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Initial Learning (initial + learning)
Selected AbstractsState-dependency in C. elegansGENES, BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR, Issue 5 2004J. C. Bettinger Memory and the expression of learned behaviors by an organism are often triggered by contextual cues that resemble those that were present when the initial learning occurred. In state-dependent learning, the cue eliciting a learned behavior is a neuroactive drug; behaviors initially learned during exposure to centrally acting compounds such as ethanol are subsequently recalled better if the drug stimulus is again present during testing. Although state-dependent learning is well documented in many vertebrate systems, the molecular mechanisms underlying state-dependent learning and other forms of contextual learning are not understood. Here we demonstrate and present a genetic analysis of state- dependent adaptation in Caenorhabditis elegans. C. elegans normally exhibits adaptation, or reduced behavioral response, to an olfactory stimulus after prior exposure to the stimulus. If the adaptation to the olfactory stimulus is acquired during ethanol administration, the adaptation is subsequently displayed only if the ethanol stimulus is again present. cat-1 and cat-2 mutant animals are defective in dopaminergic neuron signaling and are impaired in state dependency, indicating that dopamine functions in state-dependent adaptation in C. elegans. [source] Hippocampal lesions and discrimination performance of mice in the radial maze: Sparing or impairment depending on the representational demands of the taskHIPPOCAMPUS, Issue 2 2003Nicole Etchamendy Abstract The effects of ibotenate hippocampal lesions on discrimination performance in an eight-arm radial maze were investigated in mice, using a three-stage paradigm in which the only parameter that varied among stages was the way the arms were presented. In the initial learning phase (stage 1), animals learned the valence or reward contingency associated with six (three positive and three negative) adjacent arms of the maze using a successive (go/no-go) discrimination procedure. In the first test phase (stage 2), the six arms were grouped into three pairs, so that on each trial, the subject was faced with a choice between two adjacent arms of opposite valence (concurrent two-choice discrimination). In the second test phase (stage 3), the subject was faced with all six arms simultaneously (six-choice discrimination). Hippocampal-lesioned mice acquired the initial learning phase at a near-normal rate but behaved as if they had learned nothing when challenged with the two-choice discriminations at stage 2. In contrast, they behaved normally when confronted with the six-choice discrimination at stage 3. Detailed examination of within- and between-stage performance suggests that hippocampal-lesioned mice perform as intact mice when presentation of the discriminanda encourages the storage and use of separate representations (i.e., in initial learning and six-choice discrimination testing), but that they fail in test situations that involve explicit comparisons between such separate representations (two-choice discriminations), hence requiring the use of relational representations. Hippocampus 2003;13:197,211. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] The Role of Task-Induced Involvement and Learner Proficiency in L2 Vocabulary AcquisitionLANGUAGE LEARNING, Issue 2 2008YouJin Kim Hulstijn and Laufer (2001) proposed a motivational-cognitive construct of task-induced involvement to account for variation in effectiveness among different vocabulary learning tasks. Building upon their original research, this study consisted of two experiments investigating the involvement load hypothesis in vocabulary learning. Experiment 1 compared the performance of 64 adult English as a second language (ESL) learners from a range of countries at two different proficiency levels (i.e., matriculated undergraduate students vs. students in an Intensive English Program) to ascertain the effectiveness of three vocabulary tasks with different levels of task-induced involvement. Experiment 2 investigated whether two tasks hypothesized to represent the same level of task-induced involvement would result in equivalent initial learning and retention of target words by 20 adult ESL learners at two different levels of proficiency. The results of Experiment 1 showed that a higher level of learner involvement during the task promoted more effective initial vocabulary learning and better retention of the new words. The findings of Experiment 2 indicated that when different tasks had the same involvement load, they resulted in similar amounts of initial vocabulary learning and retention of new words. The results of the two experiments are discussed in light of the involvement load hypothesis. [source] Comparison of efficiency measures for academic interventions based on acquisition and maintenancePSYCHOLOGY IN THE SCHOOLS, Issue 2 2010Matthew K. Burns Previous research has demonstrated the importance of examining the instructional efficiency of academic interventions and has defined efficiency as the number of items learned per instructional minute. Maintenance of the skill is also an important instructional goal, however. Therefore, the current study compared efficiency metrics using initial learning and maintenance with 25 fourth-grade students. Each student was taught the pronunciation and English translation of 12 words from the Esperanto international language with two instructional conditions (six words for each condition). The first condition was traditional drill (TD) rehearsal with all unknown words, and the second was incremental rehearsal (IR) with one unknown and eight known words. Results indicated that, although the IR condition led to significantly more words being retained, TD was significantly more efficient using initial learning. The two conditions were equally efficient, however, when maintenance data were used. Therefore, evaluating the efficiency of instructional interventions should consider maintenance data as well. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Transfer of Mathematical Knowledge: The Portability of Generic InstantiationsCHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES, Issue 3 2009Jennifer A. Kaminski Abstract, Mathematical concepts are often difficult to acquire. This difficulty is evidenced by failure of knowledge to transfer to novel analogous situations. One approach to this challenge is to present the learner with a concrete instantiation of the to-be-learned concept. Concrete instantiations communicate more information than their abstract, generic counterparts and, in doing so, they may facilitate initial learning. However, this article argues that extraneous information in concrete instantiations may distract the learner from the relevant mathematical structure and, as a result, hinder transfer. At the same time, generic instantiations, such as traditional mathematical notation, can be learned by both children and adults and can, in turn, allow for transfer, suggesting that generic instantiations result in a portable knowledge representation. [source] | |||||||||||||