SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Transfer learning”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,675 records · Page 93Linked to original sources

PubMedDate not supplied

Promoting transfer: effects of self-explanation and direct instruction.

Explaining new ideas to oneself can promote transfer, but how and when such self-explanation is effective is unclear. This study evaluated whether self-explanation leads to lasting improvements in transfer success and whether it is more effective in combination with direct instruction or invention. Third- through fifth-grade children (ages 8-11; n=85) learned about mathematical equivalence under one of four conditions varying in (a) instruction on versus invention of a procedure and (b) self-explanation versus no explanation. Both self-explanation and instruction helped children learn and remember a correct procedure, and self-explanation promoted transfer regardless of instructional condition. Neither manipulation promoted greater improvements on an independent measure of conceptual knowledge. Microgenetic analyses provided insights into potential mechanisms underlying these effects.

Behavior Therapy↗

PubMed2006

Cued recall from image and sentence memory: a shift from episodic to identical elements representation.

The applicability of the identical elements (IE) model of arithmetic fact retrieval (T. C. Rickard, A. F. Healy, & L. E. Bourne, 1994) to cued recall from episodic (image and sentence) memory was explored in 3 transfer experiments. In agreement with results from arithmetic, speedup following even minimal practice recalling a missing word from an episodically bound word triplet did not transfer positively to other cued recall items involving the same triplet. The shape of the learning curve further supported a shift from episode-based to IE-based recall, extending some models of skill learning to cued recall practice. In contrast with previous findings, these results indicate that a form of representation that is independent of the original episodic memory underlies cued-recall performance following minimal practice.

Cues↗

PubMed2001

Tests for cognitive mapping in Clark's nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana).

In these experiments, the authors examined the nature of the spatial information that Clark's nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) use during navigation and whether this information is represented in the form of a cognitive map. In Experiment 1, nutcrackers were able to use distal cues to locate a small hidden goal. In Experiments 2 and 3, nutcrackers were given the opportunity to develop a map of a room by viewing local subsets of the landmarks in the room at a goal during training. During transfer tests, nutcrackers were presented with a landmark panorama that was not previously seen at the goal. Of 3 nutcrackers that had learned the relationship between distal cues and the goal, 3 were able to locate the goal during transfer, indicating they may have developed a cognitive map. Experiments 4 and 5 suggest that the simpler mechanism of vector integration may have been used by some nutcrackers during the transfer tests.

Animals↗

PubMed2002

Training method dramatically affects the acquisition of a place response in rats with neurotoxic lesions of the hippocampus.

A considerable number of studies have demonstrated that hippocampal damage impairs the acquisition of a place response in rats. In Experiment 1, using a four-arm plus-shaped maze, we replicated this finding. Experiment 2 showed, however, that hippocampally damaged rats can learn a place response just as well as control rats when, during the training, a salient intramaze landmark indicates the position of the goal (the west arm). After reaching criterion, the hippocampal and control groups performed the task with the same degree of mastery during a transfer test in which the intramaze signal used during the acquisition was removed. In Experiment 3, the intramaze cue was substituted by an egocentric cue. The results revealed that both control and lesioned subjects learned the spatial problem well. However, a transfer test showed that control rats learned the task using a place response strategy but hippocampally lesioned animals used a rigid, hyperspecific strategy. Taken together, these results suggest that special training procedures which encourage variability in response versus perseveration make it possible to overcome the acquisition deficit normally observed in hippocampal rats.

Animals↗

PubMed1989

On the limits of the matching concept in monkeys (Cebus apella).

Two cebus monkeys, with many years of experience matching a variety of static visual stimuli (forms and colors) within a standard matching-to-sample paradigm, were trained to press a left lever when a pair of displayed static stimuli were the same and to press a right lever when they were different. After learning the same/different task, the monkeys were tested for transfer to dynamic visual stimuli (flashing versus steady green disks), with which they had no previous experience. Both failed to transfer to the dynamic stimuli. A third monkey, also with massive past experience matching static visual stimuli, was tested for transfer to the dynamic stimuli within our standard matching paradigm, and it, too, failed. All 3 subjects were unable to reach a moderate acquisition criterion despite as many as 52 sessions of training with the dynamic stimuli. These results provide further evidence that, in monkeys, the matching (or identity) concept has a very limited reach; they consequently do not support the view held by some theorists that an abstract matching concept based on physical similarity is a general endowment of animals.

Animals↗

PubMed1979

Response versus place learning by human infants.

Two cross-setional studies examined how infants learn the location of visual events. In Experiment 1, infants of 4, 8, and 12 mo of age learned to turn one way to view a novel pattern. In a subsequent transfer task, they were rotated to face the opposite side of the room. The 4-mo-old infants tended to err by repeating their previously learned response, but within 16-20 trials their performance was comparable to the higher levels maintained by the older infants. These results suggest that young infants learn the location of the pattern primarily in terms of response cues, whereas older infants employ both response cues and place cues. Experiment 2 was designed to independently assess the use of response cues and place cues by infants of 4, 8, 12, and 16 mo of age. All infants were able to rapidly learn and remember the location of the novel pattern when they were given response cues. There was a gradual emergence of place-cue use associated with age. It is suggested that the decrease in infant egocentricity in such spatial localization tasks may in fact reflect an age-related increase in the variety of reliable cues responded to by infants.

Cues↗

PubMed2006

Instrumental learning in hyperdopaminergic mice.

In two experiments we investigated the effects of elevated dopaminergic tone on instrumental learning and performance using dopamine transporter knockdown (DAT KD) mice. In Experiment 1, we showed that both DAT KD mice and wild-type controls were similarly sensitive to outcome devaluation induced by sensory specific satiety, indicating normal action-outcome learning in both groups. In Experiment 2, we used a Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer procedure to assess the potentiation of instrumental responding by Pavlovian conditional stimuli (CS). Although during the Pavlovian training phase the DAT KD mice entered the food magazine more frequently in the absence of the CS, when tested later both groups showed outcome-selective PIT. These results suggest that the elevated dopaminergic tone reduced the selectivity of stimulus control over conditioned behavior, but did not affect instrumental learning.

Animals↗

PubMed2005

Crossmodal interactions between olfactory and visual learning in Drosophila.

Different modalities of sensation interact in a synergistic or antagonistic manner during sensory perception, but whether there is also interaction during memory acquisition is largely unknown. In Drosophila reinforcement learning, we found that conditioning with concurrent visual and olfactory cues reduced the threshold for unimodal memory retrieval. Furthermore, bimodal preconditioning followed by unimodal conditioning with either a visual or olfactory cue led to crossmodal memory transfer. Crossmodal memory acquisition in Drosophila may contribute significantly to learning in a natural environment.

Animals↗

PubMed1997

Visual perceptual learning: a sign of neural plasticity at early stages of visual processing.

Examples of perceptual learning in various visual tasks are briefly reviewed. In spite of the variety of the tasks and stimuli, in most of these examples the effects of learning are specific for stimulus parameters and retinal location and transfer interoccularly. Enduring practice effects can be acquired within a single experimental session and/or progressively from one session to the next one, often continuing to improve until thousands of trials have been performed. The consolidation of learning effects from one session to the next one may occur in the waking state as well as during a normal night sleep, but is strongly dependent on the type of sleep. Improvement in performance does not require that the subject is informed of the correctness of his/her responses, but needs attention to the task: learning does not take place for the stimulus attributes that are not attended to. All this suggests that visual perceptual learning involves plastic changes at early neural processing levels, which are dependent for their induction and consolidation on the general behavioural state of the subject, such as attentiveness and type of sleep.

Discrimination Learning↗

PubMed2000

The effects of type and amount of pretraining on transfer in concept formation.

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of 2 types of directed attention pretraining, a form of stimulus predifferentiation, on immediate- and delayed-transfer tasks in concept identification. In both experiments, the participants received either the "seeing-and-discriminating" or "seeing" technique of pretraining, except for those assigned to the control group. The participants received different amounts of pretraining. In the first experiment, participants were required to learn new concepts from the same category for the delayed-transfer task, whereas in the second experiment, the delayed-transfer task involved concepts from a different category. Among the major findings in both experiments are that the pretraining methods resulted in positive transfer on all transfer tasks. In general, the seeing-and-discriminating method yielded a more positive transfer than the seeing technique. Maximal positive transfer effects were found with a small number of trials. The implications of the findings for understanding the effectiveness of various training methods used for problem solving are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Causal status effect in children's categorization.

The current study examined the causal status effect (weighing cause features more than effect features in categorization) in children. Adults (Study 1) and 7-9-year-old children (Study 2) learned descriptions of novel animals, in which one feature caused two other features. When asked to determine which transfer item was more likely to be an example of the animal they had learned, both adults and children preferred an animal with a cause feature and an effect feature rather than an animal with two effect features. This study is the first direct demonstration of the causal status effect in children.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Attenuation of context-specific inhibition on reversal learning of a stimulus-response task in rats with neurotoxic hippocampal damage.

Rats with hippocampal or sham lesions were trained on a stimulus-response task developed for the 8-arm radial maze. After reaching a stringent learning criterion, different context manipulations were performed. In Experiment I, the different groups were transferred to an identical radial maze in a different room to determine the context specificity of the discrimination learning. Experiment I revealed that although rats with hippocampal lesions did not show a normal context detection effect, the expression of the discrimination was not context dependent for either the lesion or sham groups. In Experiment II, animals were trained to criterion on the discrimination task and then both groups were divided into sub-groups based on whether they would experience reversal training in the same or different context from original training. Experiment II indicated that animals with hippocampal lesions and shams reversed in a different context were significantly enhanced in reaching the learning criterion compared to either counterparts that were reversed in the same context. Reversal learning in rats with hippocampal lesions was faster than sham animals in the same context suggesting that the context-specific inhibition effect was hippocampal-based. After learning the reversal task, the groups of animals trained and reversed in different contexts were brought back into the original training context to test for competitive effects. Animals with hippocampal lesions that were reversed in the different context, did not show a competition between the most recently acquired discrimination and a context-specific association acquired during original training whereas sham animals in the same condition did. Taken together these results suggest that rats with hippocampal lesions do not acquire normal context-specific inhibition during discrimination learning.

Animals↗

PubMed1995

The effects of anxiolytics and anxiogenics on evaluation of learning and memory in an elevated plus-maze test in mice.

We examined the effects of anxiolytics and anxiogenics on evaluation of learning and memory in the elevated plus-maze test in mice. Transfer latency (TL), the time mice took to move from the open arm to the enclosed arm, was used as an index of learning and memory. The TL on day 2 was shorter than that on day 1 with the maze at a height of 40 cm, and was not affected by anxiolytics and anxiogenics such as 8-OH-DPAT (0.4 mg/kg), picrotoxin (2 mg/kg), and FG-7142 (20 mg/kg), but was affected by diazepam (8 mg/kg). On the other hand, the TL on day 2 was prolonged by changing the experimental room between day 1 and day 2. TL on day 1 and day 2. TL on day 2 was prolonged by treatment with scopolamine before the trial on day 1 compared with vehicle-treated groups. This scopolamine-induced prolongation of TL was reversed by pretreatment with physostigmine and piracetam. The TL on day 2 was also prolonged by treatment with cycloheximide or normobaric hypoxia initiated immediately after the trial on day 1. The cycloheximide- and hypoxia-induced prolongation of TL were reversed by pretreatment with piracetam. These results indicate that disruption of learning and memory and its amelioration, induced by the treatments described above, can be detected using the plus-maze test, suggesting that the elevated plus-maze test could be used for evaluation of learning and memory without influence of anxiolytics and anxiogenics.

Animals↗

PubMed1991

The transfer of contextual control over equivalence classes through equivalence classes: a possible model of social stereotyping.

In Experiment 1, subjects acquired conditional equivalence classes controlled by three male and three female names as contextual stimuli. When equivalence relations were tested using new names not used in training (three male and three female), contextual control remained intact. Thus, generalized control of the composition of conditional equivalence classes by characteristically gender-identified names was shown. A basic analysis of this finding was tested in Experiment 2. Contextual equivalence classes were established using as contextual stimuli nonrepresentational visual figures that were members of additional pretrained three-member equivalence classes. When other stimuli in the pretrained equivalence classes were used as contextual stimuli, the conditional equivalence classes remained intact. Control subjects showed that this effect depended on the equivalence relations established in pretraining. The results show that contextual control over equivalence classes can transfer through equivalence classes. The implications of this phenomenon for social stereotyping are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Contextual interference: single task versus multi-task learning.

This experiment examined contextual interference in producing a bimanual coordination pattern of 90 degree angle relative phase. Acquisition, retention, and transfer performance were compared in a single-task control group and groups that performed 2 tasks in either a blocked or random presentation. Surprisingly, acquisition data revealed that both the random and control groups outperformed the blocked group. Retention data showed a typical CI effect for performance variability, with the random group outperforming the blocked group. Neither the random nor blocked groups outperformed the control group, suggesting interference of a second task may be as beneficial to learning as extra practice on the initial task. No group effects were found during transfer performance. Results suggest that random practice is beneficial for learning only one task.

Hand↗

PubMed1991

Learning the invariants of a perceptual motor skill.

The concept of invariant relative timing has typically been associated with the concept of a generalized motor programme. The present study approaches the phenomenon of invariant relative timing from the perspective of learning. The underlying question of concern for this study was, "What is learned." The specific question was whether relative timing is one of the essential properties of movement that is learned during skill acquisition. In the present experiment, subjects were given extensive practice in learning to track and reproduce a criterion waveform using a joystick control for their response. In order to test whether subjects learn the relative timing of a movement, they were transferred to tracking waveforms that were identical to the criterion in terms of relative timing, but different in terms of absolute timing. Measurements were taken on all waveforms in two conditions: (a) in a pursuit tracking condition where subjects were temporally constrained by the stimulus, and (b) in a reproduction condition where subjects' timing was not constrained. The outcome from both conditions gives support to the idea that humans learn invariant relative timing during the acquisition of a motor skill.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Et tu, Grotthuss! and other unfinished stories.

This review article is divided into three sections. In Section 1, a short biographical note on Freiherr von Grotthuss is followed by a detailed summary of the main findings and ideas present in his 1806 paper. Attempts to place Grotthuss contribution in the context of the science done at his time were also made. In Section 2, the modern version of the Grotthuss mechanism is reviewed. The classical Grotthuss model has been recently questioned and new mechanisms and ideas regarding proton transfer are briefly discussed. The last section discusses the significance of a classical Grotthuss mechanism for proton transfer in water chains inside protein cavities. This has been an interesting new twist in the ongoing history of the Grotthuss mechanism. A summary and discussion of what was learned from probably the simplest currently available experimental models of proton transfer in water wires in semi-synthetic ion channels are critically presented. This review ends discussing some of the questions that need to be addressed in the near future.

Electrochemistry↗

PubMed1973

Prism adaptation: control of intermanual transfer by distribution of practice.

Correction of errors in localizing movements produced by laterally displacing vision by means of wedge prisms has been termed "prism adaptation." Intermanual transfer of prism adaptation from an exposed to an unexposed hand, with subject's head immobilized, has been reported not to occur. However, it was found that a standard learning variable, distribution of practice, controls the occurrence or nonoccurrence of transfer. When practice is massed, there is no transfer of adaptation; when it is spaced, the transfer is extensive. Spacing of practice also influences the amount of aftereffect displayed by the exposed hand.

Adaptation, Ocular↗