Learning Of Stimuli Research Articles

Empirical Analysis of Effect of Project-Based Learning on Student Learning in Transportation Engineering

The paper discusses results of an ongoing study of the effect of project-based learning on students' learning outcomes in transportation engineering, a required junior-level course in the civil engineering curriculum. The course was taught in 2008, 2009, and 2010 by the same instructor. The course was transformed from a lecture-based course into a project-based course, integrating a semester-long project as a stimulus for students' learning. To evaluate and compare the effects of lecture-based and project-based teaching approaches on students' learning, a survey instrument from the Laboratory for Innovative Technology and Engineering Education was used. The survey instrument included five constructs for measuring five different aspects of students' learning: higher-order cognitive skills, self-efficacy, ease of learning subject matter, teamwork, and communication skills. The survey of preassessment and postassessment student learning outcomes was conducted to determine the effectiveness of the project-based approach in enhancing students' learning outcomes. The results showed that the use of the project-based approach significantly improved students' ease of learning the subject matter. Project-based learning could be used as an effective teaching and learning strategy by educators to facilitate students' learning.

Taste Quality and Intensity of 100 Stimuli as Reported by Rats: The Taste–Location Association Task

The interpretation of neural activity related to sensory stimulation requires an understanding of the subject’s perception of the stimulation. Previous methods used to evaluate the perception of chemosensory stimuli by rodents have distinct limitations. We developed a novel behavioral paradigm, the taste–location association task, to complement these methods. First we tested if rats are able to learn associations between five basic taste stimuli and their spatial locations. This spatial task was based on four prototypical tastants and water. All four rats trained to perform the task reached levels of performance well above chance. Control trials demonstrated that the rats used only taste cues. Further, the learned stimulus set was resistant to interference, allowing for generalization experiments performed subsequently. We tested the rats’ gustatory generalizations of 100 tastants to the five trained stimuli, both regarding their taste qualities as well as intensity ratings. The taste profiles generated by these experiments contribute to the understanding of how perception of the specific taste stimuli relate to the perception of the five basic taste qualities in intact behaving rats. In this large taste space we found that intensity plays a major role. Furthermore, umami stimuli were not reported as being similar to other basic tastants. Our new paradigm enables neurophysiological studies of taste-based learning and memory in awake, freely moving animals.

Effects of using an integrated team-based and problem based learning approach for developing lifelong learning characteristics of first year medical students

Objectives: To examine the effects of using an integrated team-based learning (TBL) with problembased learning (PBL) approach for developing lifelong learning in the professional development (PD1) course for first year medical students. Method: Mixed methods study examined the effects on learning of using an integrated TBL with PBL approach and also aimed at expanding the understanding of elements and factors influencing the development of lifelong learning characteristics of 124 first year medical students. A quasiexperimental, pre-post design was used, involving the collection of quantitative data, followed by a qualitative phase using focus group discussions. Results: Findings demonstrated that an integrated TBL with PBL approach is an effective teaching strategy, which delivered higher lifelong learning skill levels. The significant elements of the effective teaching strategy in the integrated TBL with PBL approach were the core elements of infrastructure (i.e., active processes of students, lecturers, tutor-monitored, peers, instructional techniques, student support services, content and problems acting as a stimulus for learning) and enabler factors (i.e., collaboration, trust, teamwork, time management, motivation and care for learning). Conclusion: The integrated TBL with PBL approach was an effective teaching strategy for developing lifelong learning characteristics of first year medical students at Naresuan University.

Updating Existing Emotional Memories Involves the Frontopolar/Orbito-frontal Cortex in Ways that Acquiring New Emotional Memories Does Not

In life, we must often learn new associations to people, places, or things we already know. The current fMRI study investigated the neural mechanisms underlying emotional memory updating. Nineteen participants first viewed negative and neutral pictures and learned associations between those pictures and other neutral stimuli, such as neutral objects and encoding tasks. This initial learning phase was followed by a memory updating phase, during which participants learned picture-location associations for old pictures (i.e., pictures previously associated with other neutral stimuli) and new pictures (i.e., pictures not seen in the first phase). There was greater frontopolar/orbito-frontal (OFC) activity when people learned picture-location associations for old negative pictures than for new negative pictures, but frontopolar OFC activity did not significantly differ during learning locations of old versus new neutral pictures. In addition, frontopolar activity was more negatively correlated with the amygdala when participants learned picture-location associations for old negative pictures than for new negative or old neutral pictures. Past studies revealed that the frontopolar OFC allows for updating the affective values of stimuli in reversal learning or extinction of conditioning [e.g., Izquierdo, A., & Murray, E. A. Opposing effects of amygdala and orbital PFC lesions on the extinction of instrumental responding in macaque monkeys. European Journal of Neuroscience, 22, 2341-2346, 2005]; our findings suggest that it plays a more general role in updating associations to emotional stimuli.

Association with positive outcome induces early effects in event-related brain potentials

Emotional pictures, faces, or words elicit an early posterior negativity (EPN) in the event-related potential, starting around 200–400ms, followed by a late positive complex (LPC). Occasionally, also very early effects of emotion (VEEEs) are seen prior to 200ms. The present study examined whether VEEEs can be due to direct links established by reinforcement learning. In the learning session, participants learned to associate previously unknown Chinese words with monetary gain, loss, or neither. In the test session, they were required to distinguish the learned stimuli from novel distracters. Specific to stimuli associated with positive outcome a VEEE, consisting of a posterior positivity, appeared around 150ms and an LPC between 550 and 700ms, whereas an EPN was absent. These results show that previous association with reward can induce VEEEs, indicating that emotion effects in ERPs may arise in the absence of biologically preparedness and semantic meaning.

Inconsistency-Induced Learning for Perpetual Learners

One of the long-term research goals in machine learning is how to build never-ending learners. The state-of-the-practice in the field of machine learning thus far is still dominated by the one-time learner paradigm: some learning algorithm is utilized on data sets to produce certain model or target function, and then the learner is put away and the model or function is put to work. Such a learn-once-apply-next (or LOAN) approach may not be adequate in dealing with many real world problems and is in sharp contrast with the human’s lifelong learning process. On the other hand, learning can often be brought on through overcoming some inconsistent circumstances. This paper proposes a framework for perpetual learning agents that are capable of continuously refining or augmenting their knowledge through overcoming inconsistencies encountered during their problem-solving episodes. The never-ending nature of a perpetual learning agent is embodied in the framework as the agent’s continuous inconsistency-induced belief revision process. The framework hinges on the agents recognizing inconsistency in data, information, knowledge, or meta-knowledge, identifying the cause of inconsistency, revising or augmenting beliefs to explain, resolve, or accommodate inconsistency. The authors believe that inconsistency can serve as one of the important learning stimuli toward building perpetual learning agents that incrementally improve their performance over time.

Learning the Selection of Actions for an Autonomous Social Robot by Reinforcement Learning Based on Motivations

Autonomy is a prime issue on robotics field and it is closely related to decision making. Last researches on decision making for social robots are focused on biologically inspired mechanisms for taking decisions. Following this approach, we propose a motivational system for decision making, using internal (drives) and external stimuli for learning to choose the right action. Actions are selected from a finite set of skills in order to keep robot’s needs within an acceptable range. The robot uses reinforcement learning in order to calculate the suitability of every action in each state. The state of the robot is determined by the dominant motivation and its relation to the objects presents in its environment. The used reinforcement learning method exploits a new algorithm called Object Q-Learning. The proposed reduction of the state space and the new algorithm considering the collateral effects (relationship between different objects) results in a suitable algorithm to be applied to robots living in real environments. In this paper, a first implementation of the decision making system and the learning process is implemented on a social robot showing an improvement in robot’s performance. The quality of its performance will be determined by observing the evolution of the robot’s wellbeing.

Learning to play a melody: An fMRI study examining the formation of auditory-motor associations

Interactions between the auditory and motor systems are important for music and speech, and may be especially relevant when one learns to associate sounds with movements such as when learning to play a musical instrument. However, little is known about the neural substrates underlying auditory-motor learning. This study used fMRI to investigate the formation of auditory-motor associations while participants with no musical training learned to play a melody. Listening to melodies before and after training activated the superior temporal gyrus bilaterally, but neural activity in this region was significantly reduced on the right when participants listened to the trained melody. When playing melodies and random sequences, activity in the left dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) was reduced in the late compared to early phase of training; learning to play the melody was also associated with reduced neural activity in the left ventral premotor cortex (PMv). Participants with the highest performance scores for learning the melody showed more reduced neural activity in the left PMd and PMv. Learning to play a melody or random sequence involves acquiring conditional associations between key-presses and their corresponding musical pitches, and is related to activity in the PMd. Learning to play a melody additionally involves acquisition of a learned auditory-motor sequence and is related to activity in the PMv. Together, these findings demonstrate that auditory-motor learning is related to the reduction of neural activity in brain regions of the dorsal auditory action stream, which suggests increased efficiency in neural processing of a learned stimulus.

Adaptive, generative, and transformative learning in project teams

PurposeThe aim of this study is to analyze a framework of team learning that includes three learning processes (adaptive, generative, and transformative), factors that stimulate these processes, and consequences of them. The variables provided a field study of the model.Design/methodology/approachIn the field study, 69 project teams of 3 to 11 students and their instructors responded to surveys.FindingsPositive learning stimuli were related to adaptive and generative learning processes, while negative stimuli were related to transformative learning processes. Learning processes were related to individual student learning outcomes. In addition, adaptive and generative learning processes were positively related to team and instructor ratings of outcome quality, while transformative learning was negatively related to team ratings of outcome quality.Research limitations/implicationsThe results were subject to the following limitations: cross‐sectional design, mostly self‐report measures, and the lack of control endemic to field research. As such, this study is viewed as an initial test of the team‐learning model in a field setting. Additional research, including longitudinal designs and experimental designs, are called for.Practical implicationsThis study adds to the growing literature on group learning. Educators and managers need to be aware that there are different kinds of learning processes in which groups can engage and that these are stimulated to occur differently and have a different impact on outcomes.Originality/valueTeam learning is rarely assessed directly as a construct in its own right and there is a lack of empirical support delineating causes and consequences of team learning. This field study is a first step in this direction.

Brain Modularity in Arthropods: Individual Neurons That Support “What” But Not “Where” Memories

Experiments with insects and crabs have demonstrated their remarkable capacity to learn and memorize complex visual features (Giurfa et al., 2001; Pedreira and Maldonado, 2003; Chittka and Niven, 2009). Such abilities are thought to require modular brain processing similar to that occurring in vertebrates (Menzel and Giurfa, 2001). Yet, physiological evidence for this type of functioning in the small brains of arthropods is still scarce (Liu et al., 1999, 2006; Menzel and Giurfa, 2001). In the crab Chasmagnathus granulatus, the learning rate as well as the long-term memory of a visual stimulus has been found to be reflected in the performance of identified lobula giant neurons (LGs) (Tomsic et al., 2003). The memory can only be evoked in the training context, indicating that animals store two components of the learned experience, one related to the visual stimulus and one related to the visual context (Tomsic et al., 1998; Hermitte et al., 1999). By performing intracellular recordings in the intact animal, we show that the ability of crabs to generalize the learned stimulus into new space positions and to distinguish it from a similar but unlearned stimulus, two of the main attributes of stimulus memory, is reflected by the performance of the LGs. Conversely, we found that LGs do not support the visual context memory component. Our results provide physiological evidence that the memory traces regarding "what" and "where" are stored separately in the arthropod brain.

The effect of dopamine therapy on ventral and dorsal striatum-mediated cognition in Parkinson’s disease: support from functional MRI

The central aim of our study was to elucidate functions mediated by the ventral and dorsal striatum, respectively, to better understand the cognitive effects of dopamine replacement in Parkinson's disease. We proposed that the ventral striatum underlies general learning of stimulus associations, whereas the dorsal striatum promotes integration of various influences on selecting. In Parkinson's disease, dopamine depletion is substantially less notable in the ventral relative to the dorsal striatum, and therefore greater improvements are expected for dorsal striatum-mediated functions with dopamine replacement. Using a simple selection task, we found that dopamine replacement impaired encoding and facilitation of consistent stimulus-stimulus relations across trials. This finding was in line with our contention that ventral striatum mediates learning stimulus associations, even when explicit feedback or reward is not provided. In contrast, dopamine replacement enhanced interference related to assimilating conflicting influences on selection across trials, consistent with our hypothesis that the dorsal striatum supports deciding in ambiguous contexts. We further confirmed these separable roles for the ventral and dorsal striatum in our selection task with healthy young volunteers using functional magnetic resonance imaging. In summary, we present a within-subject, double dissociation of the effects of dopamine replacement in patients with Parkinson's disease for ventral striatum-mediated facilitation and dorsal striatum-mediated interference, confirmed in a separate functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment. Defining the distinct functions of the ventral and dorsal striatum will have direct clinical implications. Titration of therapy in Parkinson's disease is generally geared towards optimizing dorsal striatum-mediated motor symptoms, possibly at the expense of ventral striatum operations, a consequence that is only beginning to be recognized. Enhanced awareness of these different processes will translate into medication strategies that take into account those symptoms that dopamine replacement might hinder, as well as improve. Here, we show impairments in learning new stimulus associations compared with improvements in integrating varied influences related to selection. Ultimately, this knowledge will lead clinicians to survey a broader range of symptoms in determining optimal therapy based on individual patient priorities.

Human Dorsal Striatal Activity during Choice Discriminates Reinforcement Learning Behavior from the Gambler's Fallacy

Reinforcement learning theory has generated substantial interest in neurobiology, particularly because of the resemblance between phasic dopamine and reward prediction errors. Actor-critic theories have been adapted to account for the functions of the striatum, with parts of the dorsal striatum equated to the actor. Here, we specifically test whether the human dorsal striatum--as predicted by an actor-critic instantiation--is used on a trial-to-trial basis at the time of choice to choose in accordance with reinforcement learning theory, as opposed to a competing strategy: the gambler's fallacy. Using a partial-brain functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning protocol focused on the striatum and other ventral brain areas, we found that the dorsal striatum is more active when choosing consistent with reinforcement learning compared with the competing strategy. Moreover, an overlapping area of dorsal striatum along with the ventral striatum was found to be correlated with reward prediction errors at the time of outcome, as predicted by the actor-critic framework. These findings suggest that the same region of dorsal striatum involved in learning stimulus-response associations may contribute to the control of behavior during choice, thereby using those learned associations. Intriguingly, neither reinforcement learning nor the gambler's fallacy conformed to the optimal choice strategy on the specific decision-making task we used. Thus, the dorsal striatum may contribute to the control of behavior according to reinforcement learning even when the prescriptions of such an algorithm are suboptimal in terms of maximizing future rewards.

Second-order conditioning in Drosophila

Associative conditioning in Drosophila melanogaster has been well documented for several decades. However, most studies report only simple associations of conditioned stimuli (CS, e.g., odor) with unconditioned stimuli (US, e.g., electric shock) to measure learning or establish memory. Here we describe a straightforward second-order conditioning (SOC) protocol that further demonstrates the flexibility of fly behavior. In SOC, a previously conditioned stimulus (CS1) is used as reinforcement for a second conditioned stimulus (CS2) in associative learning. This higher-order context presents an opportunity for reassessing the roles of known learning and memory genes and neuronal networks in a new behavioral paradigm.

Learning Stimulus Intervals—Adaptive Timing of Conditioned Purkinje Cell Responses

Classical conditioning of motor responses, such as the eyeblink response, is an experimental model of associative learning and of adaptive timing of movements. A conditioned blink will have its maximum amplitude near the expected onset of the unconditioned blink-eliciting stimulus and it adapts to changes in the interval between the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli. Previous studies have shown that an eyeblink conditioning protocol can make cerebellar Purkinje cells learn to pause in response to the conditioned stimulus. According to the cerebellar cortical conditioning model, this conditioned Purkinje cell response drives the overt blink. If so, the model predicts that the temporal properties of the Purkinje cell response reflect the overt behaviour. To test this prediction, in vivo recordings of Purkinje cell activity were performed in decerebrate ferrets during conditioning, using direct stimulation of cerebellar mossy and climbing fibre afferents as conditioned and unconditioned stimuli. The results show that Purkinje cells not only develop a change in responsiveness to the conditioned stimulus. They also learn a particular temporal response profile where the timing, not only of onset and maximum but also of offset, is determined by the temporal interval between the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli.

Evaluation of a Continuing Professional Development program for first year student pharmacists undergoing an Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience

Objectives: The purpose of the study was to evaluate a live and online training program for first year pharmacy students in implementing Continuing Professional Development (CPD) principles (Reflect, Plan, Act, and Evaluate), writing SMART learning objectives, and documenting learning activities prior to and during a hospital introductory professional practice experience.
 Design: Cohort Study.
 Setting: Introductory professional practice experience.
 Participants: First year (PY1) students at the University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy.
 Intervention: Live training or online training to introduce the concept of Continuing Professional Development in practice.
 Main Outcomes: Implementation of CPD principles through 1) completed pre-rotation education action plans with specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (SMART) learning objectives; and 2) completed learning activity worksheets post-rotation indicating stimuli for learning, resources used and accomplished learning. objectives; and 3) documented suggestions and content feedback for future lectures and pharmaceutical care lab experiences.
 Results:Out of the whole cohort (N=154), 14 (87.5%) live (in person) trainees and 122 (88%) online trainees submitted an education action plan. Objectives were scored using a rubric on a scale of 1-5. A rating of 5 means "satisfactory", 3 means "work in progress" and 1 means "unacceptable". There were significant differences between the mean live trainee scores and the mean online trainee scores for the following respective section comparisons: Specific 4.7 versus 3.29 (p
 Conclusion: Live trainees performed significantly better than online trainees in writing SMART learning objectives. With focused training, students are more capable of implementing principles of CPD.
 
 Type: Original Research

Memory for, and salience of, the unique features of similar stimuli in perceptual learning.

In two experiments, participants received exposure to complex checkerboards (e.g., AX and BX) that consisted of small distinctive features (A and B) superimposed on a larger common background (X). Subsequent discrimination between AX and BX, assessed by a same-different task, was facilitated when the stimuli were presented on alternate trials in preexposure--a perceptual learning effect (Experiment 1). The hypothesis that this form of exposure results in more accurate representations of the unique features was supported in Experiment 1, which showed that participants were well able to match the color of the feature with its shape. Experiment 2 showed that exposure to A and B in isolation, intermixed with presentations of AX and BX, enhanced the perceptual learning effect, which confirmed that the better encoding of the unique features during intermixed preexposure is a direct cause of the enhanced discrimination observed following preexposure on this schedule.

Development of communicative competence among plurilingual students in monolingual croatian language practice

When starting school pupils begin to adopt the standard Croatian language (non dominant L2), which in some regions differs from the native idioms (dominant L1). In this situation the interlanguage field is created and most students become vertically plurilingual, i.e. the interweaving of different language codes is ref lected in monolingual school practice.In this research the greatest attention has been paid to the cognitivelinguistic para digm and the constructivist theory, within which the stimulus theory and error theory have proven to be an extremely purposeful part of the learning process in the early lan guage development. The aim was to examine the purposefulness of the application of the modern learning theories on the development of communicative competence of younger primary school pupils. The research results have confirmed that communicative compe tence can be successfully developed, among other, by taking advantage of errors as a stim ulus for further learning. Only in such a situation the interlanguage field in monolingual Croatian language practice should be treated as a positive and not a negative linguistic phenomenon.

Development of a Computer-Aided Experiment for Learning Stimuli and Response

Development of a Computer-Aided Experiment for Learning Stimuli and Response

Perceptual learning beyond retinotopic reference frame

Repetitive experience with the same visual stimulus and task can remarkably improve behavioral performance on the task. This well-known perceptual-learning phenomenon is usually specific to the trained retinal- or visual-field location, which is taken as an indication of plastic changes in retinotopic visual areas. In previous studies of perceptual learning, however, a change in stimulus location on the retina is accompanied by positional changes of the stimulus in nonretinotopic frames of reference, such as relative to the head and other objects. It is unclear, therefore, whether the putative location specificity is exclusively retinotopic or if it could also depend on nonretinotopic representation of the stimulus, which is particularly important for multisensory and sensorimotor integration as well as for maintenance of stable visual percepts. Here, by manipulating subjects' gaze direction to control spatial and retinal locations of stimuli independently, we found that, when the stimulated retinal regions were held constant, the improvement with training in motion-direction discrimination of two successively displayed stimuli was restricted to the relative spatial position of the stimuli but independent of their absolute locations in head- and world-centered frame. These findings indicate location specificity of perceptual learning beyond retinotopic frame of reference, suggesting a pliable spatiotopic mechanism that can be specifically shaped by experience for better spatiotemporal integration of the learned stimuli.

Rapidly learned stimulus expectations alter perception of motion

Expectations broadly influence our experience of the world. However, the process by which they are acquired and then shape our sensory experiences is not well understood. Here, we examined whether expectations of simple stimulus features can be developed implicitly through a fast statistical learning procedure. We found that participants quickly and automatically developed expectations for the most frequently presented directions of motion and that this altered their perception of new motion directions, inducing attractive biases in the perceived direction as well as visual hallucinations in the absence of a stimulus. Further, the biases in motion direction estimation that we observed were well explained by a model that accounted for participants' behavior using a Bayesian strategy, combining a learned prior of the stimulus statistics (the expectation) with their sensory evidence (the actual stimulus) in a probabilistically optimal manner. Our results demonstrate that stimulus expectations are rapidly learned and can powerfully influence perception of simple visual features.