[ACT-R-users] Positive Feedback and Memory strengthening

[Lynne Reder]

Phil,

Concerning your assumption concerning students and question answering, 
I want to mention that in a number of studies i conducted about 20 
years ago, I showed that people's tendency to look for a specific 
answer to a question vs. use a plausible reasoning strategy could 
easily be affected by the base rate of success with the strategy.  It 
could also be manipulated by specific instructions.  I also looked at 
this with the elderly and found that old subjects had a greater 
propensity to use plausible reasoning than "direct retrieval" 
presumably because the latter strategy was more difficult for them.

the main point is that college students were quite adaptive in changing 
their question-answering strategy.  Further I debriefed them and there 
was no evidence that they were aware of what strategy they were using 
nor of the base rates I manipulated.  This finding has been replicated 
many times by Lovett, Schunn, me and Lebiere (in various combinations).

--Lynne

p.s.  Below are a couple of the papers that showed this.  the can be 
downloaded from my website (URL below)  if interested.

  Reder, L.M., (1987). Strategy selection in question answering. 
Cognitive Psychology, 19(1), 90-138.

  Reder, L.M., Wible, C., & Martin, J. (1986). Differential memory 
changes with age: Exact retrieval versus plausible inference. Journal 
of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 12(1), 
72-81.

On Feb 20, 2006, at 3:28 PM, Phil Pavlik wrote:

>
>  
> Hi,
> .......
>  
> This second step of considering the utility of the productions 
> underlying a memory retrieval is frequently not relevant when dealing 
> with high functioning college students since it is might be safe to 
> assume that such “question answering” has been highly reinforced in 
> the past and that the productions are always selected when the left 
> hand side matches. However, in a younger student, perhaps from a 
> disadvantaged background, simple question answering productions might 
> not yet have high utility and other productions like horseplay 
> productions or attention seeking behaviors might have higher utility. 
> In such a situation, positive reinforcement of the responding to your 
> question would strengthen the appropriate productions (by signifying 
> success) and therefore improve performance at the task.
>  
> Of course, such an explanation might apply to older adults too. I have 
> found in a paired associate declarative memory task with feedback that 
> the more overall success an individual has (more success with general 
> productions) the better they performed overall. This might be 
> explained as an effect of success on production utility.
>  
> Phil
>  
>  
> Philip I. Pavlik Jr.
> Human Computer Interaction Institute
> Carnegie Mellon University
> Pittsburgh, PA 15213
>  
> ppavlik at andrew.cmu.edu
> http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/ppavlik/
>
> From: act-r-users-bounces at act-r.psy.cmu.edu 
> [mailto:act-r-users-bounces at act-r.psy.cmu.edu] On Behalf Of Markus 
> Eklund
> Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 1:12 AM
> To: act-r-users at act-r.psy.cmu.edu
> Subject: [ACT-R-users] Positive Feedback and Memory strengthening
>  
> Hi,
>  
> Given the following scenario,  I am assuming that a declarative memory 
> will strengthen.  Can anyone point me to some research data that 
> supports (or does not) support this assumption?
>  
> Scenario:
> 	• 	Instructor states definition;
> 	• 	Sometime later, instructor asks student to recall the definition 
> (either just recall the definition or use the definition during 
> problem solving);
> 	• 	Student paraphrases the definition, then asks is this correct?
> 	• 	Instructor gives positive feedback that the answer is correct.
> BR,
>  
> Markus Eklund
> MA in Education Student
> San Diego State University
>
>  --
>  Good design happens only when designers understand people as well as 
> technology
> _______________________________________________
> ACT-R-users mailing list
> ACT-R-users at act-r.psy.cmu.edu
> http://act-r.psy.cmu.edu/mailman/listinfo/act-r-users
>


========================================================

Lynne M. Reder
Professor
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-3792 (office)
412-268-2844 (fax)
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~reder/reder.html  (home page)
reder at cmu.edu  (email)
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