Ed Psych 326 Exam 2

ADHD risk factors

*environmental* -premature birth -maternal tobacco use -maternal alcohol use -exposure to high levels of lead in childhood -brain injury *genetic* -heritability = 0.80 -children with identical twin with ADHD are 11 to 18x more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD -between 50 and 92% of individuals with ADHD twins will eventually be diagnosed with ADHD themselves *gene x environment interactions*

after setback

*fixed mindset* -"I'd spend less time on this subject from now on" -"I would try not to take this subject ever again" -"I would try to cheat on the next test" *growth mindset* -"I would work harder in this class from now on" -"I would spend more time studying for the tests"

summary for mindsets

-a growth mindset allows students to -embrace learning and growth -understand the role of effort in creating talent -maintain confidence and effectiveness in the face of challenges and setbacks ...and it can be taught and reinforced

Robert Sternberg (1985) - Triarchic Theory of Intelligence

-agreed with Gardner that intelligence is much broader than a single, general ability -suggested some of Gardner's intelligences are better viewed as individual talents -Sternberg proposed "successful intelligence" comprised of three different factors: 1. analytical intelligence: problem-solving abilities 2. creative intelligence: the ability to deal with new situations using past experiences and current skills 3. practical intelligence: the ability to adapt to a changing environment

three attention networks

-alerting: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction, ventral frontal cortex/INS -orienting: superior parietal lobule/intraparietal sulcus, frontal eye field -executive control: prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex/supplementary motor area

brain changes with remembering

-as age increases, how does the brain activity change? -PHG = prehippocampal gyrus -with increasing age, increased activation in prefrontal cortex (in both left and right) -hippocampal activation does not increase with age (not actively involved in retrieval process, but rather encoding them and storing them in long term memory)

where do directional cues produce more activation

-attention increases response to attended stimuli -attention to motion direction -directional cues produced activation in frontal eye field (FEF), medial temporal area, anterior intraparietal sulcus (aIPS), and posterior intraparietal sulcus (pIPS)

phonological loop

-being able to replay things in your head shortly after they have occurred (phone numbers, if they hear it can replay it over and over in their head) -cocktail effect: hear your name, ask the person what they said to you, but then you remember so you say nevermind

Henry Molaison (HM)

-bilateral removal of his hippocampus and other structures in medial temporal lobe (treatment for epilepsy) -one of the most important case studies of memory in history -unable to form new memories (anterograde amnesia) -but able to remember episodic memories before the surgery (similar to "50 First Dates")

summary of age-related cognitive control study

-childhood cognitive control is highly predictive of later life success -adult levels of cognitive control accurately predicted by cognitive control ability as a child (high vs. low delayers) -not waiting may be adaptive in the short term under certain conditions (response to reliability) -when carefully broken down, it appears "hot" cognitive control is most predictive

domain specific ability

-cognition supported by specialized, presumably evolutionarily specified, learning devices -exact calculation, orthography -math and reading are domain specific abilities

what are the 3 types of ADHD

-consistently inattentive -hyperactive and impulsive -combined

Howard Gardner (1983) - multiple intelligences

-did not focus on test scores -argued that numerical expressions of human intelligence are not full and accurate depiction of people's abilities -describes eight distinct intelligences that are based on skills and abilities that are valued within different cultures -builds on neurological patient dissociations, but not tested by neuroscience

attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

-disorder characterized by inappropriate impulsiveness, attention problems, hyperactivity

fixed mindset

-entity theory -intelligence is a fixed trait -"I tend to conform to the low aspirations of my peers" -"I don't like challenge, I don't want to risk looking stupid, I am vulnerable" -"I like easy performance goals and being told I've done well"

what are the three main educationally relevant areas of the brain

-executive function (EF) -math and number -reading

executive function & cognitive control

-executive function = flexibility, planning, working memory, task switching, inhibition, etc. -cognitive control = self control/inhibition, self regulation, self discipline, emotion regulation --> CC Outdoes IQ in Predicting Performance (grit) --> environmental influence on cognitive control, challenges the view that cognitive control is fixed or simply about willpower --> children in reliable trial waited much longer than unreliable trial and much more of the children waited 15 minutes compared to the unreliable

converting lab effects to classrooms, Jerome Bruner

-from the beginning, accordingly, everyday mathematics was designed to take advantage of the spacing effect -an explicit attempt was made to ensure multiple exposures to important concepts and skills, spread over two or more years -a coil of applying, structuring, immersion, applying, structuring, immersion, and so on

what region of the brain corresponds to executive function

-frontal brain regions -dlPFC = thinking, reasoning, non emotive -vmPFC = heavily connected to the limbic system so more affective processing (emotional) -these regions drive specialization of neural circuits for math and reading

variables that correlate with intelligence (g)

-genetics: intelligence of other family members (high heritability, twin studies, but genes not reliably identified) -brain volume: head size ( r~ .20); total brain volume (TBV; r ~.30-.40); frontal, temporal, parietal and hippocampal volume (controlling for TBV, r ~ .25); gray matter (r ~ .31) and white matter (r ~ .27) -brain activity: activity in prefrontal (and parietal cortex); neural processing efficiency -cognitive measures: working memory capacity; processing speed

domain general ability

-global knowledge structure, contains whole knowledge internalized by experience -attention, working memory, cognitive control or inhibition (apply to both math and reading and executive function)

working memory (WM)

-holds information for a brief time after it's attended to so that it can be mentally processed, when active thinking occurs (e.g. remembering a phone number) -multiple (multi-modal) WM stores: visual, auditory/verbal -capacity: 5 to 9 items (average of 7) -strategies: chunking (grouping info to reduce WM load) -duration: ~5 seconds -if you don't use it, like memory decay (will lose it) -if you do use it right away, it will go into long term memory -fronto-parietal brain regions

Kosslyn's Zooming Study

-imagine: an elephant next to a rabbit -ask: does the rabbit have two paws? -the logic: if there is a pictorial representation in your head and you are using the image, then it should take you longer to answer if the part is small vs. if it is large -result: the reaction times when a rabbit was with an elephant were slower than a rabbit with a fly

growth mindset

-incremental theory -intelligence is a malleable quality; a potential that can be developed -"I can ignore the low aspirations of my peers" -"I thrive on challenge, I throw myself into difficult tasks, I am self confident" -"I react to failure by trying harder, I engage in self monitoring"

"cool" cognitive control

-lab, alone, hypothetical, low arousal -tends to happen in a very controlled environment, low stakes -dorsolateral prefrontal cortex -parietal cortex -anterior cingulate cortex (error monitoring) -ventromedial prefrontal cortex/orbitofrontal cortex

"hot" cognitive control

-life, in groups, real situations, high arousal -hot tends to happen in real life, how to inhibit decisions when it matters a lot in real life situations, high stakes -medial prefrontal cortex/anterior cingulate cortex -ventromedial prefrontal cortex/orbitofrontal cortex -->teens have the highest percentage of false alarms compared to adults and children (face recognizing task)

measuring intelligence (g) - IQ

-mental age/chronological age x 100 -relatively stable, but still subject to noise and variability -people who had high g when they were young also have high g when they are older, same with low g -The Flynn effect refers to a secular increase in population intelligence quotient (IQ) observed throughout the 20th century -measured IQ vs. SAT score, (higher IQ more likely to do better on SAT math and verbal) -intelligence is a high predictor of later high socioeconomic success, as well as other measures in general

covert attention

-moving attention without moving eyes -stopped paying attention to phone and listened to a song (internal, whether you can see it or not)

how are mindsets transmitted?

-person (fixed) praise: look you got an A! you're really good at math! -process (incremental) praise: look you got an A! you must have worked really hard!

paying attention to learning

-relationship between your answer to a question and whether you got it right or not, then measure the error related positivity -can get it right or wrong with high confidence or low confidence (looking at 4 conditions)

Charles Spearman (1904) general intelligence

-showed that scores on a number of mental aptitude tests were remarkably similar, used factor analysis -proposed g, general intelligence (Spearman's g)

neural correlates of ADHD

-smaller PFC, cerebellum, and BG (basal ganglia) in young boys with ADHD -reduced whole brain WM connectivity -treatment of symptoms typically includes medication, along with psychosocial, behavioral, and educational interventions

bottom-up attention

-something in the world directs your attention -something in your environment told you that you should pay attention

testing effect

-testing as the primary means of assessment of knowledge -tests lead to improved memory and retention -formative=low stakes summative=high stakes

preserved motor learning in HM

-was able to remember motor/procedural learning and improve on a task, unlike someone who didi no experience neurosurgery -first evidence that hippocampus and medial temporal lobe are important in converting short term memories into long term memories -but these are not the only sites for memory, and not sites for motor learning and motor memory

comfort feedback decreases motivation

-when a teacher provided more strategy feedback (what we could do differently next time), this greatly increased students' motivation -greater belief of entity theory after receiving comfort feedback -lower expectations after comfort feedback, higher after strategy feedback -motivation increases after receiving strategy feedback

top-down attention

-you direct your attention to something in the world -your own intuition telling you that you should pay attention to something (wondering how much time is left in lecture, then allocating your attention to the clock)

10) Explain the difference between fixed and growth mindsets. How are they transmitted from adults to children? Which mindset results in more effective learning, and how does neuroscience evidence support that? Use specific examples to support your point.

A fixed mindset is one that assumes intelligence is fixed and cannot grow. A growth mindset is the opposite of this in which one believes that intelligence can grow. These messages are transmitted from adults to children through messages and actions. For instance, a teacher that uses language that has a fixed mindset might opt for more comforting language and tell a student that performed poorly on a math exam "that's OK, not everyone is good at math". Whereas a teacher with a growth mindset might encourage focusing on improvement and providing strategies to encourage progress. Children pick up on the mindsets of adults they interact with. When fixed mindset teachers use comforting language and counterproductive strategies like reducing expectations and workload, students pick up on this and become less motivated. There is neuroscience evidence to support that growth mindsets are more effective for learning. In brain imaging measuring ERPs, results reflected more error-related positivity (Pe) in growth mindset individuals. These findings support that growth mindset individuals are more likely to use the feedback that they got something wrong to prepare for future learning.

8) We know that self-reported preferred learning styles exist, but there is currently a lack of empirical evidence for the "meshing hypothesis". Define this hypothesis, then using the Pashler et al. (2009) study in your readings, describe what would count as acceptable evidence in support of the meshing hypothesis. Then, discuss the evidence that people do have preferred ways of encoding information (e.g.visual/verbal preferences), and convert the input to their preference. Be sure to include both neuroimaging results (name a brain region) and the educational implications the "conversion hypothesis".

According to Pashler et al., in order to be considered acceptable evidence in support of the meshing hypothesis, results would have to reveal cross over interactions that show the learning method that optimized the test score of one kind of learner is different form the method that optimized the test score of another kind of learner. Even though there is a lack of empirical evidence in support of the meshing hypothesis, this does not mean that preferred learning styles are irrelevant. The conversion hypothesis explains that self-reported preferences may be valid in that when those who identify with a self-reported verbal cognitive style are presented with pictures they will generate verbal labels. For individuals who self-report a visual cognitive style the conversion hypothesis explains that they will generate mental images when presented with words. Neuroimaging results revealed that a relationship between cognitive style and brain activity only showed up when people converted input to their self-reported preference. Unlike in the meshing hypothesis where learners are assumed to be passive recipients of information and thus would learn best only in their preferred style, findings suggest that learners are actively taking information in and are able to make conversions to match their preferences despite the modality information is presented in.

How information gets into LTM

Alternative Memory Model: Levels of ProcessingThe more elaborate the processing a stimulus receives,the more likely it is to later be rememberedMultiple Levels of ProcessingPrint: Contains "a"Sound: Rhymes with dogMeaning: A type of animalCraik and Lockhart, 1972Deeper Processing

4) Patient H.M. was the subject of major neuropsychological investigations on long-term memory. What could he do, what couldn't he do? Explain how modern science understands patient H.M.'s ability to exhibit implicit learning or memory even though he was incapable of consolidating new experiences into long-term declarative memories. Make sure to give an example and mention a brain region.

As a child, patient H.M. suffered a head injury. This injury lead to severe grand mal seizures that H.M. experienced multiple times a day. The frequency and severity of his condition had become so debilitating that it was determined the best solution was to surgically remove the parts of his brain that were involved in the seizures. Doctors ended up removing his hippocampus and other medial temporal lobe tissue. This resulted in H.M. losing his ability to form new declarative memories. However, H.M. did not lose the ability to form procedural memories which are processed in different parts of the brain like the basal ganglia and cerebellum. This meant that H.M. was able to perform tasks such as the mirror drawing task and show steady improvements as he practiced it. Although H.M. was able to improve at this task, he had no recollection of practicing and performing this task time and time again. This showed the scientific communities that there are different kinds of memory and different parts of the brain are responsible for their formation.

Two Component Model of Memory

Associative: depends on HC, adult-like by"middle childhood" Strategic: depends on PFC, develops much later Training on strategies improves memory in children (9-10, 11-12 y.o.) more than similar training in elderly adults.

Baddeley's model of Components of Working Memory

Baddeley claims there are four components of working memory: the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad, the central executive, and the episodic buffer. Each component functions separately from the others and processes information used by the memory.

2) Explain the components of Baddeley's model of working memory (right). Based on what we have learned, predict whether WM involves one network of brain regions or several. Make sure to give an example and name at least one brain region in your answer.

Baddeley's model of working memory consists of multiple parts including the central executive, the fluid systems of the visuospatial sketchpad, the episodic buffer, and the phonological loop and crystallized systems of visual semantics, episodic long-term memory, and language. The central executive is the supervisory system that controls the flow of information to and from the short-term storage centers of the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad. The visuospatial sketchpad stores visual information and the phonological loop stores verbal information. The episodic buffer serves to bring visual and auditory information together for storage of sequenced episodic memories in long-term storage. Based on what we have learned, it seems that working memory likely involves several brain networks that work together. Attention recruits a parietal-frontal network, visual sketchpad recruits occipital lobe regions, and the phonological loop recruits language processing areas in temporal regions.

concrete vs. abstract nouns

Concrete nouns are physical things that can be seen, touched, heard, etc.; abstract nouns are nonphysical ideas that cannot be perceived through the senses.

6) We learned that a number of studies support the testing effect, including some that showed the neural mechanisms involved in long-term memory retrieval. Describe one example from the lecture or reading that provides both behavioral and neural evidence that supports the testing effect (making sure to name a brain region and mention methodology). Also, explain what happens in the brain when you study and when you take a test.

Findings based on activations observed in fMRI readings show that there is increased activation in parietal areas for those in who were part of a testing group rather than a study or control group. The first time participants were presented with the stimuli there was increased activation in prefrontal cortex areas indicating that this area is significant in the encoding process. Parietal regions were not active the first time the participants saw the stimulus, but were active, especially in the testing group, when participants were tested on retrieval. These results show that testing is more effective than studying in activating these retrieval-related parietal regions like the left lateral parietal cortex (LLPC). Behaviorally, we have seen that studying will increase feelings of fluency and decrease PFC activation, but it will not help with retrieval which relies on parietal areas that are better activated by testing. Essentially, studying will make you feel more confident and decrease PFC activation associated with feelings of difficulty but it will not increase the ability to retrieve information by recruiting parietal areas. When you take a test, PFC activation may not be as low as studiers, but there will be significantly more parietal activation which will lead to better retrieval. (SKIP?)

9) Levels of cognitive control (CC) at 4 years old have been shown to predict life success and relatively stable across the lifespan. Recent research has also suggested that CC might be influenced by external factors such as environmental reliability. Make an argument for or against CC training as a part of school, taking into consideration the predictive power of CC, the finding that greater improvement in CC might lead to more positive outcomes, and the research on training domain-general abilities. Make sure to give an example and mention neuroimaging evidence in your answer.

I believe that schools should not necessarily incorporate cognitive control training methods for the sake of training cognitive control. Studies we discussed in class showed that activities like meditation and mindfulness can have positive outcomes in emotional regulation but we also learned that there is little evidence for far transfer in brain training. It is not clear if cognitive control training would have any long term benefits associated with higher levels of cognitive control, however it likely wouldn't be harmful (or too demanding resource-wise) to integrate activities such as meditation and mindfulness, into the classroom. I think that the evidence in support of environmental reliability as a major factor on cognitive control is much stronger and thus this is where efforts should be focused. In a study that looked at the influence of environment on cognitive control/delay of gratification in the marshmallow task, results overwhelmingly showed that children exposed to the reliable scientist condition were more likely to delay gratification than children exposed to the unreliable scientist condition. This is why I believe rather than taking deliberate efforts to "train" cognitive control, there should be deliberate efforts to create a school/classroom environment that is readable by children as reliable.

spacing effect

Interrupting the process of forgetting Match the delay between study sessions to the amount of time you want to retain the information

Meshing vs Conversion hypothesis

Meshing: learning styles predict learning gains on academic tasks. --> studies have shown not true Conversion: Verbal cognitive style: Generating verbal labels (even when presented with pictures) Visual cognitive style: Generating mental images(even when presented with words)... not tied to input modality fMRI responses correlate with reported learning preference, but only when people convert from one modality to another

Brain Training

Observational versus experimental evidence Observational: elderly people who are more cognitively active: less likely to become demented Experimental: randomized groups, controls, blinded conditions Training on Lumosity makes you great at Lumosity (ie: Criterion Measure) Training on Lumosity shows small improvements in tasks that are similar. Training on Lumosity shows zero improvements on tasks that are different from the apps The positive correlation between cognitive ability and chess or music does not tell us anything certain about far transfer.

7) We discussed the parieto-frontal integration theory (P-FIT) of intelligence, and noted that the same parietal-frontal networks that are implicated in attention and working memory are also critical in the P-FIT model. Based on this, would you consider intelligence to be domain-general or domain-specific? In your answer, describe an example of research into each of these three abilities showing how this ability works and which brain regions were involved.

Patterns of frontal and parietal activation in intelligence. Many of these areas overlap with working memory and attention networks in the brain-domain general—implicated with everything we do, correlations with other domain general functionsIntelligence, attention, working memory-strong activation in same areas (frontal-parietal areas)Areas recruited in attention networksIPS, SPS, DLPFCSeem highly correlated at behavior level with tasks measuring intelligence, wm, attention (especially control) (SKIP?)

rote memorization

Remembering information by repetition without necessarily understanding the meaning of the information -Might free cognitive resources for more elaborate processing -Relies on verbal processing (premotor, left inferior frontal gyrus = language areas)

5) Explain how studying helps move information from short to long-term memory. Keeping this process in mind, describe two effective study strategies and one effective teaching strategy. Be sure to provide evidence from the readings/lecture for these strategies, and explain how you could use the things we've covered in lecture about the spacing and testing effects to improve exam grades.

Short term memory is where information is temporarily stored and will be lost within 15 seconds if it is not maintained with rehearsal. With enough rehearsal this information is encoded and moves to long term memory. If information stored in long term memory is not retrieved, it may be lost over time. Studying is a way to rehearse information so that it may move from short term memory to long term memory.Two effective study strategies are spacing and testing. In lecture, we discussed that there are over a thousand published experiments that support spacing effects in memory, meaning there is substantial evidence for this phenomenon. Results show that when comparing spacing out studying to an equivalent amount of time spent on massed practice, those who space out their studying will have better long term retention. We also discussed that in experimental groups that were assigned to either study conditions (SSSS) or testing conditions (STTT), those who only did testing rather than studying had better retention of the information over time compared to the study-only group who only showed better retention in the short term. Therefore, if a student wanted to improve their exam grades, the best way to do this would be to use a spacing strategy rather than cramming and testing to practice retrieving the content.Since spacing and testing have shown to be effective in studying, this can also be applied to teaching. For example a teacher could utilize regular low-stakes testing methods to gage student understanding. An example of this in our classroom is Top Hat questions. A teacher could also space out information and bring it up on multiple occasions rather than only mentioning it once. An example of this in our classroom is at the beginning of each class we begin by reviewing slides from previous classes.

1) Discuss the 3-network model of attention, focusing on the function of each of the networks (Alerting, Orienting, and Control). Explain why a deficit in each of these(or multiple) would negatively impact learning. Choose one of these elements of attention and discuss the neural correlates (make sure to given an example and name a brain region)

The 3-network model of attention consists of alerting, orienting, and executive control. The alerting network generates a state of arousal or readiness that is elicited by an unexpected external cue. The orienting network is involved with the shifting of one's attention to a target stimulus in the environment. The executive control network resolves conflicts between competing inputs and selects the most appropriate one dependent on a goal. A deficit in any of these would negatively impact learning because attention must occur for information to enter ones memory. In other words, you must first attend to something before you will be able to process and store it. For example, a deficit in executive control might mean that you become distracted by everything else that is happening in a classroom setting rather than focusing on information from the instructor. The areas of the brain responsible for control are the prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex.

What counts as evidence?

To argue for Meshing Hypothesis, you must have data showing:• 2 different groups (ie: Visual vs Auditory learners)• Half of each group is assigned to learn via the other format (ie: Visual learners assigned to learn from podcast)• Visual learners assigned to learn from visual materials must significantly outperform visual learners assigned to learn from auditory materials

3) We discussed a number of findings that initially seemed to show that attention and working memory can be trained. However, these are not commonly included as targets for improvement in current classroom practice. Explain why not, building on the notions of "near" and "far" transfer discussed in class. What do we now know about transfer of attention and WM training?

Training working memory and attention are not often targeted in classroom practice because findings we now have do not support evidence for far transfer. This means that training working memory and attention would likely not yield significant improvements in other areas such as arithmetic or verbal abilities. A meta-analysis of results for valid studies (meaning they fit certain criteria) of brain training revealed that while this kind of training seemed to perform OK on measures of near transfer, evidence for far transfer was not as impressive. On most measures for far transfer, the effect size was close to zero (meaning no change). These results show that training working memory and attention likely would not be a very good use of classroom resources (time, teacher energy, cost of programs/training, etc.). To get better in certain domains such as math or reading, it is better to practice those specifically rather than trying to achieve improvements through far-transfer effects.

Transfer

Transfer: Training on one skill/task impacts performance on other tasks -Positive: Skills in one domain help in the other -Negative: Skills in one domain interfere in the other -Near: Trained and transfer tasks are similar -Far: Trained and transfer tasks are dissimilar

overt attention

actually moving your eyes in space (moving left to right or looking up or down)

visuospatial sketchpad

being able to count how many windows in your house without being there

function of frontal eye fields

directing eye gaze in space

function of ventromedial PFC

emotion regulation, reasoning and decision making with emotions

episodic buffer

encoding and retrieval long (use this to put stuff into long term memory, also works as an in between for retrieval)

function of premotor area

motor planning

encoding specificity

people who were tested in the same environment that they were trained did much better than those who had mismatched environments

neurocognitive mechanisms of the testing effect

prefrontal areas involved (to help retrieve, to inhibit irrelevance), entire temporal lobe, and parts of parietal lobe as well (processing and retrieval)

primacy effect and recency effect

primacy effect- refers to the better memory people have for items presented at the beginning of the list recency effect- refers to the better memory people have for most recent items, the ones at the end of the list

function of broca's area

productive speech (mouth, tongue portion of the motor cortex)

the Flynn Effect

substantial/sustained increased in fluid and crystallized intelligence over time, measured around the world

fluid intelligence g/Gf

the ability to think abstractly, reason quickly and problem-solve independent of any previously acquired knowledge.

Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory

theory that proposes that intelligence comes from a distributed and integrated network of neurons in the parietal and frontal lobes of the brain

crystallized intelligence Gc

things you either know or you don't, definitive

function of dorsolateral PFC

working memory