Differential outcomes and many-to-one matching: Effects of correlation with correct choice

Pigeons trained on many-to-one matching-to-sample with different probabilities of reinforcement for correct choice acquired the task more rapidly and showed better working memory performance when those different probabilities were correlated with the correct comparisons than when they were uncorrelated with them. Furthermore, this advantage was maintained when all correct choices were subsequently reinforced at the same probability, even though the change to nondifferential outcomes produced a drop in accuracy in the (formerly) correlated group. When birds were later shifted from correlated to uncorrelated outcomes or vice versa, the original between-group differences were reversed or eliminated. These data suggest that differential outcomes will potentiate matching performance if they generate an expectancy cue that is also predictive of correct choice. In addition, different outcomes may enhance common coding of the samples in many-to-one matching to the extent that they too are correlated with the correct comparison alternatives.     

Effects of signaled retention intervals on pigeon short-term memory

In three delayed matching-to-sample experiments, pigeons were given distinctive stimuli that were either correlated or uncorrelated with the scheduled retention intervals. Experiment 1 employed a single-key, go/no-go matching procedure with colors as the sample and test stimuli; lines of differing orientations signaled short or long delays for one group, whereas the lines and the delays were uncorrelated for the other group. The function relating discriminative test performance to delay length was steeper in the correlated group than in the uncorrelated group. In addition, the line orientation stimuli controlled differential rates of sample responding in the correlated group, but not in the uncorrelated group. In Experiment 2, subjects extensively trained with correlated line orientations were exposed to reversed cues on probe trials. Miscuing decreased discriminative test responding at the short delay, but enhanced it at the long delay. As in the correlated group of the first experiment, rates of sample keypecking were higher in the presence of the “short” time tag than in the presence of the ”long” time tag. Experiment 3 used a three-key choice-matching procedure and a within-subjects design, and equated reinforcement rate at the short and long delays. When auditory stimuli were correlated with delay length, the function relating choice accuracy to delay was steeper than when the stimuli and the delays were uncorrelated. The consistent effects of signaled retention intervals on memory performance may be understood in terms of differential attention to the sample stimuli.     

The overshadowing of instrumental conditioning by a stimulus that predicts reinforcement better than the response

In an experiment designed to demonstrate the overshadowing of appetitive instrumental conditioning, three groups of rats were given 10 sessions of RI (random interval) training in which reinforcement was delivered 450 msec following the response. The correlated group experienced a stimulus during the response-reinforcer delay interval, while an uncorrelated control group experienced a similar brief stimulus occasionally following responses, but these were not responses that typically produced reinforcement. A no-stimulus control group did not experience the brief response-produced stimulus. The experiment was run in two replications. The first employed a light as the critical stimulus, the second a tone. Over the 10 RI sessions, subjects in the two control conditions increased their rate of responding significantly faster than subjects in the correlated condition in both replications. This finding was interpreted as an instance of the overshadowing of the acquisition of signal value by a response because of the presence of the stimulus, which, in the correlated condition, was a more reliable predictor of reinforcement than the response. A subsequent conditioned reinforcement test confirmed that, in the correlated condition, the stimulus had, indeed, become a signal for reinforcement as a function of RI training.     

Autoshaping of initial feeding and drinking reactions in newly hatched chicks

Newly hatched chicks were force-fed food and water throughout rearing, and food, water, or sand reinforcers during exposure to an omission-training procedure. The chicks were thus prevented from performing approach and contact responses to the reinforcer at any time in their lives. Nevertheless, the subjects displayed approach and species-specific feeding or drinking reactions directed toward an illuminated key paired with food or water, but not with sand. Illumination of a key either uncorrelated or negatively correlated with food or water did not engender appreciable responding. Feeding and drinking reactions were topographically distinct, determined by the type of reinforcer, but were not elicited by the reinforcer. These findings support a “learned release” view of autoshaping, according to which phylogenetically preorganized behavior patterns are triggered by distal stimuli paired with biologically significant proximal stimulation, and suggest a close relationship between autoshaping and primitive instances of visual object recognition.     

Overshadowing in matching-to-sample: Reduction in sample-stimulus control by differential sample behaviors

Separate groups of pigeons were trained to high levels of accuracy on 0-delay matching-to-sample with sample-response requirements that were either differential or nondifferential with respect to the sample stimuli. Differential subjects produced the comparisons by completing a differential-reinforcement-of-low-rates-of-responding 3-sec (DRL 3″) requirement during one sample and a fixed-ratio (FR 10) requirement during the other. Nondifferential subjects produced the comparisons by completing the same schedule requirement (either DRL 3″ or FR 10) for both samples. Following acquisition to criterion, the DRL and/or FR sample-response requirements were replaced by a nondifferential single-peck (CRF) requirement in order to assess the degree to which the samples had acquired control over choice in each group. This change disrupted performance in all subjects, but the disruption was greater for the differential birds, which generally performed at lower levels of accuracy and required more sessions of retraining to reach criterion levels of accuracy than the nondifferential birds. Follow-up experiments revealed that comparison choices by the differential birds were primarily controlled by their DRL vs. FR sample-specific behaviors. The relatively poor performance of the differential group during testing with CRF requirements suggests that the cue arising from the birds’ differential sample behaviorshad also overshadowed the sample stimuli for conditional control over choice. The unique, and rather unusual, aspect of this overshadowing effect is that it occurred in spite of the fact that the overshadowed cue (that provided by the samples) was necessary for producing the cue that resulted in overshadowing (the differential sample behaviors). This finding has potentially important implications for the differential outcomes effect in conditional discrimination learning and for attentional processes in compound-cue situations in general.     

Prospective representation: The effects of varied mapping of sample stimuli to comparison stimuli and differential trial outcomes on pigeons’ working memory

The mapping of sample stimuli onto comparison stimuli and the nature of trial outcomes were factorially manipulated in a delayed matching-to-sample procedure. In the many-to-one condition (MTO), responding to a particular comparison was correct following several sample stimuli, whereas in the one-to-many condition (OTM), responding to several comparison stimuli was correct following a particular sample. Probabilities of reinforcement for correct responding to comparison stimuli were either differential (DO) or nondifferential (NDO). Four groups of pigeons were trained under four combinations of mapping and outcome conditions, MTO-DO, MTO-NDO, OTM-DO, and OTM-NDO. Testing at delay intervals of 1, 2, 4, and 8 sec revealed significant effects due to both the mapping variable and the differential outcomes variable. It was argued that the poorer performance obtained in the OTM condition was due to the differential prospective coding requirements placed on reference and working memory by this mapping. In the OTM conditions, a greater number of response codes had to be retrieved from reference memory and multiple response codes may have overburdened working memory, which has a limited capacity.     

Pigeons transfer between conditional discriminations with differential outcomes in the absence of differential-sample-responding cues

Pigeons were trained to perform two independent zero-delay conditional discriminations involving the same differential outcomes (i.e., food vs. a feeder light) and were then tested by replacing the samples from one of the tasks with those from the other. Differential responding to the two samples was required in Phase 1, in Phase 2, in neither phase, or in both phases. Half the pigeons in each group were then tested with associations that were either consistent with the presumed outcome expectancies established during Phases 1 and 2 (positive transfer condition) or inconsistent with those expectancies (negative transfer condition). The magnitude of the transfer effect was largest in the group that could use differential sample responding as a cue to mediate transfer, but significant transfer effects were also found in the groups that could use only outcome expectancies. Thus, differential sample responding contributes to, but does not account for, the differential-outcomes effect.     

Explicit versus implicit understanding of teaching: Does knowing what teaching is help children to learn from it?

One hundred and sixteen Korean 3- to 5-year-olds were individually taught animal names through a game, either in a direct condition in which the instructional goal was stated or an indirect condition in which it was not. How much they learned and how well they understood the intentionality of teaching were also measured. Korean children seemed to have relatively rapid development in understanding of the intentionality of teaching, and this understanding was correlated with their identification of the goal of the game. The direct condition produced better learning for the children who had higher understanding of the intentionality of teaching.     

Can performance feedback during instruction boost knowledge acquisition? Contrasting criterion-based and social comparison feedback

Feedback indicating how well students are performing during a learning task can be very stimulating. In this study with a pre- and post-test design, the effects of two types of performance feedback on learning results were compared: feedback during a learning task was either stated in terms of how well the students were performing relative to other students (social comparison feedback) or relative to an absolute criterion (criterion-based feedback). Thirty-four students in secondary vocational engineering education were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In both conditions, students worked together in small groups. All groups completed a math learning task, during which they received either social comparison feedback or criterion-based performance feedback. The findings showed that the type of feedback had a strong effect on learning outcomes: the post-test scores and gains of students in the social comparison condition were significantly higher than those of students in the criterion-based feedback condition.     

The impact of students’ exploration strategies on discovery learning using computer-based simulations

Discovery-based learning designs incorporating active exploration are common within instructional software. However, researchers have highlighted empirical evidence showing that “pure” discovery learning is of limited value and strategies which reduce complexity and provide guidance to learners are important if potential learning benefits are to be achieved. One approach to reducing complexity in discovery learning is limiting the range of possible actions for the learner to ensure that they do not undertake exploratory activities leading to confusion. This article reports on a study in which the learning outcomes from two learning conditions using computer-based simulations were compared. One condition allowed exploration through manipulation of simulation parameters, while the other allowed observation of simulation output from preset parameters, the latter condition designed to limit the complexity of the task. Learning outcomes for the 158 university student participants were assessed via pre-tests and post-tests of conceptual understanding. Students’ exploration activities were recorded and their strategies subsequently coded as either systematic or unsystematic. The results showed that when compared with observation, systematic exploration resulted in learning benefits, while unsystematic exploration did not. These results have implications for the design of discovery learning tasks and instructional guidance within computer-based simulations.     

Methods of Instruction and Learning Outcomes: A Theoretical Analysis of Two Approaches in an Introductory Information Technology Course*

In introductory information technology (IT) courses, communicating technical concepts so that they can be comprehended by all students, technical and nontechnical, has been a concern. Another challenge in such courses is to teach the real‐world applicability of technical concepts. In this conceptual article, we focus on a relatively unexplored issue in IT education—which instructional method is more effective in improving the learning outcomes of all students taking introductory IT courses. In doing so, we consider two instructional methods, lecture and multimedia case studies, and argue that either of these instructional methods, adopted singly, will be perceived by students as less effective in accomplishing learning outcomes than adopting a combination of the two instructional methods. Our arguments both augment existing knowledge about the differential influence of lecture and multimedia case studies on students’ learning outcomes and questions the wisdom of adopting either of these methods singly in introductory IT courses. We derive insights from the literature and anecdotal evidence, presented as four propositions, which illustrate the relationship between the two instructional methods and the specific learning outcomes students perceive they affect.     

A differential-outcome effect in pigeons using spatial hedonically nondifferential outcomes

We examined the extent to which nonhedonically different differential outcomes involving feeder location control pigeons’ comparison choices in matching to sample. In Experiment 1, we showed that differential feeder location outcomes associated with each of two samples can facilitate delayed-matching accuracy. In Experiment 2, we found positive transfer following training on two matching tasks with differential feeder location outcomes when samples from one task were replaced by samples from the other task. In Experiment 3, we found that when differential-outcome expectations could no longer serve as the cues for comparison choice, sample stimuli continued to exert some control over choice of comparisons. The results indicate that differential outcomes (involving feeder location) that presumably do not differ in hedonic value are sufficient to control comparison choice. Thus, the differential hedonic value of the outcome elicited by the sample does not appear to be a requirement of the differential-outcome effect. Furthermore, these differential outcomes appear to augment matching accuracy, but they do not eliminate control by the samples.     

Some relationships between outcome expectancies and sample stimuli in pigeons’ delayed matching

Two sets of experiments examined how differential outcomes affect conditional stimulus control by the samples in delayed matching-to-sample. Pigeons were initially trained on symbolic delayed matching with reinforcing outcomes that were either differential or nondiffereatial with respect to the samples. In one set of experiments, the outcome manipulation involved different (p = 1.0 vs. 0.2) versus the same (p = 0.6) probabilities of food; in the other, food and no-food outcomes were used. Following initial acquisition and mixed-delay tests, the matching procedure in each study was discontinued while the samples were nondifferentially reinforced with the same probability of food, or with food and no food, respectively. When later retested on delayed matching with those nondifferential outcomes, birds initially trained with different reinforcement probabilities matched at the same levels of accuracy as those trained with the same probability. By contrast, birds initially trained with food versus no-food outcomes showed lower levels of matching accuracy than their nondifferential controls. Subsequent transfer tests showed that matching performances by the differential birds in both studies had been originally cued in part by differential outcome expectancies. Apparently, the expectancies based upon different probabilities of food provided a source of conditional stimulus control that did not compete with the samples. By contrast, the expectation of food versus no food reduced (overshadowed) sample-stimulus control.     

Transfer of performance to new comparison choices following differential outcome matching-to-sample

Four experiments examined transfer of differential outcome performances to new choice responses in pigeons. Experiments 1A and 1B showed that new responses trained off a matching-to-sample baseline readily substituted for the choice alternatives in differential outcome matching, provided that they shared the same outcome associations as the alternatives they replaced. Experiment 2 showed that comparison responses trained on baseline, but in a task in which their different outcomes occurred equally often following each sample (viz., one-to-many matching), substituted for the choices in a standard, differential outcome task. Experiment 3 showed, somewhat surprisingly, that the choices in the latter task were likewise effective substitutes in one-to-many matching. These results pose separate challenges for standard two-process theory and for the bidirectional account of differential outcome performance, and they suggest other cues that pigeons may use to predict outcomes.     

Errors by macaques performing trial-unique delayed matching-to-sample: A function of memory per se or of distinguishing between the subsequent choices?

In trial-unique delayed matching-to-sample the animal must (1) remember the item given as the sample, and (2) subsequently distinguish it from a second item to make a match. With rather short delays, even very well trained monkeys continue to make errors on this task. The question is whether these errors arise as a consequence of poor memory per se, or whether inadequate memory makes the sample difficult to distinguish from the alternative. This question was examined using pairs of items presented on multiple occasions. The role of sample was systematically interchanged between the items forming a pair. Errors were found to be well correlated between trials in which the same item served as sample, but essentially uncorrelated when those trials were compared with trials having the other item as the sample. For example, if A and B were paired items, results of trials in which A was selected as the sample were well correlated with other trials using A as the sample (run on other days); however, trials using A as the sample were uncorrelated with trials using B as the sample, even though the comparison pair (A and B presented together) was identical. These results suggest that the monkeys’ errors are not dependent on the distinguishability of the comparison pair, despite a “faded” memory on which to base the distinction.     

Effects of elicited reflections combined with tutor or peer feedback on self-regulated learning and learning outcomes

This study investigated the effects of students' reflections, combined with suggestive feedback, on the development of self-regulated learning and learning outcomes. Suggestive feedback alerts students that further reflection is advisable, without being very directive. Forty-nine students participated in a regular web-based distance education course on work psychology. In two experimental conditions students were prompted to reflect on their learning process, and received feedback on their reflections, either from peer students or a tutor. These conditions were compared to a control condition in which students studied the regular course without reflection and feedback. In line with the hypothesis, results showed that reflection combined with feedback positively affected students' self-regulated learning. In addition, students in the condition with tutor feedback outperformed students in both other conditions on learning outcomes.     

The significance of speech in industry

This study investigated whether an individual's communication experience with a proposal affects his response to a counter attitudinal speech on the proposal. Subjects were induced to believe that they either succeeded or failed in an earlier attempt to persuade others to oppose a proposal. Then, they received a counterattitudinal speech on the proposal. As hypothesized, subjects who believed that they succeeded at the prior persuasion attempt were influenced least by the speech while subjects who failed were persuaded most. Subjects who received no feedback on success or failure were persuaded less than subjects who failed.     

Young children's comprehension and recall of computer screen displayed text

In this study 26 third grade and 36 fifth grade students, experienced in computer-assisted instruction, were randomly assigned to one of two treatment conditions: computer screen displayed text or traditional printed page text. According to assigned treatment condition, subjects either read a story from the computer screen or printed page booklet. There were no statistically significant differences between the two treatment conditions on measures of reading comprehension. On the attitude survey subjects reported greater interest in the story when reading from the computer, however, they reported that the story was more difficult when reading from the computer screen. The results of the study suggest that extended reading of prose materials on computer screens is feasible for children as young as eight years of age.     

自我学习理论所隐含个人条件假设的实证研究

自我学习与个人的自我效能、自我激励、社会合作意识是相关的，而与个人的理论应用与实际的能力可能相关也可能不相关。因此，不是所有个人都能有效地进行自我学习并取得好的效果。     

The role of feedback in young people’s academic choices

ABSTRACT

Women are underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics subjects with more girls leaving these subjects at every stage in education. The current research used a scenario methodology to examine the impact of teacher feedback on girls’ and boys’ choices to study a specific science subject, engineering. British participants aged 13 (N?=?479) were given scenarios where a new teacher encouraged them to take engineering using person feedback which focussed on their abilities, process feedback which focussed on their effort levels or gave them no reason. Results suggested that both boys and girls were more likely to select to study engineering when they received person feedback rather than process or no feedback. Young people also thought that ability was more important to being successful in science than in non-science subjects.This suggests young people feel that ability is needed to succeed in science subjects and person feedback can lead them to believe that they have this ability. Therefore, teacher feedback which gives ability attributions for possible success could be used to encourage more young people to persist in science. However, the potentially negative longer term outcomes of ability attributions and how they may be negated are also discussed.