state and functions in response to a transient or persistent environmental stimulus. While it is well established that fibroblasts retain a memory of their anatomical location, how other environmental stimuli influence fibroblast behaviour and function is less clear. The ability of fibroblasts to respond and memorise different environmental stimuli is essential for tissue development and homeostasis and may become dysregulated in chronic disease conditions such as fibrosis and cancer. Here we summarise the four emerging key areas of fibroblast adaptation: positional, mechanical, inflammatory, and metabolic memory and highlight the underlying mechanisms and their implications in tissue homeostasis and disease.

scholarly journals Synesthetes perseverate in implicit learning: Evidence from a non-stationary statistical learning task

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (7) ◽  
pp. 1771-1779 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaitlyn R Bankieris ◽  
Ting Qian ◽  
Richard N Aslin
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Implicit Learning ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Probability Distributions ◽  
Computer Game ◽  
Reaction Time Data ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Time Data ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Small Set

Synesthetes automatically and consistently experience additional sensory or cognitive perceptions in response to particular environmental stimuli. Recent evidence suggests that the propensity to develop synesthesia is genetic while the particular associations experienced by a given synesthete are influenced by learning. Despite the potential role of implicit learning in the formation of synesthetic associations, there has been minimal investigation of synesthetes’ implicit learning abilities. In this study, we examine linguistic-colour synesthetes’ ability to implicitly learn from and adjust to non-stationary statistics in a domain unrelated to their particular form of synesthesia. Engaging participants in a computer game Whack-the-mole, we utilise the online measure of reaction time to assess the time course of learning. Participants are exposed to “worlds” of probabilities that, unbeknownst to them, undergo unannounced changes, creating unpredictable statistical shifts devoid of accompanying cues. The same small set of probability worlds are repeated throughout the experiment to investigate participants’ ability to retain and learn from this repetitive probabilistic information. The reaction time data provide evidence that synesthetes require more information than nonsynesthetes to benefit from the non-stationary probability distributions. These findings demonstrate that linguistic-colour synesthetes’ implicit learning abilities—in a domain far from their synesthetic experiences—differ from those of nonsynesthetes.

scholarly journals Using Coherence Analysis to Characterize Self-Regulated Learning Behaviours in Open-Ended Learning Environments

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
James R Segedy ◽  
John S Kinnebrew ◽  
Gautam Biswas
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Coherence Analysis ◽  
Problem Solving Skills ◽  
Self Regulated Learning ◽  
Regulated Learning ◽  
Learning Behaviours ◽  
Insight Into

Researchers have long recognized the potential benefits of using open-ended computer-based learning environments (OELEs) to study aspects of students’ self-regulated learning behaviours. However, measuring self-regulation in these environments is a difficult task. In this paper, we present our work in developing and evaluating coherence analysis (CA), a novel approach to interpreting students’ learning behaviours in OELEs. CA focuses on the learner’s ability to interpret and apply information encountered while working in the OELE. By characterizing behaviours in this manner, CA provides insight into students’ open-ended problem-solving strategies as well as the extent to which they understand the nuances of their current learning task. To validate our approach, we applied CA to data from a recent classroom study with Betty’s Brain. Results demonstrated relationships between CA-derived metrics, prior skill levels, task performance, and learning. Taken together, these results provide insight into students’ SRL processes and suggest targets for adaptive scaffolds to support students’ development of science understanding and open-ended problem solving skills.

scholarly journals Effects of language mixing on bilingual children's word learning

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Krista Byers-Heinlein ◽  
Amel Jardak ◽  
Eva Fourakis ◽  
Casey Lew-Williams
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environments ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
New Words ◽  
Children’S Learning ◽  
Language Mixing ◽  
Mixed Language ◽  
Novel Targets ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
Novel Words ◽  
Children's Learning

Abstract Language mixing is common in bilingual children's learning environments. Here, we investigated effects of language mixing on children's learning of new words. We tested two groups of 3-year-old bilinguals: French–English (Experiment 1) and Spanish–English (Experiment 2). Children were taught two novel words, one in single-language sentences (“Look! Do you see the dog on the teelo?”) and one in mixed-language sentences with a mid-sentence language switch (“Look! Do you see the chien/perro on the walem?”). During the learning phase, children correctly identified novel targets when hearing both single-language and mixed-language sentences. However, at test, French–English bilinguals did not successfully recognize the word encountered in mixed-language sentences. Spanish–English bilinguals failed to recognize either word, which underscores the importance of examining multiple bilingual populations. This research suggests that language mixing may sometimes hinder children's encoding of novel words that occur downstream, but leaves open several possible underlying mechanisms.

A Collaborative Editor for Medical Learning Environments

2011 ◽  
pp. 74-80
Author(s):  
Elisa Boff ◽  
Rosa Maria Vicari
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environments ◽  
Group Formation ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Diagnostic Reasoning ◽  
Social Agent ◽  
Medical Area ◽  
The Social ◽  
Uncertain Knowledge ◽  
Medical Learning ◽  
Common Learning

This article presents the social agent that acts in the AMPLIA’s collaborative editor in order to improve collaboration. AMPLIA is an intelligent probabilistic multiagent environment to support the diagnostic reasoning development and the diagnostic hypotheses modeling of domains with complex and uncertain knowledge, like the medical area. The social agent supports group formation and it makes a search among students of an ITS/ILE looking for suitable students to join in a workgroup. Hence, students can help others during a common learning task. For such, these agents takes into account some affective and social aspects of the students.

scholarly journals Adults with Autism Tend to Undermine the Hidden Environmental Structure: Evidence from a Visual Associative Learning Task

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (9) ◽  
pp. 3061-3074 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie-Anne Sapey-Triomphe ◽  
Sandrine Sonié ◽  
Marie-Anne Hénaff ◽  
Jérémie Mattout ◽  
Christina Schmitz
Keyword(s):  
Associative Learning ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Adults With Autism ◽  
Environmental Structure

scholarly journals The Digital Divide? Analyzing Regional Differences of Tablet PC Use in Korean Middle Schools for Sustainable Development

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (18) ◽  
pp. 5054 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keol Lim ◽  
Yujin Kim ◽  
Minyoung Kim ◽  
Yoonho Jang ◽  
Min-Ho Joo
Keyword(s):  
Middle Schools ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Rural Students ◽  
Digital Learning ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Self Regulated Learning ◽  
Tablet Pcs ◽  
Learning Satisfaction ◽  
Quantitative Measurements ◽  
Digital Learning Environments

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of digital learning environments using tablet Personal Computers (PCs) in Korean metropolitan and rural middle schools. After 12 weeks of professional development for six teachers to enhance ICT and instructional design competency, 48 metropolitan and 63 rural students participated in learning with tablet PCs in English, science, and social studies subjects for 12 weeks. As a result, teachers’ various experiences of changes and challenges in digital learning environments were qualitatively analyzed and described. Also, quantitative measurements of students’ self-regulated learning abilities, collaborative learning disposition, and learning satisfaction were conducted and findings indicated that rural students showed significant differences compared to urban students in all three variables. Based on the results, educational implications and suggestions are discussed.

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