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PubMed1986

Brief exposure to uncontrollable but not to controllable noise biases the retrieval of information from memory.

Female volunteers learned two lists containing a mixture of positive and negative trait words. Both lists were learned in a neutral mood. The first list was recalled in a neutral mood, and the second following a five-minute exposure to a tape of 'meaningful' noises, designed to simulate a busy office environment. Exposure to loud, uncontrollable noise caused a substantial increase in the proportion of negative trait words recalled from the second list, and also a worsening of mood, particularly an increase in tension. These effects were not seen in subjects exposed to controllable loud noise or to uncontrollable quiet noise. The memory bias following uncontrollable loud noise is qualitatively similar to that found in clinically depressed patients or following depressive mood induction procedures.

Adult↗
PubMed1973

Mechanisms of interhemispheric transfer of visual information in rats.

Pattern discrimination learning in functionally hemidecorticate rats leads to formation of memory traces in the intact hemisphere. The interhemispheric transfer (IHT) of such lateralized engrams is more efficient when the untrained eye rather than the trained eye is used during interdepression training (10 trials) preceding the retention test with the contralateral hemisphere, probably because the untrained hemisphere is indispensable for readout in the first case (imperative IHT) but can be completely bypassed in the second case (facultative IHT). Monocular acquisition of a pattern discrimination habit induces a strong primary engram in the contralateral and a weak secondary engram in the ipsilateral hemicortex. The primary trace is further improved with overtraining while the secondary engram is abolished. During interocular transfer, the primary trace is at first read out through commissural fibers while a secondary trace is rapidly transferred to the untrained hemisphere. Pretraining administration of 2-pyrrolidone acetamide (Piracetam, 100 mg/kg) improves the secondary trace acquired during monocular pattern discrimination learning almost to the level of the primary trace, and facilitates the imperative IHT. Uncrossed optic projections and subcortical storage may contribute to IHT of brightness but not of pattern discrimination. It is concluded that IHT of visual engrams is mainly due to transcommissural encoding activated during learning or by transcommissural readout of lateralized traces.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Behavioral characteristics of rhesus monkeys in a multiple-choice environment].

The present work deals with dynamics of formation of complex alimentary behaviour of rhesus monkeys in multialternative environment. A detailed informational analysis of the obtained results allowed to reveal the properties of processing of proprioceptive information in the course of learning and to understand the characteristics of behaviour of the examined monkeys.

Animals↗
PubMed2003

Involuntary, unreinforced (pure) spatial learning is impaired by fimbria-fornix but not by dorsal hippocampus lesions.

Pure spatial learning occurs when rats acquire information about an environment while exploring it in the absence of reinforcers. We previously reported that voluntary, unreinforced exploration of a radial maze retards subsequent reinforced conditioned cue preference (CCP) learning in the same maze. In the present experiment, we examined the effects of involuntary, unreinforced pre-exposure to a radial maze. During pre-exposure, rats were moved by an experimenter between the ends of two arms of a radial maze five times in 30 min. This form of pre-exposure retarded CCP learning, whereas rats that were not pre-exposed and rats that were pre-exposed to a maze in a different room displayed normal CCP learning. These findings suggest that some information specific to the maze environment was acquired during involuntary unreinforced pre-exposure to it. In experiment 2, the retardation of reinforced CCP learning by involuntary unreinforced pre-exposure was eliminated by fimbria-fornix lesions made before pre-exposure but was unaffected by fimbria-fornix lesions made after pre-exposure but before training. Large neurotoxic lesions of the dorsal hippocampus made before pre-exposure had no effect on the retardation of CCP learning, but the rats with these lesions were impaired on a standard test of reinforced spatial learning in a water maze. The lesion effects in experiment 2 are similar to those previously reported for voluntary exploration and suggest that pure spatial learning may occur during both voluntary exploration of and involuntary exposure to an environment in the absence of reinforcers. Pure spatial learning can apparently occur with exposure to two different locations within an environment, but the rats do not have to move between the locations voluntarily. An intact fimbria-fornix is required for acquisition but not expression of this form of learning. The hippocampus is not involved in this form of learning.

Animals↗
PubMed2001

Barriers and gateways: a study of nursing students' utilisation of learning support resources.

Many first year nursing students require additional academic support from both their lecturers and learning resources. Anecdotal evidence at an Australian university suggested that 'at risk' students did not follow up lecturer referral. This study identified what learning resources were accessed and what factors influenced students' decisions to follow up or not to follow up lecturer referral. First-year nursing students (n =150) were surveyed towards the end of their second semester regarding their use of learning support services. Twelve students were randomly selected and interviewed regarding their use of learning support and their first year learning experience. Demographic data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Qualitative data were subjected to content analysis. Results revealed learning support utilisation was related to age and publicity but unrelated to gender or culture. Older students entering through non-traditional entry modes displayed a tendency to self refer to learning support. Younger students (<25 years) often lacked effective learning strategies and were reluctant to access on-campus learning support. For all students positive on and off campus support led to positive outcomes. Faculty and learning support lecturers need to foster integration of learning support for all students and encourage peer-learning partnerships within the foundation subjects.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

The automaticity of visual statistical learning.

The visual environment contains massive amounts of information involving the relations between objects in space and time, and recent studies of visual statistical learning (VSL) have suggested that this information can be automatically extracted by the visual system. The experiments reported in this article explore the automaticity of VSL in several ways, using both explicit familiarity and implicit response-time measures. The results demonstrate that (a) the input to VSL is gated by selective attention, (b) VSL is nevertheless an implicit process because it operates during a cover task and without awareness of the underlying statistical patterns, and (c) VSL constructs abstracted representations that are then invariant to changes in extraneous surface features. These results fuel the conclusion that VSL both is and is not automatic: It requires attention to select the relevant population of stimuli, but the resulting learning then occurs without intent or awareness.

Attention↗
PubMed2000

Learning gross anatomy in a clinical skills course.

Recent developments in undergraduate medical education in the United Kingdom have produced changes in the content and delivery of component courses, including human anatomy. Anatomy can retain its place in the medical course in the new world of problem-based learning and clinical skills teaching by gaining recognition as an integral part of the curriculum which underpins much of the practice of clinical medicine. In these new courses, anatomical information is clinically relevant and discussed in the context of medical problems and the acquisition of clinical skills. Students are encouraged to study in a manner in which information is retained (deep learning) and where understanding replaces rote learning of facts. Students take responsibility for their own learning, with appropriate support and resources. In clinical skills courses, anatomy underpins the development and retention of clinical knowledge and skills.

Anatomy↗
PubMed2002

Cognitive functioning and quality of life in long-term adult survivors of bone marrow transplantation.

BACKGROUND: The late neurotoxic effects of bone marrow transplantation (BMT) on cognitive functioning and quality of life (QOL) were investigated in a consecutively treated cohort of long-term adult survivors. METHODS: Progression-free patients treated with BMT or peripheral stem cell grafts for a hematologic malignancy at least 2 years before study participation were examined with a comprehensive battery of neuropsychological tests and questionnaires for QOL and mood states. The results of the neuropsychological tests were compared with healthy population norms. RESULTS: Forty patients were included, 87.5% of whom had undergone an allogeneic transplantation. All received total body irradiation up to 12 Gy (in two fractions). Assessment took place 22-82 months after BMT. Mild to moderate cognitive impairment was found in 24 patients (60%). Compared with healthy population norms, selective attention and executive function, information processing speed, verbal learning, and verbal and visual memory were most likely to be affected. The mean score for the total patient group revealed that these patients scored significantly lower on the information processing speed task compared with expected scores obtained from the normal population. The main predictors for poor neuropsychological performance were fatigue, global health, and educational level. Other correlations with moderate to severe cognitive impairment were subjective cognitive complaints, physical functioning, social functioning, overall mood states, and employment status. CONCLUSIONS: These data indicate that BMT may lead to cognitive complaints and late cognitive deficits in long-term adult survivors. Cognitive functioning should therefore be used as an outcome parameter in BMT studies.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Telemedicine, the Internet, and world wide web: overview, current status, and relevance to surgeons.

The Information Age has made profound changes in society and is slowly entering the healthcare field. Some of the most important areas are telemedicine, the Internet, and the world wide web (www). Millions of physicians, healthcare providers, and patients are accessing the web daily for patient information, consultation, and distant learning. Telemedicine is beginning to enter the mainstream of health care after decades of demonstration projects. There are many issues which have been raised, such as access to the information, the security of the information, and the quality of the content on the web. While telemedicine is beginning to Hower, there are numerous barriers that prevent its rapid implementation, such as licensure, reimbursement, liability, quality of service, and technical issues. In spite of the numerous challenges, telemedicine over the Internet was practiced in one of the most remote areas of the world--Mt. Everest--demonstrating that it is possible to utilize all the latest healthcare telecommunications tools in even the most extreme of settings.

Computer Security↗
PubMed1988

Chief information officer--try it on for size.

There is a vital executive-level job emerging in progressive health care settings--chief information officer (CIO). This is a position you might wish to measure against your talents and then tailor your career plans accordingly. This article is designed to help you learn more about health information management career options.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Issues emerging from the London Learning Disability Plan.

This article gives an overview of the draft of the London Learning Disability Plan developed by the Department of Health, Social Services Inspectorate and the National Health Service Executive. The London Plan is founded on a social model of disability in which there is not only a strong focus on health and social care, but also an integration with housing, education, employment, leisure and other relevant organizations. It advocates integrated commissioning and delivery of specialist learning disability services that will require both health services and nurses to change existing structures and interventions. New forms of workforce development will emerge and clarification will be required about the future role of learning disability nurses within London. Information specific to the Plan is gathered from the Department of Health's learning disabilities Web site. The Plan is laid out in four booklets, one of which (Booklet 2: 'Services to Improve People's Lives') was not available at the time of writing. The article thus contains information and proposals that may be altered by subsequent publication.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Human simulations of vocabulary learning.

The work reported here experimentally investigates a striking generalization about vocabulary acquisition: Noun learning is superior to verb learning in the earliest moments of child language development. The dominant explanation of this phenomenon in the literature invokes differing conceptual requirements for items in these lexical categories: Verbs are cognitively more complex than nouns and so their acquisition must await certain mental developments in the infant. In the present work, we investigate an alternative hypothesis; namely, that it is the information requirements of verb learning, not the conceptual requirements, that crucially determine the acquisition order. Efficient verb learning requires access to structural features of the exposure language and thus cannot take place until a scaffolding of noun knowledge enables the acquisition of clause-level syntax. More generally, we experimentally investigate the hypothesis that vocabulary acquisition takes place via an incremental constraint-satisfaction procedure that bootstraps itself into successively more sophisticated linguistic representations which, in turn, enable new kinds of vocabulary learning. If the experimental subjects were young children, it would be difficult to distinguish between this information-centered hypothesis and the conceptual change hypothesis. Therefore the experimental "learners" are adults. The items to be "acquired" in the experiments were the 24 most frequent nouns and 24 most frequent verbs from a sample of maternal speech to 18-24-month-old infants. The various experiments ask about the kinds of information that will support identification of these words as they occur in mother-to-child discourse. Both the proportion correctly identified and the type of word that is identifiable changes significantly as a function of information type. We discuss these results as consistent with the incremental construction of a highly lexicalized grammar by cognitively and pragmatically sophisticated human infants, but inconsistent with a procedure in which lexical acquisition is independent of and antecedent to syntax acquisition.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

A model for the interaction of learning and evolution.

We present a simple model in order to discuss the interaction of the genetic and behavioral systems throughout evolution. This considers a set of adaptive perceptrons in which some of their synapses can be updated through a learning process. This framework provides an extension of the well-known Hinton and Nowlan model by blending together some learning capability and other (rigid) genetic effects that contribute to the fitness. We find a halting effect in the evolutionary dynamics, in which the transcription of environmental data into genetic information is hindered by learning, instead of stimulated as is usually understood by the so-called Baldwin effect. The present results are discussed and compared with those reported in the literature. An interpretation is provided of the halting effect.

Algorithms↗
PubMed2003

Learning and inference in the brain.

This article is about how the brain data mines its sensory inputs. There are several architectural principles of functional brain anatomy that have emerged from careful anatomic and physiologic studies over the past century. These principles are considered in the light of representational learning to see if they could have been predicted a priori on the basis of purely theoretical considerations. We first review the organisation of hierarchical sensory cortices, paying special attention to the distinction between forward and backward connections. We then review various approaches to representational learning as special cases of generative models, starting with supervised learning and ending with learning based upon empirical Bayes. The latter predicts many features, such as a hierarchical cortical system, prevalent top-down backward influences and functional asymmetries between forward and backward connections that are seen in the real brain. The key points made in article are: (i). hierarchical generative models enable the learning of empirical priors and eschew prior assumptions about the causes of sensory input that are inherent in non-hierarchical models. These assumptions are necessary for learning schemes based on information theory and efficient or sparse coding, but are not necessary in a hierarchical context. Critically, the anatomical infrastructure that may implement generative models in the brain is hierarchical. Furthermore, learning based on empirical Bayes can proceed in a biologically plausible way. (ii). The second point is that backward connections are essential if the processes generating inputs cannot be inverted, or the inversion cannot be parameterised. Because these processes involve many-to-one mappings, are non-linear and dynamic in nature, they are generally non-invertible. This enforces an explicit parameterisation of generative models (i.e. backward connections) to afford recognition and suggests that forward architectures, on their own, are not sufficient for perception. (iii). Finally, non-linearities in generative models, mediated by backward connections, require these connections to be modulatory, so that representations in higher cortical levels can interact to predict responses in lower levels. This is important in relation to functional asymmetries in forward and backward connections that have been demonstrated empirically.

Bayes Theorem↗
PubMed2003

CPR training in households of patients with chest pain.

The objectives of this study are to (1). quantify prior cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training in households of patients presenting to the Emergency Department (ED) with or without chest pain or ischaemic heart disease (IHD); (2). evaluate the willingness of household members to undertake CPR training; and (3). identify potential barriers to the learning and provision of bystander CPR. A cross-sectional study was conducted by surveying patients presenting to the ED of a metropolitan teaching hospital over a 6-month period. Two in five households of patients presenting with chest pain or IHD had prior training in CPR. This was no higher than for households of patients presenting without chest pain or IHD. Just under two in three households of patients presenting with chest pain or IHD were willing to participate in future CPR classes. Potential barriers to learning CPR included lack of information on CPR classes, perceived lack of intellectual and/or physical capability to learn CPR and concern about causing anxiety in the person at risk of cardiac arrest. Potential barriers to CPR provision included an unknown cardiac arrest victim and fear of infection. The ED provides an opportunity for increasing family and community capacity for bystander intervention through referral to appropriate training.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Description of the caregiver's educational needs and the degree of her dissatisfaction.

This study emphasized the learning needs of caregivers whose husbands have cancer and describes their level of dissatisfaction concerning these needs. A convenience sample of 30 women caregivers was used. The results demonstrate that caregivers possess initial acquired knowledge as learners and have 26 specific learning needs. The existence of a learning need produces a level of dissatisfaction among the female caregivers. Among these learning needs, the most likely to generate the greatest dissatisfaction are the learning needs associated with personal concerns. The results encourage nurses to play a more active role in learning by assessing whether the information the caregivers are receiving is understood well enough to meet their learning needs.

Activities of Daily Living↗