For questions about acquiring new, or modifying existing, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences. Learning may involve synthesizing different types of information.
24
votes
1answer
906 views
By learning to read and write upside down, what did I do to myself?
If you've ever read Encyclopedia Brown books, you'll be familiar with the backwards writing in the back of the book that explains the solution to the case.
When I was in my mid-late teens (I don't ...
15
votes
5answers
421 views
Does learning one discipline improve performance in another discipline?
I have come across a lot of articles that suggest learning across disciplines would improve cognitive abilities. This is more often referred to as Integrative Learning. Also, nowadayas a lot of ...
13
votes
1answer
173 views
How can I use gamification to encourage people to complete workplace training?
I am looking for ways to improve the likelihood people will perform mundane but required workplace training. I am looking into gamification techniques.
My organisation requires that employees ...
12
votes
2answers
492 views
Applications of computational learning theory in the cognitive sciences
Computational learning theory (CoLT) is a branch of theoretical computer science associated with the mathematical analysis of machine learning. A lot of the early ideas of the field take inspiration ...
12
votes
1answer
205 views
Computational models of early learning in children
What are currently used biologically plausible computational models/frameworks of early learning in children?
Personally, I have used cascade correlation neural nets to model pronoun acquisition ...
11
votes
4answers
237 views
Why is training better when following an easy-to-difficult schedule?
As suggested in the answer to this question, experimental results show that training is most effective when it follows an easy-to-difficult schedule.
What theories and specifically computational ...
10
votes
1answer
159 views
Does the transcription method used (e.g., printing, handwriting, typing, voice recording, etc.) affect memory retention?
When I was in high school, one of my teachers used to make us hand print copies of materials from transparencies on an overhead projector (I may be showing my age), with the reasoning that re-writing ...
10
votes
1answer
109 views
Are some methods of teaching reading “bad”?
I have a young daughter who I am teaching to read, and I was given a "Your Baby Can Read" DVD set by a friend. When discussing it with friends, several of my teacher friends frowned upon the use of ...
10
votes
1answer
81 views
Learning of new concepts being impeded by an error in previous work
Note: I'm framing this question in terms of tutoring math since that's what I tutor most, though it applies to a wide range of subject matters.
I do a decent amount of tutoring, and this is one ...
9
votes
4answers
30 views
What are the key algorithms for learning optimal behavior of economic agents?
I'm playing around with social learning of near-optimal behavioral rules on a set of agents. The idea is roughly that given an income process (or technology process, depending on the question) an ...
9
votes
1answer
125 views
Is there evidence that STDP is responsible for the ability to infer causation?
Spike timing dependent plasticity (STDP) is a property of synapses that modifies their efficacy based on timing relationships between action potentials in the pre-synaptic and post-synaptic neuron. A ...
9
votes
0answers
101 views
Does the effect of naturalistic exposure on second language acquisition vary with age?
A while back, I watched the movie The Terminal and the main character played by Tom Hanks learns to speak fluent English while he is stranded in the airport for more than a year. Which seems somewhat ...
8
votes
3answers
300 views
Why are mind maps recommended for study and recap?
In both my last year of high school and my freshmen year at the university, I got strong recommendations to study using mind maps - especially because this is apparently better to cope with large ...
8
votes
1answer
92 views
Does teaching a bird an artificial task like eating from a feeder hurt its performance in the wild?
Can training a wild animal through operant conditioning somehow cause the animal to forget or be unable to perform tasks which it had perviously learned?
Is it likely that training wild animals ...
8
votes
1answer
90 views
Could Fitts Law be used to measure difficulty in platform genre games?
I've been learning about Fitts' law and am wondering if it's applicable to measuring the difficulty of platform type games where the challenge is to hit the platforms?
If so, this could be used to ...
8
votes
0answers
69 views
Why do we become bored of stimuli after multiple exposures to it?
Why do we become bored of songs, films, stories, jokes, food after being exposed to them or experiencing them multiple times?
Why is it when our cortex becomes adequate at predicting the outcomes of ...
7
votes
2answers
71 views
Is there a learning style that involves learning best by teaching others?
Background: I'm familiar with the more common learning styles of hearing, seeing and doing. For lack of a better word I consider myself a 'vicarious' learner which is something similar to a ...
7
votes
1answer
183 views
What is the optimal repetition pattern to maximize long term memory?
Which is the appropriate repetition pattern to aid long term memory, in terms of time between study sessions?
I have been reading about Ebbinghaus and doing some related research, but I can't find a ...
7
votes
1answer
209 views
How do animals recognize other animals of their own species?
My motivation for this question is dog-based, but I suppose it would apply equally well to humans. How do animals recognize their own kind, particularly where there is large variation in appearance?
...
6
votes
1answer
75 views
Does not consistently providing a reward strengthen operant conditioning?
When learning about Operant Conditioning, I remember being taught that not consistently rewarding the desired behavior could (seemingly counterintuitively) actually increase the strength of learning ...
6
votes
2answers
115 views
Studies modelling learning curves of an overall task and subtasks
Background
Lee and Anderson (2001) published an article in which they argued that learning a complex skill can be understood in terms of learning various component skills. They did this by ...
6
votes
2answers
270 views
What is the difference between solving a problem and acquiring a skill?
Within the confines of cognitive psychology, what is the difference between these two tasks? In the literature, playing chess is generally seen as the exemplar of problem solving. But recently (thanks ...
6
votes
1answer
127 views
Is learning facts via audio while sleeping possible?
Is there a way to make onself remember facts from an audiobook (containing for instance a list of countries and their capitals) played out loud while sleeping?
6
votes
1answer
81 views
Is good short term memory correlated with good long term memory?
Is there any link between one's ability to store information in their short term memory, with their ability to store information in their long term memory?
6
votes
1answer
112 views
Can one incubate on a specific idea in one's sleep?
In this question it is described that intentionally not thinking about a problem can allow the subsonscious to find an answer to the problem; this is known as incubation. I have heard and read it a ...
6
votes
0answers
39 views
Why a person may have a temptation to do something unrelated when doing especially important thing?
I would like to know, why a person may have a temptation to do something unrelated (or slightly related to his current task) when doing particularly important job?
Like, when preparing for an ...
6
votes
2answers
283 views
What is the average amount of new vocabulary adults retain when learning a second language?
What are the realistic/optimal (or maximal) number of words of vocabulary that can be learned (retained and later successfully accessed) by an adult learner of a foreign/second language? (Unit: Per ...
6
votes
0answers
99 views
Advantage of active learning on classification tasks
I am looking for a specific type of experimental test of active learning. Given some artificial or natural learning task that consists of classifying inputs $x$ from a large input space $X$. There is ...
6
votes
0answers
81 views
How do cooperative vs. competitive activities impact the learning patterns of an individual?
To what extent does cooperative versus competitive learning influence personality development or even pathological behaviors?
If these activities need to be narrowed down to a specific category, I'm ...
6
votes
0answers
34 views
What is the correlation between self and other ratings of goal orientation?
In educational psychology goal orientation is a popular construct. In particular popular dimensions of goal orientation include performance-approach, performance-avoidance, and mastery. The studies ...
5
votes
1answer
112 views
Hebbian Learning Rule, Local or Global?
I just learned about the Hebbian Learning Rule. It essentially says "Neurons that fire together, wire together". I'm wondering if the learning rule is affected by the spatial distance of the two ...
5
votes
1answer
170 views
How does the brain learn what something is for the first time?
I'm trying to understand how the idea of what a thing is originates in humans.
For example, in computer science, it is possible to know what an object is and what it does, by examining its ...
5
votes
1answer
75 views
Which type of stimulus results in an optimal learning curve for rats and mice?
When using operant conditioning to train mice or rats, what type of stimulus is most effective? For example, does a negative reinforcement of a loud noise have a more profound effect than a negative ...
5
votes
2answers
231 views
Are there any laws of memory?
Several years ago, my adviser wrote an article discussing the observation that a hundred years of studying memory had not resulted in the discovery of a "law" of memory. He wrote (p. 247):
When ...
5
votes
1answer
74 views
How to test effectiveness of a children's museum in improving cognitive function?
For those who have never heard of a Children's Museum before, there is a national association in the US with some information. The basic idea stems from Vygotsky-like paradigms of learning through ...
5
votes
1answer
81 views
Need good example of two domains involving different procedural knowledge yet sharing same high-level strategies
Working in the domain of intelligent tutoring systems, I have to prove (or disprove) that explicit teaching of high-level strategies will allow students to use learned strategies across different ...
5
votes
0answers
13 views
Is there any recent work on modeling how we rapidly acquire new knowledge?
I work with neural network models of human cognition a lot, and one thing that bugs me about them is the timescale: they learn over thousands of trials whereas humans seem to learn after a couple ...
4
votes
1answer
370 views
Does IQ affect learning speed?
Supposedly, people of higher levels of intelligence do learn faster than people of lower levels of it. But this is an awfully coarse observation, and different people can learn at drastically ...
4
votes
2answers
154 views
What is the scientific basis for long-term negative physiological effects of overstudying?
I am interested in long term negative physiological effects that some students experience following overstudying.
What is the scientific basis for overstudying?
Is over studying correlated with ...
4
votes
2answers
95 views
Does associating a color with numbers improve math learning?
I have heard a number of reports that some mathematical savants associate particular colors with numbers. It got me wondering, if colors are associated with numbers during mathematical teaching, ...
4
votes
1answer
236 views
How much more efficient is interleaving skills when learning?
In an interview with Robert A. Bjork this article suggests interleaving skills is better than focusing exclusively on one skill at a time. How much of a difference does the research indicate that it ...
4
votes
1answer
90 views
Time pressure and learning
What are the effects of time pressure (salient vs. non-salient) and learning? Salient time pressure is basically when you have a countdown timer in front of you. Non salient time pressure would be ...
4
votes
1answer
139 views
What happens in your brain when a concept “clicks”?
What happens in your mind when the "lightbulb goes off", or a concept "clicks" for you? Why is there such a threshold for human understanding?
Existing searches:
I've searched a good amount for it. ...
4
votes
1answer
95 views
Can we increase our higher order thinking (HOT) skills by practicing inductive reasoning?
I previously asked about the conceptual links between higher order thinking and inductive reasoning. This question focuses on the potential for improving higher order thinking through practicing ...
4
votes
0answers
41 views
Quantify degree to which non-diagnostic features bias category-present response
I need a measure of the degree to which each of several features biases participants to respond "yes" in a category present / absent task for each of several categories.
I have stimuli defined along ...
4
votes
0answers
106 views
'Model-free' learning in humans
In reinforcement learning, there is a stark distinction between model-based and model-free learning algorithms, where model-free methods don't make use any explicit information about the dynamics of ...
3
votes
2answers
316 views
Do people with ADD or Asperger's Syndrome often show different learning curves than neurotypical individuals?
There's some interesting discussion at this Wrong Planet thread
Specifically, I was wondering whether people with ADD or Asperger's Syndrome are more likely to show a logistic pattern in their ...
3
votes
2answers
64 views
What brain skill does Nonogram (Picross) games develop?
I've been playing Nonogram Picross a lot lately. I really like it and you can always find a harder challenge but I would hate to waste my time for nothing.
What brain skill does Nonogram (Picross) ...
3
votes
1answer
109 views
Are there cognitive benefits to two hand typing versus one finger?
I've been reading an old popular psychology book by russian psychiatrist Vladimir Levi. One of the things that he has his depressed patients try is learn to juggle. He insists that such activity ...
3
votes
1answer
94 views
Can learning styles be changed?
Fleming's model of learning suggests 3 types of learners :
Visual: Learns by visually taking screenshots of data or by remembering pictures/scenes etc.
Auditory: Learns by hearing; can be by hearing ...
