Intentional Learning Research Articles

Dissociating intentional learning from relative novelty responses in the medial temporal lobe

The establishment of a role for medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures in episodic memory has led to an investigative focus on the specific contributions and interactions between constituent MTL regions, including the hippocampus and surrounding medial temporal cortices. By dissociating an intentional stimulus-category learning condition from a passive viewing condition, we demonstrate, using fMRI, that novelty- and familiarity-driven responses in human anterior and posterior hippocampus, respectively, only occur during intentional learning. With increasing familiarity of stimulus-category associations, there is a shift in neuronal responses from anterior to posterior hippocampal regions. This anterior/posterior response gradient may reflect a weighting of functional hippocampal architecture related to encoding of novel and retrieval of familiar information. By contrast, perirhinal cortex is engaged by novel stimuli irrespective of task, highlighting this region as a component of a generic familiarity discrimination system. By introducing distinct stimulus types, we further demonstrate that these MTL responses are independent of stimulus complexity. Different patterns of activity for intentional learning vs. passive viewing indicate that intentional encoding/retrieval of stimulus-category associations and automatic novelty/familiarity assessment of stimuli are processed in anatomically dissociable neuronal ensembles within the MTL memory system.

Directed Forgetting in Incidental Learning and Recognition Testing: Support for a Two-Factor Account.

Instructing people to forget a list of items often leads to better recall of subsequently studied lists (known as the benefits of directed forgetting). The authors have proposed that changes in study strategy are a central cause of the benefits (L. Sahakyan & P. F. Delaney, 2003). The authors address 2 results from the literature that are inconsistent with their strategy-based explanation: (a) the presence of benefits under incidental learning conditions and (b) the absence of benefits in recognition testing. Experiment 1 showed that incidental learning attenuated the benefits compared with intentional learning, as expected if a change of study strategy causes the benefits. Experiment 2 demonstrated benefits using recognition testing, albeit only when longer lists were used. Memory for source in directed forgetting was also explored using multinomial modeling. Results are discussed in terms of a 2-factor account of directed forgetting.

Limitations to the Spacing Effect

The spacing effect refers to the finding that memory for repeated items improves when the interrepetition interval increases. To explain the spacing effect in free-recall tasks, a two-factor model has been put forward that combines mechanisms of contextual variability and study-phase retrieval (e.g., Raaijmakers, 2003; Verkoeijen, Rikers, & Schmidt, 2004). An important, yet untested, implication of this model is that free recall of repetitions should follow an inverted u-shaped relationship with interrepetition spacing. To demonstrate the suggested relationship an experiment was conducted. Participants studied a word list, consisting of items repeated at different interrepetition intervals, either under incidental or under intentional learn instructions. Subsequently, participants received a free-recall test. The results revealed an inverted u-shaped relationship between free recall and interrepetition spacing in both the incidental-learning condition and the intentional-learning condition. Moreover, for intentionally learned repetitions, the maximum free-recall performance was located at a longer interrepetition interval than for incidentally learned repetitions. These findings are interpreted in terms of the two-factor model of spacing effects in free-recall tasks.

The influence of encoding intention on electrophysiological indices of recognition memory

The main aim of this study was to further specify the encoding and retrieval conditions that determine the success of an ERP-based memory assessment procedure, originally derived from lie detection studies. We examined whether event-related brain potentials (ERPs) recorded during successful and unsuccessful retrieval would vary according to intentional (study) and incidental (repetition) encoding conditions. Participants ( N=20) were asked to indicate recognition of previously studied words (learned targets, p=0.2) and words that were used as distractors in a preceding recognition task (repeated targets, p=0.2). Words that were recognised elicited a P3 component, which was largely absent for new words and words that failed to be recognised. Encoding intention was found to increase the P3 amplitude slightly but had no influence on P3 scalp distribution, suggesting that the differently encoded targets were similarly processed during retrieval but to a different extent. The amplitude difference was explained in terms of variance in memory trace strength and decision confidence. With respect to negative findings for repeated items in our earlier study (Van Hooff, J.C., Golden, S. 2002. Validation of an event-related potential memory assessment procedure: Intentional learning as opposed to simple repetition. J. Psychophysiol., 16, 12–22.), it was suggested that the instruction to actively retrieve the repeated words was essential for obtaining reliable indications of the presence or absence of weak memory traces.

Impaired intentional content learning but spared incidental retention of contextual information in non-demented patients with Parkinson's disease

We investigated the incidental and intentional learning performance of 29 patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) and 20 healthy volunteers. Measures of incidental and intentional memory were assessed with a spoken verbal recall task followed by a temporal word order task, a picture recall task followed by a spatial picture location task, and a written word recall task followed by a judgement of word frequency task. A multivariate analysis of variance and appropriate post hoc tests revealed significant differences for all intentional learning variables. In all cases, PD patients performed worse than normal controls. No group differences were found for the incidental retention of contextual information. The results indicate that PD patients have a selective problem of intentional learning, whereas incidental learning of contextual information remains intact. Elaborate processing, attentional and organizing strategies in the systematic encoding, and recollection of information have been attributed to dorsolateral prefrontal activation. Preferential dysfunction of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex-associated memory processes is consistent with the previously reported uneven patterns of dopamine loss in the striatum of patients with idiopathic PD showing most severe dopamine depletion in the portion of the caudate nucleus that is anatomically connected to the dorsolateral frontal cortex.

Evidence of Developmental Differences in Implicit Sequence Learning: An fMRI Study of Children and Adults

Prevailing theories of implicit or unaware learning propose a developmental invariance model, with implicit function maturing early in infancy or childhood despite prolonged improvements in explicit or intentional learning and memory systems across childhood. Neuroimaging studies of adult visuomotor sequence learning have associated fronto-striatal brain regions with implicit learning of spatial sequences. Given evidence of continued development in these brain regions during childhood, we compare implicit sequence learning in adults and 7- to 11-year-old children to examine potential developmental differences in the recruitment of fronto-striatal circuitry during implicit learning. Participants performed a standard serial reaction time task. Stimuli alternately followed a fixed 10-step sequence of locations or were presented in a pseudorandom order of locations. Adults outperformed children, achieving a significantly larger sequence learning effect and showing learning more quickly than children. Age-related differences in activity were observed in the premotor cortex, putamen, hippocampus, inferotemporal cortex, and parietal cortex. We observed differential recruitment of cortical and subcortical motor systems between groups, presumably reflecting age differences in motor response execution. Adults showed greater hippocampal activity for sequence trials, whereas children demonstrated greater signal during random trials. Activity in the right caudate correlated significantly with behavioral measures of implicit learning for both age groups, although adults showed greater signal change than children overall, as would be expected given developmental differences in sequence learning magnitude. These results challenge the idea of developmental invariance in implicit learning and instead support a view of parallel developments in implicit and explicit learning systems.

Distance cognition in virtual environmental space: further investigations to clarify the route-angularity effect.

Two experiments with 72 participants in total investigated the route-angularity effect. This effect is shown when a greater number of turns along a route increase the estimated length of this route. In this study it was shown that the route-angularity effect is likely to be a memory-based effect depending on task difficulty. The important factor seems to be how heavily memory is loaded during learning. The route-angularity effect even appears in intentional learning, when memory is loaded heavily. Under this learning condition participants know beforehand that they have to estimate distances. All experiments were conducted in a controlled virtual environment, which allows a reliable investigation of distance estimations in environmental space.

Pursuit of explanation within a computer‐supported classroom

The problem addressed in the study was whether 10‐year‐old and 11‐year‐old children, collaborating within a computer‐supported classroom, learned an explanation‐driven process of inquiry that had characteristics of the progressive nature of scientific inquiry. The technical infrastructure for the study was provided by the Computer‐Supported Intentional Learning Environments (CSILE). The study was based on qualitative content analysis of students’ written productions in physics posted to CSILE’s database in three investigative projects. The study indicated that some young students do engage in epistemic agency and genuinely pursue explanation‐driven inquiry. students’ intuitive explanations were often functional (referring to human agency) and empirical (in terms of observables) in nature. Provided that understandable explanations were available, some of the students moved towards theoretical scientific explanations.

Immediacy, cohesiveness, and the online classroom

THIS ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS instructional communication and distance education research with an emphasis on the social dynamics of the online learning experience and their impact on the learning experience. Literature related to the twin concepts of immediacy and group cohesiveness—central constructs related to building an effective classroom social dynamic—will be reviewed in an attempt to glean insights for the practical adaptation of these constructs from face-to-face to online learning environments. Such social dynamics are not presented as the pedagogical ends of the instructor’s role, but as the foundation, or means through which more intentional learning activities may be more effectively constructed in the online classroom.

False recognition without intentional learning.

Asked to memorize a list of semantically related words, participants often falsely recall or recognize a highly related semantic associate that has not been presented (the critical lure). Does this false memory phenomenon depend on intentional word reading and learning? In Experiment 1, participants performed a color identification task on distractor words from typical false memory lists. In Experiment 2, participants read the same words. In both experiments, the primary task was followed by a surprise recognition test for actually presented and unpresented words, including the critical lures. False alarms to critical lures were robust and quite equivalent across the two experiments. These results are consistent with an activation/monitoring account of false memory, in which processing of semantic associates can evoke false memories even when that processing is incidental.

"Greater Expectations": Teaching and Assessing for Academic Skills and Knowledge in the General Education History Classroom

GREATER EXPECTATIONS: A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College, a recently published national report by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, calls for a radical restructuring of liberal arts education in American colleges and universities. Rather than defining liberal arts education in terms of course content and credit hours, the report suggests that students in the twenty-first century need institutions of higher education to develop their practical and intellectual skills, dispositions, ethical and civic responsibility, as well as their knowledge of the disciplines taught in their general education and major courses. The report specifies a set of twenty national practical liberal arts outcomes that create intentional learners who are empowered, informed, responsible, and able to apply their knowledge and skills to a variety of real world environments.1 This report represents just one recent example of a national movement toward outcome-based education. Whether teachers like it or not, outcome (or standards based) education has become the norm in the United States education system. From kindergarten through college and beyond into professional and graduate programs, teachers at all levels are expected to teach toward defined outcomes that combine knowledge and

Progressive inquiry in a computer‐supported biology class

AbstractThe problem addressed in the study was whether 10‐ and 11‐year‐old children, collaborating within a computer‐supported classroom, could engage in progressive inquiry that exhibits an essential principal feature of mature scientific inquiry: namely, engagement in increasingly deep levels of explanation. Technical infrastructure for the study was provided by the Computer‐Supported Intentional Learning Environment (CSILE). The study was carried out by qualitatively analyzing written notes logged by 28 Grade 5/6 students to CSILE's database. Results of the study indicated that with teacher guidance, students were able to produce meaningful intuitive explanations about biological phenomena, guide this process by pursuing their own research questions, and engage in constructive peer interaction that helped them go beyond their intuitive explanations and toward theoretical scientific explanations. Expert evaluations by three widely recognized philosophers of science confirmed the progressive nature of students' inquiry. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 40: 1072–1088, 2003

Task variations and attention shifts in young children’s category learning

Two studies examined the conditions under which 6-year-old children succeeded in discovering prototypical information within ill-defined categories for fictitious animals that had salient individuating properties. Following either incidental or intentional learning of a single category, children attended to both prototypical and instance-specific features when judging the category membership of new examples (Experiment 1). When the same category was contrasted with a similar category in a sorting-with-feedback procedure, children relied on prototypical features in categorisation despite the fact that instance-specific features dominated their recognition-memory judgements (Experiment 2). The results show young children to be capable of shifting their attention to different kinds of category attributes according to the conditions of category formation and the nature of the assessment task.

Two basic mechanisms for organisational learning in schools

SUMMARY In recent literature on teachers' professional communities and organisational learning in schools the focus is on conditions fostering teacher professional developments. Less attention has been paid to clarifying these concepts and to analysing the processes and the full range of outcomes of organisational learning in schools. The question in this article is whether and how teachers' professional communities can play a role in organisational learning and professional development. Firstly, recent research literature on teachers' workplace conditions, teachers' professional communities, and organisational learning in schools is discussed. Next, two basic mechanisms for organisational learning in schools are presented. Some conclusions are that the opportunities for steering intentional organisational learning in the school context are only weak, and that a balance should be created in the school between diverging conditions for organisational learning

The World as a Classroom: The Impact of International Study Experiences on College Students

This qualitative case study evaluates the impact of international study experiences on college students. Three international study tours originating from a Mid-west state university are the focus of the study. Despite differing leadership styles, teaching and tour formats, academic orientations, and destinations, the outcome reveals that such tours have a powerful effect on participants. The study highlights intentional and incidental learning that occurs at both conscious and unconscious levels. The results emphasize the powerful opportunity that international study experiences present to educators who wish to transcend traditional teaching pedagogies.

Telementoring in Community Nursing: A shift from dyadic to communal models of learning and professional development

This article reports on a six-month telementoring initiative in a Canadian community nursing organization. The way in which Internet technologies may support and augment face-to-face mentorship of health care professionals is a relatively unexplored area of research and was the focus of this project. Participants ( N =22) were all employees of Saint Elizabeth Health Care (SEHC), a community nursing agency servicing 150,000 clients in urban and rural Ontario, Canada. Nurse mentees ( n =11) and nurse-mentors ( n =11) engaged in collaborative discourse in webKnowledge Forum, a second-generation computer-supported intentional learning environment (CSILE). Discussions among all participants were directed at collaborative learning and professional development. Results indicate that mentees contributed and read more notes than mentors and were more likely to engage in threaded discourse with peers. Readership patterns were similar for both groups. Fifty-eight per cent of all nurses reported improved asynchronous communication and problem-solving skills as a result of online collaboration. Seventy-five per cent of all respondents reported a positive professional development experience and 50% of all respondents reported improved clinical practice ability as outcomes of the telementorship program. All reported high satisfaction with the technology. It is concluded that this project facilitated a shift from dyadic mentor-mentee (preceptor-intern) training to communal opportunistic learning and professional development.

Memory Performance, but not Information Processing Speed, may be Reduced During Early Pregnancy

Several studies have investigated aspects of cognitive functioning during late pregnancy or in the period around delivery. The present paper describes a controlled study of neurocognitive functioning in an early phase of pregnancy (14 weeks). Seventy-one pregnant women and 57 control subjects matched for age and education were tested with a cognitive test battery. Intentional learning was tested with the Verbal Learning Test, retrieval from semantic memory with the Fluency Test, and speed of information processing with the Concept Shifting Test, the Stroop test, and the Letter Digit Substitution Test. Results show that performance on tests measuring intentional learning and retrieval from semantic memory were lower in the pregnant group during early pregnancy as compared to a closely matched nonpregnant group. In contrast, speed of information processing was not different between the two groups. The differences observed in memory performance were not large and further research is needed to establish their clinical significance. In addition, the results should be interpreted with care, because our study has a cross-sectional design, which has limitations concerning the fact that preexisting performance differences might be possible. Therefore, longitudinal studies are essential to ascertain clear associations between pregnancy and cognitive performance.

Dissociating Explicit and Implicit Category Knowledge with fMRI

Neuroimaging of healthy volunteers identified separate neural systems supporting the expression of category knowledge depending on whether the learning mode was intentional or incidental. The same visual category was learned either intentionally or implicitly by two separate groupsof participants. During a categorization test, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to compare brain activity evoked by category members and nonmembers. After implicit learning, when participants had learned the category incidentally, decreased occipital activity was observed for novel categorical stimuli compared with noncategorical stimuli. In contrast, after intentional learning, novel categorical stimuli evoked increased activity in the hippocampus, right prefrontal cortex, left inferior temporal cortex, precuneus, and posterior cingulate. Even though the categorization test was identical in the two conditions, the differences in brain activity indicate differing representations of category knowledge depending on whether the category had been learned intentionally or implicitly.

Patterns of female and male students' participation in peer interaction in computer-supported learning

The purpose of the study was to analyze how intensively female and male students participate in discourse interaction within two computer-supported classrooms. Technical infrastructure for the study was provided by the Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environments (CSILE). The study was carried out by qualitatively analyzing written notes logged by two grade 5/6 classes to CSILE's database over one academic year. The results of the study indicate that only one of the classrooms engaged in a progressive discourse focused on collaborative advancement of explanation whereas the other classroom performed more traditional learning tasks. Female students participated most actively in the progressive-discourse classroom whereas male students dominated discourse interaction in the other class, but the reasons for this are subject to debate. The investigators argue that the use of new technology should be thoroughly subsumed under pedagogical goals in order to facilitate female students' participation in computer-supported learning.

EMERGENCE OF PROGRESSIVE-INQUIRY CULTURE IN COMPUTER-SUPPORTED COLLABORATIVE LEARNING

The study focused on analysing the emergence of a progressive-inquiry culture in two CSILE (Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environment) classrooms across a three-year period. A principal feature of this kind of culture is the processing of explanatory knowledge instead of merely factual knowledge. The results of the study indicate that the classroom culture changed over the three years following the introduction of CSILE. The explanatory level of knowledge produced by the students became increasingly deeper in tracking from the first to third year. In one of the classrooms, the children's levels of explanation reached substantial depth as we pass from year 1 to year 3; here the difference on this temporal variable was large and significant. In this classroom, the students' inquiry was more and more explicitly focused on construction of their own intuitive explanations, as well as the search for explanatory scientific information. Progress in inquiry culture emerged only through the teacher's extended efforts to expand students' practices of progressive inquiry.