Speed or Accuracy Instructions During Skill Learning do not Affect the Acquired Knowledge

Lifespan developmental invariance in memory consolidation: evidence from procedural memory

Characterizing ontogenetic changes across the lifespan is a crucial tool in understanding neurocognitive functions. While age-related changes in learning and memory functions have been extensively characterized in the past decades, the lifespan trajectory of memory consolidation, a critical function that supports the stabilization and long-term retention of memories, is still poorly understood. Here we focus on this fundamental cognitive function and probe the consolidation of procedural memories that underlie cognitive, motor, and social skills and automatic behaviors. We used a lifespan approach: 255 participants aged between 7 and 76 years performed a well-established procedural memory task in the same experimental design across the whole sample. This task enabled us to disentangle two critical processes in the procedural domain: statistical learning and general skill learning. The former is the ability to extract and learn predictable patterns of the environment, while the latter captures a general speed-up as learning progresses due to improved visuomotor coordination and other cognitive processes, independent of acquisition of the predictable patterns. To measure the consolidation of statistical and general skill knowledge, the task was administered in two sessions with a 24-h delay between them. Here, we report successful retention of statistical knowledge with no differences across age groups. For general skill knowledge, offline improvement was observed over the delay period, and the degree of this improvement was also comparable across the age groups. Overall, our findings reveal age invariance in these two key aspects of procedural memory consolidation across the human lifespan.

Do temporal factors affect whether our performance accurately reflects our underlying knowledge? The effects of stimulus presentation rates on the performance versus competence dissociation

Ample evidence shows that the momentary performance can dissociate from the underlying knowledge (competence). Under what circumstances such dissociation occurs, however, remains unclear. Here we tested how temporal factors, and more specifically, the elapsed time between subsequent events affects the dissociation between performance and competence by systematically manipulating the stimulus presentation rates during and after learning. Participants completed a probabilistic sequence learning task with a fast (120 msec) or a slow (850 msec) response-to-stimulus-interval (RSI) during the Learning phase and they were tested with both RSIs 24 h later (Testing phase). We also tested whether they gained explicit knowledge about the sequence or their knowledge remained implicit. Our results revealed higher reaction time learning scores when tested with the fast RSI, irrespective of the RSI during learning, suggesting that faster presentation rates can help better express the acquired knowledge, leading to increased performance measures. For accuracy, participants showed higher learning scores when tested with the same presentation rate as the one that they encountered during learning. The acquired knowledge remained implicit in both groups, suggesting that the observed findings were not confounded by differences in awareness gained in the two groups. Overall, our study highlights that the momentary performance does not always accurately reflect the underlying knowledge, and temporal factors seem to influence this dissociation. Our findings have theoretical, methodological, and translational implications that likely extend beyond learning and memory to other functions and domains as well, including aspects of decision-making, perception, theory of mind, and language.

Speed and accuracy instructions affect two aspects of skill learning differently

Procedural learning is key to optimal skill learning and is essential for functioning in everyday life. The findings of previous studies are contradictory regarding whether procedural learning can be modified by prioritizing speed or accuracy during learning. The conflicting results may be due to the fact that procedural learning is a multifaceted cognitive function. The purpose of our study is to determine whether and how speed and accuracy instructions affect two aspects of procedural learning: the learning of probability-based and serial-order-based regularities. Two groups of healthy individuals were instructed to practice on a cued probabilistic sequence learning task: one group focused on being fast and the other on being accurate during the learning phase. The speed instruction resulted in enhanced expression of probability-based but not serial-order-based knowledge. After a retention period, we instructed the participants to focus on speed and accuracy equally, and we tested their acquired knowledge. The acquired knowledge was comparable between groups in both types of learning. These findings suggest that different aspects of procedural learning can be affected differently by instructions. However, only momentary performance might be boosted by speed instruction; the acquired knowledge remains intact. In addition, as the accuracy instruction resulted in accuracy near ceiling level, the results illustrate that response errors are not needed for humans to learn in the procedural domain and draw attention to the fact that different instructions can separate competence from performance.

The Effects of Cooperative and Competitive Situations on Statistical Learning

Devising cooperative or competitive situations is an important teaching strategy in educational practices. Nevertheless, there is still controversy regarding which situation is better for learning. This study was conducted to explore the effects of cooperative and competitive situations on statistical learning, through the alternating serial reaction time (ASRT) task. Individual cooperative and competitive situations were devised in this study, in which individual situation served as the control condition. Ninety recruited participants were randomly assigned to a cooperative, competitive, or individual group to perform the ASRT task. For general learning, cooperative and competitive situations could indeed make learners respond faster, and there was no significant difference in the RT between the cooperative and competitive groups. Moreover, statistical learning was observed in all three groups. An additional analysis of the early stage of the experiment showed that the learning effect of the competitive group was greater than those of the cooperative and individual groups, in terms of statistical learning. However, the final learning effect was not significantly different among the three groups. Overall, the cooperative and competitive situations had a positive impact on learning and enabled the students to acquire approximately the same learning effect in a shorter time period, compared with the individual situation. Specifically, the competitive situation accelerated the statistical learning process but not the general learning process.

Does an interference task immediately after practice prevent memory consolidation of sequence-specific learning?

[Purpose] Learning of movement procedures (sequence learning) is essential in physical therapy. Studies have shown that sequence-specific learning may be integrated from an early stage. This study examines the effect of an interference task on the retention of sequence-specific learning. [Participants and Methods] Young adults were randomly divided into a control group and an interference task group, and two experiments were performed. In each experiment, the control group practiced task A in both the acquisition phase and the retention phase four to five hours later. The Interference group practiced task A in the acquisition phase followed by task B, which is similar to the interference task, and then performed task A in the retention phase four to five hours later. In Experiment 2, the amount of practice for task A in the practice phase was 25% of that in Experiment 1. [Results] Sequence-specific learning occurred in the early stages of practice. In particular, the performance of Experiment 1 reached the ceiling. The results of the retention test showed no significant interference effect due to similar tasks. [Conclusion] Implicit sequence-specific learning stabilizes performance early and is not affected by interference tasks.

Regular rhythmic and audio-visual stimulations enhance procedural learning of a perceptual-motor sequence in healthy adults: A pilot study

Procedural learning is essential for the effortless execution of many everyday life activities. However, little is known about the conditions influencing the acquisition of procedural skills. The literature suggests that sensory environment may influence the acquisition of perceptual-motor sequences, as tested by a Serial Reaction Time Task. In the current study, we investigated the effects of auditory stimulations on procedural learning of a visuo-motor sequence. Given that the literature shows that regular rhythmic auditory rhythm and multisensory stimulations improve motor speed, we expected to improve procedural learning (reaction times and errors) with repeated practice with auditory stimulations presented either simultaneously with visual stimulations or with a regular tempo, compared to control conditions (e.g., with irregular tempo). Our results suggest that both congruent audio-visual stimulations and regular rhythmic auditory stimulations promote procedural perceptual-motor learning. On the contrary, auditory stimulations with irregular or very quick tempo alter learning. We discuss how regular rhythmic multisensory stimulations may improve procedural learning with respect of a multisensory rhythmic integration process.

Cautious or causal? Key implicit sequence learning paradigms should not be overlooked when assessing the role of DLPFC (Commentary on Prutean et al.)

The role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in implicit sequence/statistical learning has received considerable attention in recent cognitive neuroscience research. Studies have used non-invasive brain stimulation methods to test whether the DLPFC plays a role in the incidental acquisition and expression of implicit sequence learning. In a recent study, Prutean et al. has concluded that stimulating the left or the right DLPFC might not affect the expression of implicit sequence learning measured by the Serial Reaction Time (SRT) task. The authors speculated that the previous results revealing improved implicit sequence learning following DLPFC stimulation might have been found because explicit awareness accumulated with the use of Alternating Serial Reaction Time (ASRT) task. Our response presents solid evidence that the ASRT task measures implicit sequence learning that remains unconscious both at the judgment and structural level. Therefore, contrary to the conclusion of Prutean et al., we argue that the DLPFC could have a crucial effect on implicit sequence learning that may be task-dependent. We suggest that future research should focus on the specific cognitive processes that may be differentially involved in the SRT versus ASRT tasks, and test what the role of the DLPFC is in those specific cognitive processes.

Statistical learning occurs during practice while high-order rule learning during rest period

Knowing when the brain learns is crucial for both the comprehension of memory formation and consolidation and for developing new training and neurorehabilitation strategies in healthy and patient populations. Recently, a rapid form of offline learning developing during short rest periods has been shown to account for most of procedural learning, leading to the hypothesis that the brain mainly learns during rest between practice periods. Nonetheless, procedural learning has several subcomponents not disentangled in previous studies investigating learning dynamics, such as acquiring the statistical regularities of the task, or else the high-order rules that regulate its organization. Here we analyzed 506 behavioral sessions of implicit visuomotor deterministic and probabilistic sequence learning tasks, allowing the distinction between general skill learning, statistical learning, and high-order rule learning. Our results show that the temporal dynamics of apparently simultaneous learning processes differ. While high-order rule learning is acquired offline, statistical learning is evidenced online. These findings open new avenues on the short-scale temporal dynamics of learning and memory consolidation and reveal a fundamental distinction between statistical and high-order rule learning, the former benefiting from online evidence accumulation and the latter requiring short rest periods for rapid consolidation.

Prompting teaching modulates children's encoding of novel information by facilitating higher-level structure learning and hindering lower-level statistical learning

Young children are not only prepared to learn from teaching, but they also start to spontaneously teach others, indicating that teaching is a natural instinct of the humankind. During childhood, teaching seems to precede the emergence of several cognitive abilities, so the question arises: how does teaching affect the development of later emerging cognitive skills? Since teaching requires explicit, accessible representations of the knowledge of the teacher, we hypothesized that the motivation to teach might impact the way children encode novel information, by biasing them towards a model-based encoding, which can help them to structure the incoming information in a more abstract and explicitly accessible way. In our study, 7-10-year-old children were presented with a well-established probabilistic sequence learning task on two consecutive days, after receiving an instruction that on the second day, they would have to teach a peer about the task. During the task, we could simultaneously measure two different types of learning: model-free learning of local (lower-level) statistical correlations and model-based learning of the global (higher-level) statistical structures of the sequences. We predicted that in case the motivation to teach facilitates model-based encoding, children who received the instruction to teach would perform better in learning the higher-level statistical structures than children in the control group, who did not receive an instruction to teach. Furthermore, since previous studies showed competition between the two types of encoding processes during development, we also predicted that facilitating children's model-based learning will impair their model-free learning of the lower-level statistical correlations. Our results confirmed both predictions, showing an improved model-based higher-level structure learning and an impaired model-free lower-level statistical correlation learning in the Teaching Group, compared to the controls. Thus, prompting teaching affects children's encoding of the novel information, by biasing them to learn in a model-based way, which can help to build more abstract and explicitly accessible representations that could be shared with others.