Learning and Transfer in Context
Robert GoldstoneJi Son
Indiana UniversityDepartment of Psychological and Brain Science
Program in Cognitive Science
How do we learn in a way that is general and transportable?
• Through strategic decontextualizations
• By learning contextualized, grounded system
Arguments for decontextualized scenarios• Transfer depends on understandings that are not tied to their context
• Better transfer from simplified to rich forms than vice versa (Bassok & Holyoak, 1989; Son, Smith, & Goldstone, 2008)
• Better transfer from idealized, relative to concrete, forms to an isomorphic situation (Goldstone & Sakamoto, 2003; Goldstone & Son, 2005)
• Better understanding of the formal properties of a system from simple symbols than rich instances (Kaminsky, Sloutsky, & Heckler, 2008; Sloutsky, Kaminski, & Heckler, 2005)
• Competition between symbolic and physical interpretations of objects (DeLoache, 1991; Uttal, Liu, & DeLoache, 1999)
Info Reset Adjust Quiz
Paint Erase Place Move
Clear
Graph Updating
Number of ants Pen Size
Closest Rate Not Closest Rate
Time
IdealizedConcrete
Son, Smith, & Goldstone (2008)
Goldstone & Sakamoto (2003)
Kaminsky, Sloutsky, & Heckler (2008)
Uttal, Liu, & DeLoache (2006)
IdealizedConcrete
Arguments for contextualization• Reasoning is facilitated when the domain is concrete rather than abstract
(Wason & Shapiro, 1971, Johnson-Laird, Legrenzi, & Legrenzi, 1972)
• Knowledge is grounded in perception (Barsalou, 1998), action (Glenberg, 1997), or visuo-spatial models (Lakoff & Nuñez, 2000).
• People often perform tasks better in rich, real-world contexts than in laboratories or classrooms (Lave, 1988; Nunes, Schliemann, & Carraher, 1993)
• Learning that is grounded in authentic learning experiences is often more meaningful to students (Barab & Roth, 2006; Ladson-Billings, 1995)
Kinds of Contextualizations
Context Contextualized DecontextualizedPerceptual Visuo-spatial
grounding, realistic and rich
Amodal, symbolic, idealized
Experiential Active exploration Direct instruction
Textual voice First or second person (I, you)
Third person (she)
Narrative Specific, rich General, sparse
Problems Real-world, authentic
Invented, Idealized
Cultural Culturally meaningful
Outside of one’s culture
Kinds of Contextualizations
Context Contextualized DecontextualizedPerceptual Visuo-spatial
grounding, realistic and rich
Amodal, symbolic, idealized
ExperientialExperiment 1
Active exploration Direct instruction
Textual voiceExperiment 2
First or second person (I, you)
Third person (she)
NarrativeExperiment 3
Specific, rich General, sparse
Problems Real-world, authentic
Invented, Idealized, arbitrary
Cultural Culturally meaningful
Outside of one’s culture
Experiment 1: Experiential contextualizationSon & Goldstone (in press, Cognition & Instruction)
• Experience-based learning– Constructivism (Savery & Duffy, 1994)– Problem-based learning (Grabinger & Dunlap, 1995)– Active control by learner (Schwartz & Bransford, 1998)
• Direct instruction– More children learn about experimental control from direct instruction than discovery learning
(Klahr & Nigam, 2004)– Cognitive load (Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark, 2006)– Possible inefficiences of problem-based learning (Albanese & Mitchell, 1993)
Signal Detection Theory (SDT)• Decision making under uncertainty
– Target is either present or absent– Observers judge presence based on signal strength in noise– Critical notions: evidence, decision, criterion, outcomes (false alarms, correct rejects, hits, misses)– Useful because of wide applicability
• All subjects receive a graphical and textual tutorial– A doctor diagnosing patients as having leukemia based on distortion level of cells– Half of subjects receive categorization experience - see distorted cells and categorize patients, with feedback– Training quiz
• Transfer to second SDT situation– Farmers diagnosing melons as ripe or not, based upon the imperfect predictor of weights– Transfer Quiz
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The doctor decides these people are
“healthy”…
…and these people are
“sick”.
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S S SS
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HH
Later on, he found out who was actually sick and who was actually healthy:
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SSS
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Later on, he found out who was actually sick and who was actually healthy:
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“healthy” / sick
“sick” / sick
“healthy” / healthy
“sick” / healthy
S
S SSS
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…BUT also decides “sick” when they are
actually healthy.S
S S
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HH
After… he does not decide
“healthy” when they are actually sick…
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“healthy” / sick
“sick” / sick
“healthy” / healthy
“sick” / healthy
The number of actually healthy and unhealthy people are the same two months in a row. However, in the second month, the doctor is diagnosing more patients as healthy when they are actually healthy and more people as healthy when they are actually unhealthy. What must have changed in the second month?
A)The doctor must be diagnosing people with more distorted cells as healthy.
B)The doctor must be diagnosing people with less distorted cells as healthy.
C)The doctor must be diagnosing more people who are actually healthy as unhealthy.
D)The doctor must have become better at diagnosing healthy people.
Doctor Quiz
Does active experience help?
Doctor diagnosis experience + tutorial
Transfer story about a French town trying to export sweet melons.
Melon quiz
Only tutorial
Experience hurts performance (particularly transfer)
• Playing with a model interferes with treating it symbolically (DeLoache, 2005)
• Students interpret the training scenario too narrowly in terms of doctors rather than more generally in terms of signal detection theory
Experiment 1 Results
Which of the following decision strategies will ensure that the doctor maximizes the number of actually healthy people he diagnoses as healthy?
A. diagnose everyone as healthy.B. look more carefully at the cell distortion levels before his diagnosis.C. examine the ratio of sick patients with distorted cells to sick patients with pure cells before his diagnosis.D. examine the ratio of patients with distorted cells to patients with pure cells before his diagnosis.
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17
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0
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24
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14
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25
A B C D
how many peoplectrl
exp
Correct but unintuitive
Experiment 2: Textual voice
• Contextualization through grammatical voice of narrative• The second-person pronoun (“you”) has been recommended for text
books: “The use of the second person pronoun you also connects the reader to the mathematics because it speaks to the reader directly” (Herbel-Eisenman & Wagner, 2005; Moreno & Mayer, 2004)
• Third-person voice (“he”) fosters position of reader as detached, omniscient observer (Duchan, Brewer, & Hewitt, 1995; Graesser et al., 1996)
• Does placing participants in the story by use of the second-person pronoun help or hurt comprehension and transfer of principles?
Imagine a doctor who looks at blood samples to check if his patients have leukemia, a
cancer of the bone marrow.
Since bone marrow produces blood cells, the doctor can look for distorted blood cells to
help him diagnose his patients.
Imagine that you are a doctor who looks at blood samples to check if your patients have
leukemia, a cancer of the bone marrow.
Since bone marrow produces blood cells, you can look for distorted blood cells to diagnose
your patients.
Experience hurts performance (particularly transfer)
• Greater contextualization interferes with domain-general transfer of SDT principles
• Cost of maintaining counter-factual?
Experiment 2 Results
The towns sets a 1750 gm minimum weight but they do not know which melons are sweet or bitter. How many melons that weighed 1500 gm were rejected?
Third-person
Second-person
Only including sweet melonsIncluding all melons
Experiment 3: Narrative specificity
• Contextualization by presenting a specific, well-known scenario• Vivid information is better remembered than pallid information
(Nisbett & Ross, 1980)• Education researchers have recommended presenting materials with
well-known celebrities and culturally relevant contexts (Ladson-Billings, 1995)
• But salient specific details may interfere with extraction of abstract structure and transfer (Kaminski, Sloutsky, & Heckler, 2005, 2008)
• Initial scenario: either generic doctor or Derek Shepard™from the TV show “Gray’s Anatomy”
A strong difference between generic and specific conditions is only found for participants familiar with show
Generic Specific
Experiment 3 Results
Conclusions
• Distinguish types of contextualization• Increasing contextualization is not always a good thing• Tension between scaffolding understanding by a concrete
grounding and tying knowledge too tightly to a specific domain
• Potential dissociation between engagement and deep understanding
Approximately what percentage of all 1000 gram melons (1 kg) are sweet?
A. 10%B. 25%C. 33%D. 50% E. 66%
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A B C D E
how many peoplectrl
exp
A. 10%B. 25%C. 33%D. 50% E. 66%
Controls are more semantic, experience people are more goal-biased
0.31
0.520.48
0.69
0
0.25
0.5
0.75
1
semantic answers goal-biased answers
percent correct in analogy
ctrl
exp
Sick <-> Bitter Sick <-> Sweet