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PubMed2000

The relationship between CVLT-C process scores and measures of executive functioning: lack of support among community-dwelling adolescents.

In an effort to characterize how a child goes about learning and recalling information, the developers of the California Verbal Learning Test for Children (CVLT-C) provided normative data related to both learning outcome and learning process. The present study examined the assertion that CVLT-C process indices relate to executive functioning in a sample of community-dwelling adolescents. Contrary to predictions, measures of executive functioning typically correlated poorly with measures of learning process, despite displaying significant correlations with measures of learning outcome. Although further research is recommended, these findings do not support the clinical interpretation of CVLT-C process indices as reflections of executive functioning.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1993

Does nitrous oxide antagonize isoflurane-induced suppression of learning?

BACKGROUND: A greater MAC fraction of nitrous oxide than isoflurane is required to prevent response to verbal commands and suppress the capacity to learn. Speculating that this difference between these agents may be caused by nitrous oxide's capacity to increase sympathetic activity, we tested the hypothesis that nitrous oxide may antagonize the suppression of learning found with isoflurane. METHODS: We administered a combination of isoflurane and nitrous oxide at three subanesthetic test concentrations (0.43, 0.56, and 0.68 MAC) to 24 healthy male volunteers. Assuming additivity of the anesthetics, the first test concentration was selected to suppress learning of new information by 50% (ED50 for suppression of learning); the second concentration, to suppress the ability to respond appropriately to verbal command by 50% (MAC-awake); and the third, to provide 1.4 times MAC-awake. Three tests of learning were applied. At each test concentration, we provided 7 answers to "trivial pursuit"-type questions, resulting in a set of 21 answered questions for each volunteer; an additional 7 unanswered questions served as controls. At the highest test concentration, each volunteer also heard two examples from each of two categories (4 words) repeated 30 times (the category-example task), and a message instructing them to touch either their nose or their ear during a specified interval in the postanesthetic interview (the behavior task). RESULTS: The MAC-awake value for the combination of isoflurane and nitrous oxide was 118 +/- 4% of the expected value (i.e., the two anesthetics were antagonistic for this effect). Consistent with antagonism, the anesthetic concentration predicted to suppress learning by 50% permitted significantly more learning, and the ED50 was 105 +/- 2% of that predicted. Neither the category task nor the behavior task demonstrated evidence of learning at 1.4 times MAC-awake. CONCLUSIONS: Our results are consistent with an antagonism between nitrous oxide and isoflurane; however, the degree of antagonism is small.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Geocoding addresses from a large population-based study: lessons learned.

BACKGROUND: Geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial statistics are useful for exploring the relation between geographic location and health. The ultimate usefulness of GIS depends on both completeness and accuracy of geocoding (the process of assigning study participants' residences latitude/longitude coordinates that closely approximate their true locations, also known as address matching). The goal of this project was to develop an iterative geocoding process that would achieve a high match rate in a large population-based health study. METHODS: Data were from a study conducted in Wisconsin using mailing addresses of participants who were interviewed by telephone from 1988 to 1995. We standardized the addresses according to US Postal Service guidelines, used desktop GIS geocoding software and two versions of the Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing street maps, accessed Internet mapping engines for problematic addresses, and recontacted a small number of study participants' households. We also tabulated the project's cost, time commitment, software requirements, and brief notes for each step and their alternatives. RESULTS: Of the 14,804 participants, 97% were ultimately assigned latitude/longitude coordinates corresponding to their respective residences. The remaining 3% were geocoded to their zip code centroid. CONCLUSION: The multiple methods described in this work provide practical information for investigators who are considering the use of GIS in their population health research.

Data Collection↗

PubMed2000

[The role of the prefrontal and parietal cortex in learning and memory in monkeys].

Removal of the 7th field of parietal cortex and sulcus principalis of prefrontal cortex did not affect learning processes for images with such properties as spatial frequency, orientation, geometrical form, but worsen learning characteristics in visual differentiation of spatial information making the learning processes unstable, longer and below the 85% level. Removal of sulcus principalis also affects learning of differentiation among various colour stimuli. The short-term memory in these monkeys are also much worse than in intact animals. A scheme of learning involving interacting sensory and cognitive processes controlled by motivation system, is proposed.

Animals↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Relationship between learning characteristics and the properties of visual objects in rhesus macaques with bilateral removal of parietal cortex field 7.

Behavioral experiments were used in rhesus macaques with bilateral excision of field 7 of the lower parietal cortex to study the relationship between visual differentiation learning processes and a variety of stimulus properties. All animals showed significant differences associated with stimulus properties, which produced different types of learning curves. For each monkey, visual stimuli were divided into compact groups in terms of the "similarity" of their learning characteristics. Removal of field 7 had no effect on the process of learning visual image discrimination when this was based on properties such as color and geometrical shape, but worsened the learning characteristics when visual differentiation was based on spatial information, when the learning process became unstable, with increases in the numbers of peaks and troughs on the learning curve and a significant increase in the duration of the learning period. The time to a stable motor response also became significantly greater than for visual images distinguished by shape and color. It is suggested that during the process of learning visual discrimination, processing and extraction of image signs by the visual system for objects characterized by spatial relationships is accompanied by the formation of spatial distinguishing signs, this process involving neuronal structures in field 7 of the lower parietal cortex, which appears to be the main area determining visual-vestibular interactions. Increases in oscillations and in the difficulty of the learning process for differentiation on the basis of spatial information after removal of field 7 might be due to a transfer from one strategy to another, resulting from disruption of the mechanisms which evaluate body image and egocentric orientation on the basis of visual-vestibular interactions.

Animals↗

PubMed1983

Information processed from brief visual displays by learning-disabled boys.

The spans of apprehension of learning-disabled and normal boys were compared by means of a forced-choice letter-recognition task involving tachistoscopic exposures of letter displays. This task provides an estimate of the span that is relatively insensitive to memory or motivational influences. In Experiment 1, the spans of learning-disabled and normal boys were compared under 4 information conditions: with no noise letters present or with 2, 4, or 8 noise letters present. Experiments 2-4 examined 3 possible interpretations of the deficit in the span of apprehension observed for learning-disabled boys in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, the possibility that the noise letters were more distracting for learning-disabled boys was examined by varying the amount of physical similarity and redundancy between the signal and noise letters. In Experiment 3, the possibility that the visual afterimage of the letter displays faded more rapidly for the learning-disabled boys was examined. In Experiment 4, the possibility that the learning-disabled boys were slower to pick up information from the decaying afterimages was examined. The results of these three experiments indicated that the decreased spans of apprehension observed for the learning-disabled boys in Experiment 1 resulted either from greater distractiveness or from the slower pickup of information, or both. The implications for visual training are discussed.

Attention↗

PubMed2004

Missing information in multiple-cue probability learning.

In a multiple-cue probability learning task, participants learned to use six discrete symptoms (i.e., cues) to diagnose which of three possible flu strains a hypothetical patient suffered from. For some patients, information regarding the status of certain symptoms was not available. Various possible ways in which the missing cue information might be processed were distinguished and tested in a series of three experiments (Ns = 80, 109, and 61). The results suggest that the judged probability of the outcome variable (i.e., flu strain) was assessed by "filling in" the missing cue information with a mean value based on previous observations. The predictions of other methods of processing missing cue information are inconsistent with the data.

Cues↗

PubMed1993

Learning needs of persons with epilepsy: a comparison of perceptions of persons with epilepsy, nurses and physicians.

The purpose of this study was to describe and compare patients', nurses' and physicians' perceptions of learning needs of persons with epilepsy. The study is based on adult learning theory which states that learning needs dictate receptivity to information and knowledge of learning needs can help structure teaching sessions. Study participants were recruited from patients attending epilepsy clinics, neuroscience nurses employed at study hospitals or working with neurologists or neurosurgeons and neurologists or neurosurgeons practicing in the state. The sample sizes were: 59 patients, 85 nurses and 38 physicians. Data were analyzed using frequencies, percent and analysis of variance. Data analysis revealed that patients, nurses and physicians similarly ranked major areas of learning needs. However, differences in the ranking of individual learning needs were noted between patients and health care providers. An understanding of the differences and similarities among the groups provides useful information for educational programs for epilepsy patients.

Adult↗

PubMed1993

Are there differences in information given to private and public prenatal patients?

OBJECTIVES: In 1989 the United States Public Health Service Expert Panel on the Content of Prenatal Care reported that health education should become a more integral part of prenatal care. Key questions about providing this education have not been examined. Our study compared the type of information provided to women who sought prenatal care in a public clinic and to those who were seen in a private practice and the degree to which the patients were satisfied with the information they received. STUDY DESIGN: One hundred fifty-nine pregnant women (80 seen in a public clinic, 79 seen in a private practice) completed two questionnaires about 38 topics commonly cited as important during pregnancy. At the first prenatal visit, the women reported their level of interest in each of the topics. At 36 to 40 weeks' gestation the women completed a second questionnaire to assess whether information was provided for each topic and whether they had learned as much as desired. RESULTS: Overall, the women in the public sector received more information than did the women who were cared for privately. This was statistically significant at the p < 0.05 level for 25 of the 38 topics. Satisfaction with information learned was highly correlated with information received during prenatal care, but, surprisingly, it was not shown to be associated with the patient's interest level at the first visit. Fewer than 50% of private patients reported having received information about such important topics as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, sexually transmitted diseases, preterm birth prevention, family planning, and family violence. CONCLUSIONS: The one-on-one approach to health education in pregnancy usually used in the private setting may not facilitate addressing many topics believed to be important components of contemporary prenatal care. Providers of private prenatal care should initiate discussion of prenatal health education topics rather than relying on patient interest in requesting information. Just as public prenatal care programs have devoted significant resources to more comprehensive prenatal education, the providers in the private sector must assure that pregnant women receive the same comprehensive information. In so doing, these providers can help promote an optimal outcome for their patients, their patients' unborn children, and the family unit.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Piloting an information literacy program for staff nurses: lessons learned.

Intrinsic to all models of evidence-based practice is the need for information literacy and the critical assessment of information. As part of a house-wide evidence-based practice initiative, the objective of this pilot project was to develop the information literacy skills of staff nurses to increase their ability to find and assess available electronic resources for clinical decision making. An intensive care unit was chosen to pilot a unit-based approach to educate staff nurses to perform patient care-related electronic literature searches. An additional goal was to determine the effectiveness of unit-based training sessions on the frequency and quality of electronic literature searches by participating nurses. In addition to the unit-based instruction, nursing and library staff collaborated to develop a Web-based tutorial to supplement and reinforce the content of the training sessions. A pretest-post-test design was used to evaluate the initiative and to assess the effect of the educational intervention over time. Among the lessons learned from this pilot study was that unit-based instruction presents significant obstacles for effective learning of new technological skills for staff nurses.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Lesions of nucleus accumbens disrupt learning about aversive outcomes.

Nucleus accumbens (NAcc) is critical for encoding and using information regarding the learned significance of cues predictive of reward. However, its role in processing information about cues predictive of aversive outcomes is less well studied. Here, we examined the effects of NAcc lesions in an odor-guided discrimination task in which rats use odor cues predictive of either appetitive or aversive outcomes to guide responding. Rats with sham or neurotoxic lesions of NAcc were trained on a series of two-odor discrimination problems. Performance on each problem was assessed by monitoring accuracy of choice behavior and by measuring latency to respond for fluid reinforcement after odor sampling. After acquisition of four problems, rats were trained on serial reversals of the final problem. Rats with NAcc lesions exhibited normal choice performance relative to controls on both acquisition and reversal of the discrimination problems (indeed, lesioned rats exhibited a mild facilitation on the first discrimination problem). Despite normal choice performance, however, lesioned rats failed to show normal changes in response latency during discrimination learning, particularly on trials involving the aversive outcome. These findings are consistent with a deficit in processing cue-outcome associations. These results are compared with those obtained from studies of basolateral amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex lesions in this task and suggest that NAcc integrates the motivational value of both appetitive and aversive cues to bias or modulate the vigor of subsequent responding.

Animals↗

PubMed1985

Storage-retrieval processes of normal and learning-disabled children: a stages-of-learning analysis of picture-word effects.

Previous research comparing acquisition performance of learning-disabled and normally achieving children has led to the suggestion that the locus of memory differences lies in either the storage or retrieval components of recall. In this paper we report a free-recall experiment in which a new stages-of-learning model was used to examine the effects of a picture-word manipulation on storage and retrieval differences between nondisabled and disabled grade 2 and 6 children. Although the results of this experiment were consistent with the idea that disabled students are poorer at memory tasks than nondisabled students, the stages-of-learning analysis provided information regarding the precise locus of the deficiencies. Specifically, although disabled and nondisabled children benefited from the presentation of information in pictorial format, normally achieving children were consistently better than their learning-disabled counterparts at storing and learning to retrieve both pictures and words. From a developmental standpoint, the most important finding was that while differences between learning-disabled and normally achieving students at storage remained age invariant, differences in learning to retrieve increased with age. As it turned out, however, differences between disabled and nondisabled children were absent when it came to retaining traces once they had been stored in memory and in retrieval performance between the time a trace was stored and retrieval learning was complete. These results are consistent with previous research in which it has been shown that the ability to learn how to reliably retrieve information that has been stored in memory develops more slowly for disabled than nondisabled children.

Age Factors↗

PubMed2006

Influence of learning resources on study time and achievement scores in a problem-based curriculum.

Many aspects of the problem-based learning cycle aim at stimulating students to elaborate on their knowledge. This elaborative process is considered to be one of the most effective study aids for learning and applying information. One of the opportunities to stimulate this elaboration process is by offering students more, and more diverse, learning resources. Under laboratory conditions, increasing the richness and diversity of the learning materials has often been shown to support students in learning, remembering and applying information. In this study, a curricular perspective was adopted on the question whether students would benefit from more learning resources. Mean study times and achievement scores for 28 problem-based courses were calculated and included in the analyses. Independent variables in both analyses were the number of primary learning resources (i.e., resources students were recommended to study) and the number of supplementary resources (i.e., related, but non-essential resources). Results showed a significant increase in achievement scores for courses with more primary learning resources, but the effect of supplementary resources was limited.

Educational Measurement↗

PubMed1995

The pedagogic characteristics of a clinical conference for senior residents and faculty.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the pedagogic characteristics of a clinical conference for senior pediatric residents and selected faculty. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: Nineteen senior pediatric residents and 14 selected faculty members participated in a daily clinical conference at Children's Hospital, Boston, Mass. DESIGN: Qualitative research design using videotapes of nine consecutive hour-long sessions to generate pedagogic topics to be investigated using a questionnaire administered to participating residents and faculty. Narrative responses were analyzed to find pedagogic themes. RESULTS: Analysis of videotapes generated the following three topics: What facilitated learning? What was learned? What makes the process of teaching and learning effective? In the questionnaire residents indicated that learning was facilitated by resident-faculty interactions (19/19), faculty participation (19/19), and information resources (12/19). Content learned included information (16/19), approach to diagnosis (11/19), management strategies (14/19), and different perspective (14/19). An effective process of teaching and learning was attributed to case-based resident initiated discussion (19/19), facilitation by the chief resident (16/19), and non-competitive discussions in which expert faculty played a nondominant role (19/19). Faculty identified identical factors relating to all three themes. The mean rating of the conference was 4.5/5 (SD, +/- 0.50) and 4.7/5 (SD, +/- 0.45) by residents and faculty, respectively (Likert scale, 1 to 5). CONCLUSIONS: The pedagogic effectiveness of this conference was attributed to a resident-centered, case-based learning format and a discussion process characterized by noncompetitive interactions among faculty and residents, strong group facilitation by the chief resident, and participation of faculty experts in a nondominant role.

Faculty, Medical↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Collective properties of the mutual-learned neuronal net systems in the information field].

Model of neural networks system, in which networks interact by transmission and associative recognition of signals, is studied by computer simulation and qualitative approach. System behavior depends on the value of learning parameter epsilon, which determines the weight of writing in memory of each network every transmissible signal. Two different regimes are found: regime of auto-governed behavior, which depends only on initial networks characteristics, and regime of collective recognition of initial signal in form of a certain stable signals cycle. Analogy of this model and Aigen's hypercycle, the problem of creation of some new information in this model are discussed, too.

Artificial Intelligence↗

PubMed1996

The informational role of knowledge of results in motor learning.

An experiment is reported that was set-up to examine the informational role of knowledge of results (KR) in the learning of a single-limb movement timing task. A group with KR practiced 200 trials a day for 5 days prior to receiving a sixth day of practice without KR. The performance of this group was contrasted to another group that practiced 200 trials without KR for one day. Traditional movement error and time series analyses revealed that KR serves to calibrate the movement outcome to the task demands and modulate the performance outcome relation between trials. The degree of systematic trial-to-trial modulation was strongly dependent upon the degree of error exhibited on any given trial, and was enhanced under no-KR conditions. Information in KR has both immediate and persistent influences on learning and performance that are dependent upon the task constraints and the skill level of the performer.

Humans↗

PubMed2006

Achieving change through mutual development: supported online learning and the evolving roles of health and information professionals.

INTRODUCTION: Major changes in health care, within an information- and technology-rich age, are impacting significantly on health professionals and upon their education and training. Health information professionals-in both the National Health Service (NHS) and higher education (HE) contexts-are consequently developing their roles, skills and partnerships to meet the needs of flexible education and training. This article explores one facet of this-supported online learning and its impact on role development. METHODOLOGY: A case study approach was taken, aiming to explore how academics, health information professionals and learning technologists are developing supported online learning to explicitly address the e-literacy and information needs of health students within the context of NHS frameworks for education. This was contextualized by a literature review. RESULTS: The case study explores and discusses three dynamics--(i) The use of supported online learning tools by future health-care professionals throughout their professional training to ensure they have the appropriate e-literacy skills; (ii) the use of supported online learning by current health professionals to enable them to adapt to the changing environment; (iii) the development of the health information professional, and particularly their role within multi-disciplinary teams working with learning technologists and health professionals, to enable them to design and deliver supported online learning. CONCLUSIONS: The authors argue that, in this specific case study, health information professionals are key to the development of supported online learning. They are working successfully in collaboration and their roles are evolving to encompass learning and teaching activities in a wider context. There are consequently several lessons to be drawn in relation to professional education and role development.

Health Education↗

PubMed1992

Total amount learned versus learning rate of verbal and nonverbal information, in differentiating left-from right-brain injured patients.

Twenty Left-Brain Damaged (LBD), 20 Right-Brain Damaged (RBD), and 20 control subjects were compared on three different learning tasks: (a) verbal, the Paired Associate Learning subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale; (b) figural, the Gollin Incomplete Figures task, which can be easily verbalized, and (c) spatial, the Stylus Maze. When learning ability was measured, by assessing the total amount learned (sum of items learned in all trials), the results showed that, on all three tasks, the control group's performance significantly surpassed that of the patient groups. The RBD group performed better than the LBD group on the verbal learning task, while LBD subjects performed better than their RBD counterparts on the spatial learning task. No significant difference between the two patient groups was detected on the figural task, suggesting that a task using visually and verbally codable stimuli is not useful in differentiating between LBD and RBD groups. When the learning rate was measured, similar results were obtained in the verbal and figural task. However, in the spatial task, the learning rates of the three groups did not significantly differ, probably because the specific task used required procedural learning, which is normally preserved in amnesics.

Journal Article↗