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PubMed2005

A blueprint for interprofessional learning.

Interprofessional education (IPE) has been promoted as a method to enhance the ability of health professionals to learn to work together. This article examines several approaches to learning that can help IPE fulfill its expectations. The first is aimed at the transfer of learning novel situations and involves two ideas. Students need to be challenged with progressively more complex tasks and those tasks need to reflect the reality in which they will be working. Second, the learning situation needs to be structured using the five elements of best-practice cooperative learning: positive interdependence, face-to-face promotive interaction, individual accountability, interpersonal and small-group skills, and group processing. Finally, the learning process itself needs to be approached from an experiential learning framework cycling through the four-stage model of planning, doing, observing and reflecting. By using increasingly complex and relevant cases in cooperative groups with an experiential learning process interprofessional education can be successful.

Canada↗
PubMed2002

Improvement of spatial learning and memory after adenovirus-mediated transfer of the nerve growth factor gene to aged rat brain.

Adenovirus-mediated transfer of the nerve growth factor gene promotes significant recovery of age-related cholinergic neuronal deficits in aged rats, but the effects of such treatment on cognitive dysfunction remain unclear. Herein we report a beneficial effect of first-generation adenovirus-mediated nerve growth factor gene transfer (AdNGF) on the spatial learning and memory of aged rats. The NGF protein was detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in cerebrospinal fluid as early as 3 days after gene transfer and was expressed for at least 30 days. Escape latency in the Morris water maze hidden-platform test was significantly improved on day 8 postinoculation in memory-impaired rats treated with AdNGF as well as at later testing intervals. Ultimately, the escape latency values for the AdNGF group become indistinguishable from those for aged rats with normal learning capacity. Immunohistochemical analysis of septal cholinergic neurons for choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) showed significant increases in both the number and somal distribution of ChAT-positive cells after inoculation of memory-impaired rats with AdNGF. Improvement in memory performance was positively correlated with increases in both NGF concentration in cerebrospinal fluid (r = 0.73, p = 0.005) and the number of ChAT-staining cells (r = 0.77, p = 0.0022). We conclude that AdNGF can improve cognitive function in memory-impaired aged rats and, with refinements in vector-driven expression of the transgene, may prove suitable for use in humans.

Animals↗
PubMed1979

Generalization by autistic-type children of verbal responses across settings.

Generalization of verbal behavior by autistic-type children across physically different settings was assessed. Four boys learned responses to common questions in two settings at school and were probed to determine transfer of learning to home. Three of the children demonstrated little generalization to home when trained in a cubicle. Greater generalization was indicated when they received training at varied locations. The fourth child generalized most responses to his home regardless of training setting. Simple manipulations of the school environment to more closely simulate home conditions may facilitate transfer of training to the natural environment.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1998

Perceptual learning in tactile hyperacuity: complete intermanual transfer but limited retention.

We investigated intermanual transfer and long-term retention of practice-related perceptual learning in the domain of tactile hyperacuity. Subjects discriminated a row of three dots in which the central dot was offset laterally from a row without such offset. Performance at the right index fingerpad improved with practice. Practice effects transferred essentially completely to the left index fingerpad. When tested some months later at the right index fingerpad, long-term retention of learning was limited and further practice was required to stabilize discrimination thresholds. Intermanual transfer of tactile learning appears to be a general phenomenon, while long-term retention appears to be limited in hyperacuity tasks.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Is interlimb transfer of force-field adaptation a cognitive response to the sudden introduction of load?

Recently, Criscimagna-Hemminger et al. (2003) reported a pattern of generalization of force-field adaptation between arms that differs from the pattern that occurs across different configurations of the same arm. Although the intralimb pattern of generalization points to an intrinsic encoding of dynamics, the interlimb transfer described by these authors indicates that information about force is represented in a frame of reference external to the body. In the present study, subjects adapted to a viscous curl-field in two experimental conditions. In one condition, the field was introduced suddenly and produced clear deviations in hand paths; in the second condition, the field was introduced gradually so that at no point during the adaptation process could subjects observe or did they have to correct for a substantial kinematic error. In the first case, a pattern of interlimb transfer consistent with Criscimagna-Hemminger et al. (2003) was observed, whereas no transfer of learning between limbs occurred in the second condition. The findings suggest that there is limited transfer of fine compensatory-force adjustment between limbs. Transfer, when it does occur, may be primarily the result of a cognitive strategy that arises as a result of the sudden introduction of load and associated kinematic error.

Adaptation, Physiological↗
PubMed2001

Procedural motor learning in Parkinson's disease.

We have been investigating motor control and learning in parkinsonian subjects. In the current study, we sought to explore the existence of deficits in procedural motor learning, which is a form of implicit motor learning where skill improves over repetitive blocks of trials. We sought to determine, in particular, whether any such deficit is accentuated during specific types or phases of learning. We would expect that those specific learning tasks would require the greatest participation of the basal ganglia. Numerous studies have found that Parkinson's disease (PD) patients may show deficits in learning. Combined with information about basal ganglia neuronal connections and activity, this led some investigators to suggest that one of the key functions of the basal ganglia is to facilitate learning. To investigate these learning deficits, we used a robotic device to generate conservative force fields that disturbed the subjects' arm movements, thereby generating a "virtual mechanical environment" that subjects learned to manipulate. Movements were successively grouped into blocks comprising five different conditions: motor performance, early learning, late learning, negative transfer, and aftereffect motor performance. Our results with eight right-handed PD subjects and nine age-matched controls showed a relative decrease in the rate of learning for the PD patients in all blocks, but greater differences emerged between groups during novelty phases of learning. In particular, the difference in performance during the negative transfer condition reached statistical significance, suggesting that the basal ganglia might be a key center for "switching" motor patterns. Our results support the hypothesis that deficiencies in procedural motor learning are characteristic of PD. They add to existing evidence which has suggested a key role for the basal ganglia when new sensorimotor mappings are required by novel task environments. Better understanding of these deficits should facilitate the rehabilitation of PD patients.

Aged↗
PubMed2000

Conceptual and motor learning in music performance.

Are the mental plans for action abstract or specified in terms of the movements with which they are produced? We report motor independence for expert music performance but not for novice performance in a transfer-of-learning task. Skilled adult pianists practiced musical pieces and transferred to new pieces with the same or different motor (hand and finger) requirements and conceptual (melodic) relations. Greatest transfer in sequence duration was observed when the same conceptual relations were retained from training to transfer, regardless of motor movements. In a second experiment, novice child pianists performed the same task. More experienced child pianists showed transfer on both the motor and the conceptual dimensions; the least experienced child pianists demonstrated transfer only to sequences with identical motor and conceptual dimensions. These findings suggest that mental plans for action become independent of the required movements only at advanced skill levels.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Discrete and contextual cue alterations eliminate the instrumental appetitive-to-aversive transfer impairment in phenytoin-treated rats.

We have shown previously that the antiepileptic phenytoin impairs transfer in an instrumental learning task (Banks et al., 1999). The present study examined the effects of contextual alterations on appetitive-to-aversive transfer performance of rats treated with either phenytoin or tang. Adult rats were tested in tone-signaled appetitive and aversive instrumental tasks, where the animal bar-pressed to obtain a food reward (sugar pellet) or to avoid shock. Rats were trained on the appetitive task for 31 days. Beginning on the twenty-first day, rats were gavaged with either phenytoin or tang twice daily. Animals were then transferred to aversive training, with the phenytoin or tang treatment continuing throughout the 25 testing days. For some animals, contextual changes were introduced as they shifted from appetitive to aversive training, while for other animals these changes were not made. Phenytoin-treated rats that were presented with changes in context as they transferred from the appetitive to the aversive task learned the avoidance response to levels substantially higher than drug-treated rats not presented with the contextual changes. These results indicate that phenytoin impairs avoidance learning following transfer from the appetitive task, and that this impairment can be eliminated by introducing changes in context at the point of transfer. In the tang-treated control subjects, on the other hand, there was no improvement in transfer learning performance associated with the changes in contextual cues. This pattern of results suggests that contextual encoding processes in rats being trained in an instrumental appetitive-to-aversive paradigm are dramatically affected by phenytoin.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2004

An action video game modifies visual processing.

In a recent paper, Shawn Green and Daphne Bavelier show that playing an action video game markedly improved subjects performance on a range of visual skills related to detecting objects in briefly flashed displays. This is noteworthy as previous studies on perceptual learning, which have commonly focused on well-controlled and rather abstract tasks, found little transfer of learning to novel stimuli, let alone to different tasks. The data suggest that video game playing modifies visual processing on different levels: some effects are compatible with increased attentional resources, whereas others point to changes in preattentive processing.

Association Learning↗
PubMed1996

Three remarks on perceptual learning.

This essay makes three points. (1) From the failure of perceptual learning to transfer when stimulus parameters are changed, it cannot necessarily be concluded that the site of learning is distal: rather, the learning may be central and the specificity may lie in what is learnt. (2) Mere exposure to a stimulus may not be sufficient for learning: even in the absence of explicit feedback, other sources of information are often available in a perceptual learning task. (3) Procedural learning may sometimes be apparent only after a delay: this phenomenon has a long history and is known as reminiscence.

Humans↗
PubMed2002

When and where do we apply what we learn? A taxonomy for far transfer.

Despite a century's worth of research, arguments surrounding the question of whether far transfer occurs have made little progress toward resolution. The authors argue the reason for this confusion is a failure to specify various dimensions along which transfer can occur, resulting in comparisons of "apples and oranges." They provide a framework that describes 9 relevant dimensions and show that the literature can productively be classified along these dimensions, with each study situated at the intersection of various dimensions. Estimation of a single effect size for far transfer is misguided in view of this complexity. The past 100 years of research shows that evidence for transfer under some conditions is substantial, but critical conditions for many key questions are untested.

Attention↗
PubMed2005

Sequence learning: response structure and effector transfer.

Two experiments are reported that investigate the response structure and effector transfer of repeated movement sequences. Participants moved a lever to targets sequentially presented on the computer monitor. In Experiment 1 the learning of 10- and 16-element sequences (identical movement pattern) was contrasted. After 1 day of practice the 10-element sequence was organized into fewer subsequences and, thus, performed more rapidly than the 16-element sequence. The imposed organization appeared to be coded in a relatively abstract way, as evidenced by effector transfer that was as good as that on the retention test. In Experiment 2 the 16-element sequence was studied after more extensive practice. By the end of 4 days of practice the participants produced relatively seamless responses void of obvious transitions between subsequences, but the control of the movement was less effector independent than observed earlier in practice. The results suggest that the process of consolidating the sequence, which led to more fluent response production, also resulted in the utilization of effector specific information.

Computers↗
PubMed1989

Base-rate effects in category learning: a comparison of parallel network and memory storage-retrieval models.

Exemplar-memory and adaptive network models were compared in application to category learning data, with special attention to base rate effects on learning and transfer performance. Subjects classified symptom charts of hypothetical patients into disease categories, with informative feedback on learning trials and with the feedback either given or withheld on test trials that followed each fourth of the learning series. The network model proved notably accurate and uniformly superior to the exemplar model in accounting for the detailed course of learning; both the parallel, interactive aspect of the network model and its particular learning algorithm contribute to this superiority. During learning, subjects' performance reflected both category base rates and feature (symptom) probabilities in a nearly optimal manner, a result predicted by both models, though more accurately by the network model. However, under some test conditions, the data showed substantial base-rate neglect, in agreement with Gluck and Bower (1988b).

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Students' perception of the psycho-social clinical learning environment: an evaluation of placement models.

Nursing is a practice based discipline. A supportive environment has been identified as important for the transfer of learning in the clinical context. The aim of the paper was to assess undergraduate nurses' perceptions of the psychosocial characteristics of clinical learning environments within three different clinical placement models. Three hundred and eight-nine undergraduate nursing students rated their perceptions of the psycho-social learning environment using a Clinical Learning Environment Inventory. There were 16 respondents in the Preceptor model category, 269 respondents in the Facilitation model category and 114 respondents in the clinical education unit model across 25 different clinical areas in one tertiary facility. The most positive social climate was associated with the preceptor model. On all subscales the median score was rated higher than the two other models. When clinical education units were compared with the standard facilitation model the median score was rated higher in all of the subscales in the Clinical Learning Environment Inventory. These results suggest that while preceptoring is an effective clinical placement strategy that provides psycho-social support for students, clinical education units that are more sustainable through their placement of greater numbers of students, can provide greater psycho-social support for students than traditional models.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗