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Results for “OVERLEARNING”

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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Cerebral changes during performance of overlearned arbitrary visuomotor associations.

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is known to be involved in the control of automatic movements that are spatially guided, such as grasping an apple. We considered whether the PPC might also contribute to the performance of visuomotor associations in which stimuli and responses are linked arbitrarily, such as producing a certain sound for a typographical character when reading aloud or pressing pedals according to the color of a traffic light when driving a motor vehicle. The PPC does not appear to be necessary for learning new arbitrary visuomotor associations, but with extensive training, the PPC can encode nonspatial sensory features of task-relevant cues. Accordingly, we have tested whether the contributions of the PPC might become apparent once arbitrary sensorimotor mappings are overlearned. We have used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure cerebral activity while subjects were learning novel arbitrary visuomotor associations, overlearning known mappings, or attempting to learn frequently changing novel mappings. To capture the dynamic features of cerebral activity related to the learning process, we have compared time-varying modulations of activity between conditions rather than average (steady-state) responses. Frontal, striatal, and intraparietal regions showed decreasing or stable activity when subjects learned or attempted to learn novel associations, respectively. Importantly, the same frontal, striatal, and intraparietal regions showed time-dependent increases in activity over time as the mappings become overlearned, i.e., despite time-invariant behavioral responses. The automaticity of these mappings predicted the degree of intraparietal changes, indicating that the contribution of the PPC might be related to a particular stage of the overlearning process. We suggest that, as the visuomotor mappings become robust to interference, the PPC may convey relevant sensory information toward the motor cortex. More generally, our findings illustrate how rich cerebral dynamics can underlie stable behavior.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

The inhibition of imitative and overlearned responses: a functional double dissociation.

Neuropsychological research has established that the inhibition of dominant response tendencies is a function of the prefrontal cortex. These inhibitory mechanisms are tested using tasks like the Stroop task, in which the prepotency of the dominant response is based on a learned relationship of stimulus and response. However, it has also been reported that patients with prefrontal lesions may have problems inhibiting imitative responses. The question arises of whether the inhibition of overlearned and imitative responses entails the same or different functional mechanisms and cortical networks. In a recent neuropsychological study with prefrontal patients we found first evidence for such a dissociation. The present fMRI study further investigated this question by directly comparing brain activity in the inhibition of overlearned and imitative response tendencies. It emerges that response inhibition in the two tasks involves different neural networks. While the inhibition of overlearned responses requires a fronto-parietal network involved in interference control and task management, the inhibition of imitative responses involves cortical areas that are required to distinguish between self-generated and externally triggered motor representations. The only frontal brain area that showed an overlap was located in the right inferior frontal gyrus and is probably related to the generation of the stop signal.

Adult↗

PubMed1962

Retention as a function of degree of overlearning.

The effects of overlearning on retention were investigated with serial lists of words of high and low frequency of linguistic usage. For both types of materials, amount recalled showed a positively accelerated increase with degree of overlearning. These increases in recall resulted from improved retention of relatively difficult parts of the lists. Speed of relearning to complete mastery was a direct function of degree of overlearning.

Humans↗

PubMed2005

Allocentric coding of object-to-object relations in overlearned and novel environments.

R. F. Wang and E. S. Spelke's (2000) finding that disorientation disrupts knowledge is consistent with egocentric but not allocentric coding of object location. The present experiments tested the hypothesis that egocentric coding may dominate early on but that once an allocentric representation is established, then target location is retrieved from it. This hypothesis predicts that disorientation will disrupt configuration knowledge in a novel environment, such as that used by Wang and Spelke, but not in an overlearned environment. Experiments 1 and 2 tested whether disorientation disrupted configuration knowledge of an overlearned environment, and Experiments 3-7 tested whether disorientation disrupted configuration knowledge of a novel, room-sized environment. In none of the experiments did disorientation disrupt configuration knowledge. Hence, in addition to showing allocentric coding of overlearned interlandmark relations, the present findings are consistent with the immediate availability of allocentric location codes in a novel, room-sized environment.

Environment↗

PubMed1979

When practice makes imperfect: debilitating effects of overlearning.

It was hypothesized that as overlearning leads to "mindlessness," the individual components of a task become relatively inaccessible to consciousness and therefore unavailable to serve as evidence of task competence. This may lead to a decrement in performance if circumstances, for example, a label connoting relative inferiority, lead one to question one's ability. This was tested in the first experiment by varying practice on a task (no practice, moderate practice, and overpractice) by label assigned to subjects (no label, assistant, boss). As predicted, performance decrements resulted for the no practice and overpracticed subjects who were assigned the inferior status label but not for the moderate practice subjects for whom the task components were still salient. In a second experiment it was found that the debilitation could be prevented for an overlearned task by making components of the task salient. Implications for the vulnerability of experts to these performance debilitations are explored.

Achievement↗

PubMed1980

Effects of overlearning and incentive on the acquisition and transfer of interpersonal skills with institutionalized elderly.

Structured Learning Therapy, a skill training program consisting of modeling, role playing, social reinforcement, and transfer of training was used to teach 56 elderly inpatients (mean age = 65.74) the interpersonal skill of "Starting a Conversation." The effects of three levels of overlearning and the addition of concrete (monetary) reinforcement on skill acquisition and transfer were also assessed. All patients acquired the target skill, and there was some evidence of transfer of skill training. Individuals not receiving concrete reinforcement during training showed greater skill transfer compared to those individuals receiving additional incentive. A transfer-enhancing effect of overlearning was found on the Structured Post-test, but no effect was obtained for the other post-test transfer measures.

Aged↗

PubMed1993

The role of deployment of attention in the overlearning reversal effect (ORE) with aggressive and nonaggressive stimuli.

The study elucidated the role of deployment of attention in the appearance and magnitude of the overlearning reversal effect (ORE) with simultaneously occurring aggressive and neutral stimulus dimensions in a discrimination reversal-shift paradigm with 60 undergraduate college students. Confirming expectations, significantly larger overlearning reversal effect (ORE) was produced on the number of instrumental response errors and verbalized attentional errors with the less complex and less salient neutral, relevant-stimulus dimension. The findings that greater ORE, as reflected in attentional errors, was observed with the less salient but also less complex neutral stimulus dimension support the attentional explanations of the ORE phenomenon. These results contrast with those observed with traditional geometric stimulus material where greater complexity is associated with greater ORE.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1979

[Overlearning of a pursuit tracking task and change in pulse rate and finger skin blood flow (author's transl)].

Eight subjects were given overlearning of a pursuit tracking task twice which they experienced once either half or one year previously. Distributed practice was employed in the present experiments. Finger skin blood flow (SBF) and pulse rate (PR) were measured throughout the experiments. SBF was smaller during trials and during intertrial rests than during rest with eyes closed, but the difference between during trials and during intertrial rests was not significant. It was supposed that the reason for this effect of overlearning was that the increase in motivation resulted in a high level of activation during intertrial rests. The changing pattern of SBF during trials became similar to that in adding task of the previous study (1977) because of learning or habituation. In the second half of the trials, however, SBF during trials gradually became smaller.

Adult↗

PubMed1984

The overlearning-extinction effect and successive negative contrast in honeybees (Apis mellifera).

In three experiments with free-flying honeybees, the previously discovered overlearning-extinction effect was replicated under different conditions and shown to depend on magnitude of reinforcement: The effect appeared in training with a 50% sucrose solution but not with a 20% solution. The results prompted a fourth experiment in which successive negative contrast was demonstrated: The animals were disturbed to find the 20% solution on a distinctive target that always before had been baited with the 50% solution. The conclusion is that the overlearning-extinction effect is an instance of contrast and can be understood in terms of frustration engendered by unrealized anticipation of reinforcement.

Animals↗

PubMed1993

Effect of overlearning on the feeling of knowing is more detectable in within-subject than in between-subject designs.

Conflicting results in the literature concerning the influence of overlearning on subsequent feeling of knowing (FOK) judgments for unrecallable items were resolved in an experiment that contrasted within-subject and between-subject designs. In the between-subject design, participants gave FOK judgments about items all of which had been learned to a criterion of either one or six correct recalls 4 weeks earlier. In the within-subject design, these judgments were made about the same items, half of which had been correct once and half six times. Results showed that the effect of overlearning on FOK ratings was more detectable in the within-subject design than in the between-subject design. It is suggested that future experiments on metacognition should use within-subject designs for maximal detectability of the effect of an independent variable on metacognitive judgments.

Female↗

PubMed2002

An examination of the suppression of overlearned responses in schizophrenia.

INTRODUCTION: Individuals often experience interference from overlearned responses. This phenomenon is reported to be increased in patients with schizophrenia. METHODS: In order to determine the generality of such interference in these patients, the frequency of repetitive responses in simple tasks was manipulated. It was hypothesised that patients' performance would be disproportionately impaired when a strong response tendency needed to be overridden. This was expected to be the case especially where task rules had to be maintained for a period of time in order to respond appropriately. RESULTS: A spatial analogue of the Stroop test, with a response bias to a side of space, produced stronger expectancy in patients than in controls. A similar manipulation of expectancy in a variant of the Continuous Performance Test, in which subjects were to respond to sequentially presented pairs of letters, did not result in a difference between patients and controls in terms of inhibiting inappropriate responses. In this test, patients' deficits were associated with the delay period between stimulus and target. CONCLUSIONS: The cognitive impairment in patients with schizophrenia is not simply a general deficit in the suppression of overlearned responses, rather, the susceptibility to interference appears more task specific.

Journal Article↗

PubMed1998

Is posttraumatic stress disorder an overlearned survival response? An evolutionary-learning hypothesis.

Contemporary learning theories of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) provide an explanation for the phobic avoidant features but do not account fully for the intrusive phenomena that are so characteristic of the disorder. This article hypothesizes that a primitive learning center in the limbic system rehearses traumatic memories immediately following exposure to trauma, thus inducing durable memories of the sources of novel threat. It is postulated that the mechanism developed during early evolution when, in the absence of cognitive mechanisms, automatic learning following single exposure to novel threat would have conferred survival value on the species. With evolution of the brain, a second cortical pathway developed for the cognitive processing of trauma memories. It is possible that synchrony between the two phylogentically distinct pathways may be lost in vulnerable individuals under conditions of extreme stress resulting in failure of cortical inhibition of limbic trauma rehearsal mechanisms. A mismatch between archaic biological mechanisms and novel cues in the modern environment also may play a role in triggering traumatic memories and associated fight and flight reactions. The intrusive phenomena of PTSD thus may reflect an "overlearned survival response" in those in whom the putative limbic rehearsal mechanism evades cortical control. The heuristic value and limitations of such an evolutionary-learning theory are discussed.

Animals↗

PubMed1965