Individual Differences In Learning Ability Research Articles

Resting-state occipito-frontal alpha connectome is linked to differential word learning ability in adult learners.

Adult language learners show distinct abilities in acquiring a new language, yet the underlying neural mechanisms remain elusive. Previous studies suggested that resting-state brain connectome may contribute to individual differences in learning ability. Here, we recorded electroencephalography (EEG) in a large cohort of 106 healthy young adults (50 males) and examined the associations between resting-state alpha band (8–12 Hz) connectome and individual learning ability during novel word learning, a key component of new language acquisition. Behavioral data revealed robust individual differences in the performance of the novel word learning task, which correlated with their performance in the language aptitude test. EEG data showed that individual resting-state alpha band coherence between occipital and frontal regions positively correlated with differential word learning performance (p = 0.001). The significant positive correlations between resting-state occipito-frontal alpha connectome and differential world learning ability were replicated in an independent cohort of 35 healthy adults. These findings support the key role of occipito-frontal network in novel word learning and suggest that resting-state EEG connectome may be a reliable marker for individual ability during new language learning.

Dynamic Network Analysis Demonstrates the Formation of Stable Functional Networks During Rule Learning.

Variations in the functional connectivity of large-scale cortical brain networks may explain individual differences in learning ability. We used a dynamic network analysis of fMRI data to identify changes in functional brain networks that are associated with context-dependent rule learning. During fMRI scanning, naïve subjects performed a cognitive task designed to test their ability to learn context-dependent rules. Notably, subjects were given minimal instructions about the task prior to scanning. We identified several key network characteristics associated with fast and accurate rule learning. First, consistent with the formation of stable functional networks, a dynamic community detection analysis revealed regionally specific reductions in flexible switching between different functional communities in successful learners. Second, successful rule learners showed decreased centrality of ventral attention regions and increased assortative mixing of cognitive control regions as the rules were learned. Finally, successful subjects showed greater decoupling of default and attention communities throughout the entire task, whereas ventral attention and cognitive control regions became more connected during learning. Overall, the results support a framework by which a stable ventral attention community and more flexible cognitive control community support sustained attention and the formation of rule representations in successful learners.

Individual Differences in Learning Abilities Impact Structure Addition: Better Learners Create More Structured Languages.

Over the last decade, iterated learning studies have provided compelling evidence for the claim that linguistic structure can emerge from non-structured input, through the process of transmission. However, it is unclear whether individuals differ in their tendency to add structure, an issue with implications for understanding who are the agents of change. Here, we identify and test two contrasting predictions: The first sees learning as a pre-requisite for structure addition, and predicts a positive correlation between learning accuracy and structure addition, whereas the second maintains that it is those learners who struggle with learning and reproducing their input who add structure to it. This prediction is hard to test in standard iterated learning paradigms since each learner is exposed to a different input, and since structure and accuracy are computed using the same test items. Here, we test these contrasting predictions in two experiments using a one-generation artificial language learning paradigm designed to provide independent measures of learning accuracy and structure addition. Adults (N=48 in each study) were exposed to a semi-regular language (with probabilistic structure) and had to learn it: Learning was assessed using seen items, whereas structure addition was calculated over unseen items. In both studies, we find a strong positive correlation between individuals' ability to learn the language and their tendency to add structure to it: Better learners also produced more structured languages. These findings suggest a strong link between learning and generalization. We discuss the implications of these findings for iterated language models and theories of language change more generally.

Individual differences in learning ability are negatively linked to behavioural plasticity in a frequency-dependent game

Behavioural plasticity can be costly, but is advantageous when it allows animals to adjust their behaviour to current conditions. Since individual differences in learning ability could be a source of differences in behavioural plasticity, the frequency dependence of payoffs within a foraging group may permit the coexistence of both plastic, fast-learning individuals and nonplastic, slow-learning individuals; in a frequency-dependent context the adjustments of a few benefit all. In this study, we investigated whether individuals that learned faster in a simple associative learning task were also more likely to adjust their behaviour in a social foraging game context than their slower-learning groupmates. We measured the associative learning ability of female Bengalese finches, Lonchura striata domestica, in a colour discrimination task and their degree of behavioural plasticity in tactic use when foraging conditions called for changes in the flock's producer–scrounger equilibrium. We found that behavioural plasticity was affected by learning speed. However, in contrast to our expectation, the slower learners were most plastic. We argue that behavioural plasticity in the producer–scrounger game context may require learning that is different from colour matching. We also propose that our results may be related to the fast–slow continuum; being proactive or fast and inaccurate could favour being responsive in simple asocial contexts while being reactive or slow and accurate could favour being plastic in more complex social contexts. Future empirical studies need to compare differences in behavioural plasticity in tactic use with learning speed measured in other types of learning tasks and with personality traits relevant to the fast–slow continuum.

Learning strategies and the social brain: Missing elements in the link between developmental stress, song and cognition?

Bird songs may advertise aspects of cognition because song learning and learning speed in cognitive tasks are both affected by early-life environments. However, such relationships remain ambiguous in the literature. Here, I discuss 2 lines of research that may help to demystify links between song learning and cognition. First, learning strategies should be considered when assessing performance to ensure that individual differences in learning ability are not masked by individual differences in learning strategies. Second, song characteristics should be associated with social behavior because songs have a social purpose and, consequently, should be strongly related at functional and neural levels. Finally, if song learning and cognitive abilities are correlated because they develop concurrently and/or share or compete for the same resources, I discuss ways glucocorticoids may link early-life stress, song learning and cognitive ability, focusing particularly on oxidative stress as a potential mechanism.

Individual differences in the learning potential of human beings

To the best of our knowledge, the genetic foundations that guide human brain development have not changed fundamentally during the past 50,000 years. However, because of their cognitive potential, humans have changed the world tremendously in the past centuries. They have invented technical devices, institutions that regulate cooperation and competition, and symbol systems, such as script and mathematics, that serve as reasoning tools. The exceptional learning ability of humans allows newborns to adapt to the world they are born into; however, there are tremendous individual differences in learning ability among humans that become obvious in school at the latest. Cognitive psychology has developed models of memory and information processing that attempt to explain how humans learn (general perspective), while the variation among individuals (differential perspective) has been the focus of psychometric intelligence research. Although both lines of research have been proceeding independently, they increasingly converge, as both investigate the concepts of working memory and knowledge construction. This review begins with presenting state-of-the-art research on human information processing and its potential in academic learning. Then, a brief overview of the history of psychometric intelligence research is combined with presenting recent work on the role of intelligence in modern societies and on the nature-nurture debate. Finally, promising approaches to integrating the general and differential perspective will be discussed in the conclusion of this review.

HYBRID PEDAGOGIES FOR HYBRID WAR

DOI: 10.19062/2247-3173.2016.18.2.3 Abstract: Paper presents the main characteristics of hybrid war and the new requirements for military educational and training system related to the new challenges of these irregular threats. The hybrid wars require innovative thinking, a more flexibility in action, and enhanced cognitive skills. This paper lays out some findings of neuroscience. In this respect we can conclude that neuroscience should be used as a tool in educational policy. Knowing that the education is a powerful form of cognitive enhancement we consider that the neuroscience research could identify the mechanisms of learning and the sources of individual differences in learning ability in order to develop the cognitive skills needed in the hybrid framework of the battle.

Bilingualism beyond languages: The impact of bilingualism upon the brain: Comment on “The bilingual brain: Flexibility and control in the human cortex” by Buchweitz and Prat

The human brain has not only evolved to accommodate a single language but is, in fact, fully equipped to acquiremore than one language as in bilingual individuals. Humans can learn two languages from early after birth withoutgreat difficulty or later in life due to educational requirements, immigration, or alternative circumstances. These dif-ferent learning contexts, along with intrinsic individual differences in learning ability, may require the concourse ofdifferent neural substrates. In their review article Buchweitz and Prat [7] elegantly summarize how individuals acquireand eventually process a second language. This is, as they correctly remark, most likely achieved through a cortico-subcortical network including a fronto-basal ganglia network. The authors thoroughly discuss the role of the basalganglia in rule learning such as grammar processing (see also [5] for review). However, the discussion of the basalganglia should not be restricted to rule-processing. Consider that the use of language is not only restricted to grammat-ical rules, but also involves concepts, words, phonemes and motoric functions that allow articulation. Interestingly, thebasal ganglia (in particular, the left striatum) are crucially involved in semantic processing [8], lexical processing andacquisition [4], phonological processing [13] and articulation [1]. It is unlikely that subcortical grey matter nuclei pos-sess any language ‘representation’ faculty, which

Worms under cover: relationships between performance in learning tasks and personality in great tits (Parus major)

In animals, individual differences in learning ability are common and are in part explained by genetic differences, developmental conditions and by general experience. Yet, not all variations in learning are well understood. Individual differences in learning may be associated with elementary individual characteristics that are consistent across situations and over time, commonly referred to as personality or temperament. Here, we tested whether or not male great tits (Parus major) from two selection lines for fast or slow exploratory behaviour, an operational measure for avian personality, vary in their learning performance in two related consecutive tasks. In the first task, birds had to associate a colour with a reward whereas in the second task, they had to associate a new colour with a reward ignoring the previously rewarded colour. Slow explorers had shorter latencies to approach the experimental device compared with fast explorers in both tasks, but birds from the two selection lines did not differ in accomplishing the first task, that is, to associate a colour with a reward. However, in the second task, fast explorers had longer latencies to solve the trials than slow explorers. Moreover, relative to the number of trials needed to reach the learning criteria in the first task, birds from the slow selection line took more trials to associate a new colour with a reward while ignoring the previously learned association compared with birds from the fast selection line. Overall, the experiments suggest that personality in great tits is not strongly related to learning per se in such an association task, but that birds from different selection lines might express different learning strategies as birds from the different selection lines were differently affected by their previous learning performance.

The effect of individual learning on competitive decision-making and firm performance

This study examines the effect of individual differences in learning ability and other personal characteristics on group competitive thinking and dynamic marketing decision-making. The learning ability of the “best” member of management teams was found to be most closely related to firm performance. Moreover, this effect was strongest for the “best” member as identified by peer ratings (by other team members) rather than self-ratings. These findings suggest that, over time, the best individual mental models often become visible to group members and influence group performance. The results have important implications for marketing management decision-making and suggest several potentially fruitful streams of research.

Maternal deprivation affects behaviour from youth to senescence: amplification of individual differences in spatial learning and memory in senescent Brown Norway rats.

Previous studies have shown that deprivation of the infant rat from maternal care has pronounced effects on the stress system during ontogeny. Here we test the hypothesis that 24 h of maternal deprivation at postnatal day 3 will cause persistent changes in behaviour. Spatial learning and memory of male Brown Norway rats deprived as infants were observed in the Morris water maze at 3, 12, 24 and 30-32 months of age (young, adult, aged, senescent). Their nondeprived mother-reared littermates served as controls. (i) With increasing age, water maze performance declined in deprived and nondeprived groups. However, once the task was learned the animals maintained their good performance during retest at later ages. (ii) Maternal deprivation delayed acquisition until adulthood and caused at every age a higher degree of persistent behaviour as judged from the performance of deprived rats' free swim trials and reversal trials. (iii) At senescence the mean performance in the water maze did not differ between the groups. Instead, the individual performance was strikingly different within each group. Senescent deprived rats were either nonimpaired or impaired with only a few animals showing an intermediate performance. Thus, a large group of animals ( approximately 40%) ages successfully as they are resistant to the effect of maternal deprivation. In contrast, the majority of the control animals displayed intermediate performance. Taken together, maternal deprivation has life-long consequences for behaviour and culminates at senescence in amplification of individual differences in learning ability rather than in a generalized deterioration of cognitive functions.

Individual differences in dyadic cooperative learning.

The impact of individual differences on the performance of 2 roles-learner and learning facilitator-was assessed during dyadic cooperative learning. Eighty university students, 40 men and 40 women, participated in same-sex groups of 4. Each student cooperatively learned a text passage with 1 partner and then learned a 2nd passage with another partner. It a later session, the students recalled the information contained within both text passages and completed several personality measures. A social relations analysis (D. A. Kenny & L. LaVoie, 1984) was used to partition the variability in recall for the passages into various sources. Variability in recall depended strongly on individual differences in learning ability and (to a lesser extent) on individual differences in the ability to facilitate others' learning. Differences in the ability to learn text passages were independent of individual differences in the ability to facilitate others' learning. Effective learners were high in verbal ability, whereas effective learning facilitators were low in public self-consciousness and in self-monitoring. The influence of cognitive and rapport factors on the performance of the learner role and the learning facilitator role is discussed.

On learning and living in holes by mantis shrimp

Mantis shrimp (Stomatopoda, Crustacea) that normally occupy holes in coral were presented with novel burrows (Erlenmeyer flasks painted black) in the laboratory. Individuals learn to recognize characteristics of the flask and enter, the burrow increasingly rapidly with repeated exposure to the flask. Individuals show consistently fast or slow learning curves, suggesting individual differences in learning ability. Three to seven days appears to be a critical period during which the stimulus must be re-encountered, or else the response is partially forgotten. However, a partial response remains after 14 days, and subsequent re-exposure to the stimulus is associated with more rapid re-acquisition of the entry behaviour than in naive animals. Field observations support the interpretation that individuals learn characteristics of their burrows and the environment. Further studies are needed to investigate the relationship of learning ability to the ritualized behaviour repertoire and to social interactions.

Policy Implications of Individual Differences in Learning Ability: a Comparative Perspective

Abstract Husen, Torsten 1978. Policy Implications of Individual Differences in Learning Ability: A Comparative Perspective. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 22, 173‐191. Educational policy implications of individual differences are of particular relevance in societies with a certain social mobility where status is increasingly achieved instead of being ascriptive. Problems of differentiation and uniformity of educational provisions are products of the era of emphasis on equality of educational opportunity. The diversity/uniformity problem has been dealt with in different ways in various national systems of education. Three typical solutions are dealt with in this paper: the American comprehensive model, the Western European elitist model, and the Eastern European model of a unitary school. It is pointed out that an element of meritocracy runs through all the three systems, irrespective of the social and economic order in which they operate.