Don't Oil your Teaching Machine

Abstract

Their findings are important because they show that delay of feedback in verbal learning can improve retention although learning is no better than with immediate feedback. Previous verbal learning studies of delay have not evaluated retention and the effects of delay on learning have been contradictory. Of course, delay in reinforcement retards learning in animals; often no learning occurs wirh delays exceeding a very few seconds. Brackbill, et al. are not surprised that their results differ from those of animal smdies. They point out that, when dealing with verbal learning with people beyond infancy, language is used to bridge time gaps, so that a reinforcement may be effective several hours or days after the behavior, as long as the giver of the reinforcement tells the person for what prior behavior he is being reinforced. Ir is now only one step more to hypothesize that the more difficult or complex the verbal task, the more benefit may be expected from increasing delay, both for immediate and for delayed retention, within some limit to be determined empirically. Some very indirect evidence for this hypothesis may be found in the report by Goldbeck and Campbell (1962), in which overt responding to moderately difficult material resulted in higher criterion scores on an immediate test than did any of three modes of responding (including overt) with easier materials. Since Ss took longer with the more difficult program than wirh the easy one, it may be supposed that some of this additional rime may have been spent in S-administered delay in reinforcement, as well as in response latency and inter-item delay, since S was allowed to expose the feedback term whenever he wished. Related implications are discussed elsewhere (Goldbeck & Briggs, 1962). Effects of feedback delay with the same materials are now being checked experimentally by the author in collaboration with Lloyd 0. Brooks, using precise time records. It would be interesting indeed if it turns out that among the many reasons why teach