Learning from One’s Mistakes: Effects of Age and Error Processing

Learning from One’s Mistakes: Effects of Age and Error Processing

Nicole D. Anderson, PhD, CPsychAssociate Professor, Psychiatry & Psychology, University of Toronto

Senior Scientist, Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest

York Neuropsychology Rounds – January 7, 2013

Errors in Everyday Life

Providing the world with innovations in aging

Outline


•Background• Improving errorless learning• Lubinsky, Rich, & Anderson (2009)• Guild & Anderson (2012)

• Improving trial-and-error learning• Cyr & Anderson (2012a)• Cyr & Anderson (2012b)• Cyr & Anderson (a couple in prep)

• A Framework of Error Processing in Episodic Memory• Future Directions

•16 people with amnesia (20-69)•16 healthy old (61-79)•16 healthy young (20-58)

Baddeley & Wilson (1994)


•5-word list•10-word list•10-word list

Three learning trials (data not provided), followed by nine additional trials with the same word list, conducted twice with different words.



BR____? BRICK

MU___? MUSTARD

“BRAIN”?

“BRIDGE”?

“BRIM”?

TEL

EL



Errorless Learning


• Acquired brain injury• Glisky et al. 1986• Kalla et al. 2001• Riley et al. 2004• Haslam et al. 2012

• Amnesia / Memory Impairment• Hamman & Squire 1995• Squires et al. 1997• Hunkin et al. 1998• Tailby & Haslam 2003• Page et al. 2006

• Korsakoff’s• Komatsu et al. 2000

• Aging, MCI, AD• Lubinsky, Rich, & Anderson

2009• Ruis & Kessels 2005• Haslam et al. 2006• Anderson et al. 2012• Guild & Anderson 2012• Laffan et al 2010

• Semantic Dementia• Jokel & Anderson 2012

• But see…• Evans et al. 2000• Dunn 2003• Dunn & Clare 2007• Kessels 2007

But hold on….


Errorless Learning Trial-and-Error Learning

Active and effortfulEncourages deep

processing

×Entirely passive×Encourages shallow

processing

But hold on…


WA___WALRUS

WA___war-wand-walnut;

WALRUS

ActivePassive

EL

TEL

Outline





Tailby & Haslam (2003)


WA___WALRUS

WA___wall-wallet-walnut;

WALRUS

ActivePassive

EL

TEL

WA___A mammal with tusks

WALRUS



• 24 people with mixed bag episodic memory impairment: 8 mild, 8 moderate, 8 severe

• 12-word lists, each presented 3x– Errorless – Passive (EL-P)– Errorless – Active (EL-A)– Trial-and-Error – Active (TEL-A)



Mild Moderate Severe0

2

4

6

8

10

12

EL-PEL-ATEL-A

Imm

edia

te C

ued

Reca

ll

Tobi Lubinsky


• 23 healthy older adults• 23 people with single-

domain amnestic MCI• Four lists encoded– Free recall– Cued recall

• Final recognition for all four lists



WA___WALRUS

WA___wall-wallet-walnut;

WALRUS

ActivePassive

EL

TEL

WA___A mammal with tusks

WALRUS

Lubinsky et al. (2009)


WAL___WALRUS

Mammal; Tusks

WAL___wall-wallet-walnut;

WALRUSMammal; Tusks

ActivePassive

EL

TEL

WAL___Mammal; Tusks

WALRUS

Lubinsky, Rich, & Anderson (2009) JINS


WALRUSMammal; Tusks


Providing the world with innovations in aging Lubinsky, Rich, & Anderson (2009)

JINS

Passive PassiveActive ActiveTrial-and-ErrorErrorless



JINS

• Results replicated in second study using sentence stems (e.g., Hank reached into his pocket to get the _______).

• Benefit of active errorless learning present only when generation cues recapitulated at retrieval Free recall (Study 1 and 2) Yes/No recognition (walrus?) (Study 1)Cued Recall (Study 1 and 2)Cued Recognition (Study 2)



JINS

• Consistent with multifactor view of generation effect (Hirshman & Bjork, 1988; McDaniel et al., 1990)– Item-specific : yes/no recognition– Cue-target : cued recall (tusks - ???) and cued

recognition (Hank reached into his pocket to get the _______)

– Inter-item : free recall

Emma Guild


• 32 healthy older adults• Categorized or uncategorized word lists

(between-Ss)• Four lists: EL-P, EL-A, TEL-P, TEL-A• Free recall after each list; final cued recall• Predicted EL-active advantage for unrelated

lists in cued recall, and for related lists in free recall



WAL___WALRUS

Mammal; Tusks


WALRUSMammal; Tusks

ActivePassive

EL

TEL

WAL___Mammal; Tusks

WALRUS

Lubinsky, Rich, & Anderson (2009) JINS


WALRUSMammal; Tusks

Guild & Anderson (2012)


ANIMALHop – r_bb_t: RABBIT

ANIMALDog-Horse-PigHop – r_bb_it

RABBIT

ActivePassive

EL

TEL

ANIMALHop – r_bb_it

RABBIT

Guild & Anderson (2012) ANC

ANIMALDog-Horse-Pig

Hop – r_bb_t: RABBIT

Providing the world with innovations in aging Guild & Anderson (2012) ANC

Passive Active Passive 2 Active 20.00.10.20.30.40.50.60.70.80.91.0

Cued Recall

RelatedUnrelated

Prop

ortio

n Co

rrec

tGuild & Anderson (2012)

Trial-and-ErrorErrorless

Providing the world with innovations in aging Guild & Anderson (2012) ANC

Passive Active Passive 2 Active 20.00.10.20.30.40.50.60.70.80.91.0

Free Recall

RelatedUnrelated

Prop

ortio

n Co

rrec

tGuild & Anderson (2012)

Trial-and-ErrorErrorless

Improving Errorless Learning


JINS

• Active errorless learning is more advantageous than passive errorless learning, but only when the processes evoked by generation at encoding are recapitulated at retrieval

Outline





Andrée-Ann Cyr


• Website https://sites.google.com/site/andreeanncyr/

• [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

But hold on….


Errorless Learning Trial-and-Error Learning

Active and effortfulEncourages deep

processing

×Entirely passive×Encourages shallow

processing

Perceptual Learning


BRI____? BRICK

MUS___? MUSTARD

“BRIM”?

“BRIDGE”?

“BRIDE”?

EL > TEL

TEL

EL

Conceptual Learning


A flower?

“ROSE”?

“ORCHID”?

“VIOLET”?

TULIP

A sport? SOCCER

EL < TEL

TEL

EL


Cyr & Anderson (2012a)

Cyr & Anderson (2012) Psych & Aging

A flower?“ORCHID”?

“VIOLET”?TULIP

A sport? SOCCER

TEL

EL

33 younger adults31 older adults


Cyr & Anderson (2012a): Study 1


• Prediction (cf. Anderson & Craik, 2006): –Recollection: TEL > EL– Familiarity: EL > TEL

Process dissociation procedure (Jacoby, 1991) Double exclusion task

Younger Older0.00.10.20.30.40.50.60.70.80.91.0

EL TELYounger Older

0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1.0

EL TEL




Familiarity Recollection




A flower?“ORCHID”?

“VIOLET”?TULIP

A sport? SOCCER

TEL

EL

Recognition: All target words, first errors, and new words in random order“Is this a target word, a word you provided as a guess, or a new word?”





Younger Older0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1.0

EL TEL

Prop

ortio

n co

rrec

t sou

rce

mem

ory

Conceptual Learning


A flower?

“ROSE”?

“ORCHID”?

“VIOLET”?

TULIP

A sport? SOCCER

EL < TEL

TEL

EL

Cyr & Anderson (in progress)


TEST- Conceptual TEST- Perceptual

br____

Target?

tr____

Guess 1?Guess 2?

Target?

EL

TEL

A flower

Target?

A fruit

Guess 1?Guess 2?

Target?


Cyr & Anderson (in progress)

n = 16 older adults

EL-Target TEL-Target TEL-Errors0.00

0.10

0.20

0.30

0.40

0.50

0.60

0.70

0.80

0.90

1.00

Conceptual Perceptual

Prop

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ued

reca

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Study 4 Cue Constraint


– High cloze sentences (EL or TEL)

You can’t buy anything for a ______

– Low cloze sentences (EL or TEL)

There is something grand about the ______

Cued Recall You can’t buy anything for a ______. There’s something grand about the ______.


Cyr & Anderson (in prep)

• 56 younger adults; 56 older adults• Prediction: – “Close” conceptual errors will be less

beneficial than “far” conceptual errors.


Cyr & Anderson (in prep)

Younger Adults Older adults

Low-Cloze High-Cloze0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1.0

EL TEL

Prop

ortio

n co

rrec

t cue

d re

call

Low-Cloze High-Cloze0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1.0

EL TEL

Prop

ortio

n co

rrec

t cue

d re

call

Cyr & Anderson (2012b): Study 1

Providing the world with innovations in aging Cyr & Anderson (in purgatory)

“What is the capital of Australia?” Response: “Sidney”Confidence: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Answer: Canberra“What is the last name of the man who invented dynamite?”Response “I don’t know….Jones”Confidence: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7Answer: Nobel Hypercorrection effect (Butterfield & Metcalfe, 2001)




1 2 3 4 5 6 70.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

YoungerOlder

Confidence in errors on initial test

Prop

ortio

n co

rrec

t fre

e re

call


What is the last name of the author who wrote ‘Canterbury Tales’?

1) Austin2) Shakespeare3) Chaucer4) Joyce5) Dickens

How many alternatives did you narrow it down to?0 1 2 3 4



Study 5b Hypercorrection


1 2 3 4 50.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1.0

YoungerOlder

Rescaled confidence in errors on initial test

Prop

ortio

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t fre

e re

call

Improving Trial-and-Error Learning


• Neuropsychological literature has long embraced errorless learning

• Our research turns this viewpoint on its head– conceptual errors can benefit memory – they

can serve as stepping stones towards better learning for older adults

–“If a mistake is not a stepping stone, it is a mistake.” Eli Siegel

Outline





Framework of Error Processing


Braver et al., 2007

PERCEPTUAL BR______?

Proactive control Reactive control

CONCEPTUAL A flower?

WRONG!

WRONG!

“BRIDGE?”

“ROSE?”Proactive control Reactive control

Future Directions


• Can conceptual errors confer a mnemonic benefit for people with episodic memory impairment (MCI, mild AD)?

• Are these effects specific to episodic learning? Or can errors be beneficial for procedural or spatial learning?

• How long do these effects last? •But see…• Evans et al.

2000• Dunn 2003• Dunn & Clare

2007• Kessels 2007

Thank You!


Vinay KansalNisha KansalJanice BabinsAndrea MaioneLaura StefanikKashfia Alam

[email protected]

Guild & Anderson (2012)


A flower?

“ROSE”?

“ORCHID”?

“VIOLET”?

TULIP

A sport? SOCCER

EL > TEL

TEL

EL

Holland-t_l_p


Study 1 Recollection and familiarity


• Design:– Learning condition (EL/EF) INTERMIXED presentation within-subjects

• Materials:– 240 semantic categories each with four associates– Target assignment (1, 2, 3 or 4) counterbalanced

• Participants:– 31 younger and 33 healthy older adults– MMSE, Shipley vocabulary scale, HVLT, Digit-symbol

• Procedure:– Study and Test phases self-paced– Brief delay between study-test (5 minutes or so)


Study 1 Recollection and familiarity


• Other findings/notes:– Older adults made more false alarms to prior

learning errors relative to young adults – We included a “Read” condition, not reported here because it

doesn’t add to the findings (we found an expect YA > OA at recognition for Read words)

– We did control for generation (A flower R_s_) and participants never made mistakes in generation in either EL or TEL. We are not reporting generation because in other studies we did not control for it and found the same effect (TEL > EL)

– No age differences in generation times at study


Study 2 Source Memory


• Design:– Learning condition (EL/EF) INTERMIXED presentation within-subjects

• Materials:– 56 semantic categories each with four associates (28 EL and 28 TEL)– Target assignment (1, 2, 3 or 4) counterbalanced across participants

• Participants:– 15 younger and 15 healthy older adults– Health screening– MMSE, Shipley vocabulary scale

• Procedure:– Study and Test phases self-paced– Brief delay between study-test (5 minutes or so)– CATCH TRIALS included (told their guesses are correct


Study 2 Source Memory


• Other findings:– Like in Study 1, older adults made more false

alarms to prior learning errors relative to young adults

– We included catch trials in Study 2 and still corroborated Study 1


Study 3 Errors as stepping stones

• Design:– Learning condition (EL/TEL) BLOCKED presentation within-

subjects – Perceptual/conceptual between subjects

• Materials:– 32 categories each with four associates (16 EL and 16 TEL)– Target assignment (1, 2, or 3) counterbalanced across

participants• Procedure:

– Study and Test phases self-paced– 10 minute delay between study-test


Study 4 Cue Constraint

• Design– Learning condition (EL/TEL) BLOCKED within-subject– HIGH/LOW between subjects

• Participants:– 56 younger and 56 healthy older adults

• Materials:– 108 sentence stems (54 HIGH and 54 LOW)

• Procedure:– 20 minute delay between study and test TETRIS– Study and Test phases self-paced


Study 5a Hypercorrection

• Materials: – 150 general knowledge questions

• Nelson & Narens (1980)• Participants:– 21 younger and 18 older adults– Shipley, HADS, MMSE

• Procedure:– Participants tested in groups of 5-10– 15 minute delay Shipley, HADS, washroom

break


Study 5a Hypercorrection

Initial test Final test0.00.10.20.30.40.50.60.70.80.91.0

Younger Older

Prop

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ee r

ecal

l



• Materials: – 170 general knowledge questions• Nelson & Narens (1980) and other sources

• Participants:– 19 younger and 17 older adults– Shipley, HADS, MMSE

• Procedure:– Participants tested individually– 20 minute delay TETRIS



Initial test Final test0.00.10.20.30.40.50.60.70.80.91.0

Younger Older

Prop

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orre

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ree

reca

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Anderson, Guild, Cyr, Roberts, & Clare (2011)

Documents

Learning from One’s Mistakes: Effects of Age and Error Processing