Search results for "learning effect"

2020

Learning to associate written letters with speech sounds is crucial for the initial phase of acquiring reading skills. However, little is known about the cortical reorganization for supporting letter-speech sound learning, particularly the brain dynamics during the learning of grapheme-phoneme associations. In the present study, we trained 30 Finnish participants (mean age: 24.33 years, SD: 3.50 years) to associate novel foreign letters with familiar Finnish speech sounds on two consecutive days (first day ​~ ​50 ​min; second day ​~ ​25 ​min), while neural activity was measured using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Two sets of audiovisual stimuli were used for the training in which the graphe…

Quantifying sunk costs and learning effects in R&D persistence

2020

Abstract This paper analyzes and quantifies the fundamental factors that are likely to cause persistence in performing R&D activities: the existence of sunk costs associated with R&D activities and the process of learning that characterizes this type of activity. We estimate our model with Spanish manufacturing firms for the period 1991-2014. By decomposing the effects of sunk costs and learning effects, we find that both are important determinants of R&D persistence, and that failing to allow for learning systematically overestimates sunk cost effects. Both large firms and SMEs benefit from direct and indirect (via productivity) effects of R&D experience, but in large firms this is more li…

Computational evidence that frequency trajectory theory does not oppose but emerges from age-of-acquisition theory.

2012

International audience; According to the age-of-acquisition hypothesis, words acquired early in life are processed faster and more accurately than words acquired later. Connectionist models have begun to explore the influence of the age/order of acquisition of items (and also their frequency of encounter). This study attempts to reconcile two different methodological and theoretical approaches (proposed by Lambon Ralph & Ehsan, 2006 and Zevin & Seidenberg, 2002) to age-limited learning effects. The current simulations extend the findings reported by Zevin and Seidenberg (2002) that have shown that frequency trajectories (FTs) have limited and specific effects on word-reading tasks. Using th…

Individual Creativity and Career Choices of Pre-teens in the Context of a Math-Art Learning Event

2021

A sample of 392 students (aged 12-13 years, M± SD: 12. 52% girls) completed a learning module integrating informal hands-on mathematics and arts activity (extending STEM to STEAM). Within a 140 minute workshop period participants worked with commercially available ‘4Dframe’ Math and STEAM learning toolkits to design and create original, personal and individual geometrical structures. Two science pedagogues acted as tutors supervising the process and intervened only when needed. A pre-/post-test design monitored individual creativity, relative autonomy, and career choice preference. Path analysis elaborated the role of creativity (measured with two subscales: act and flow), and it showed tha…

Positive Effects of Videogame Use on Visuospatial Competencies: The Impact of Visualization Style in Preadolescents and Adolescents

2019

Use of videogames (VGs) is almost ubiquitous in preadolescents' and adolescents' everyday life. One of the most intriguing research topics about positive effects of VG use is about the domain of visuospatial competencies. Previous research show that training with videogames enables children and adolescents to improve their scores in visuospatial tests (such as mental rotation of shapes and cubes), and that such training could overcome gender differences in these domains. Our study aimed at (1) verifying the positive effects of videogame use in the visuospatial domain both for male and female adolescents and preadolescents and (2) verifying whether the visualization style (2D or isometric 3D…

Foreign Takeovers and Wages: Theory and Evidence from Hungary

2005

This study discriminates FDI technology spillover from learning effects. Whenever learning takes time, our model predicts that foreign investors deduct the economic value of learning from wages of inexperienced workers and add it to experienced ones to prevent them from moving to local competitors. Hence, the national wage bill is unaffected by foreign takeovers. In contrast to learning, technology spillover effects occur whenever a worker with MNE experience contributes more to local firms' than to MNEs' productivity. In this case, experienced MNE workers are hired by local firms and the host country obtains a welfare gain. We investigate empirically wages, productivity, and worker turnove…

Rapid changes in brain activity during learning of grapheme-phoneme associations in adults

2020

ABSTRACTLearning to associate written letters with speech sounds is crucial for the initial phase of acquiring reading skills. However, little is known about the cortical reorganization for supporting letter-speech sound learning, particularly the brain dynamics during the learning of grapheme-phoneme associations. In the present study, we trained 30 Finnish participants (mean age: 24.33 years, SD: 3.50 years) to associate novel foreign letters with familiar Finnish speech sounds on two consecutive days (first day ~ 50 minutes; second day ~ 25 minutes), while neural activity was measured using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Two sets of audiovisual stimuli were used for the training in which …

Best not to bet on the horserace: A comment on Forrin and MacLeod (2017) and a relevant stimulus-response compatibility view of colour-word contingen…

2018

International audience; One powerfully robust method for the study of human contingency learning is the colour-word contingency learning paradigm. In this task, participants respond to the print colour of neutral words, each of which is presented most often in one colour. The contingencies between words and colours are learned, as indicated by faster and more accurate responses when words are presented in their expected colour relative to an unexpected colour. In a recent report, Forrin and MacLeod (2017b, Memory & Cognition) asked to what extent this performance (i.e., response time) measure of learning might depend on the relative speed of processing of the word and the colour. With keypr…

The Stability-Plasticity Dilemma: Investigating the Continuum from Catastrophic Forgetting to Age-Limited Learning Effects

2013

The stability-plasticity dilemma is a well-know constraint for artificial and biological neural systems. The basic idea is that learning in a parallel and distributed system requires plasticity for the integration of new knowledge, but also stability in order to prevent the forgetting of previous knowledge. Too much plasticity will result in previously encoded data being constantly forgotten, whereas too much stability will impede the efficient coding of this data at the level of the synapses. However, for the most part, neural computation has addressed the problems related to excessive plasticity or excessive stability as two different fields in the literature.

Further development of a commercial driving simulation for research in occupational medicine

2012

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to refine a commercial car driving simulation for occupational research. As the effects of ethanol on driving behavior are well established, we choose alcohol as a test compound to investigate the performance of subjects during simulation. Materials and Methods: We programmed a night driving scenario consisting of monotonous highway and a rural road on a Foerst F10-P driving simulator. Twenty healthy men, 19-30 years, participated in a pilot study. Subjects were screened for simulator sickness, followed by training on the simulator one hour in total. Experiments were performed in the morning on a separate day. Participants were randomized into eithe…