Towards a better understanding of explicit-declarative learning in humans and non-human primates

更好地理解人类和非人类灵长类动物的显式陈述性学习

• 批准号: 2116968
• 负责人: Michael Beran
• 金额: $ 68.26万
• 依托单位: Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-15 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2116968&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Towards; better; understanding; explicit; declarative

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Learning and memory are crucial to every aspect of education, intellectual functioning, and daily living. Researchers who study memory have definitively shown that there are different systems of memory (e.g., unconscious habit memory vs. conscious declarative memory). This knowledge has changed society’s views of cognitive aging, dementia, and amnesia. However, researchers who study the basic mechanisms of learning have not participated in this systems revolution, and this is a barrier to scientific progress. For example, there might be different systems of learning that have different strengths, uses, brain organizations, cognitive-developmental trajectories, and levels of preservation during cognitive aging. But such differentiations cannot be clearly made while the dominant mode of thinking in the learning literature preserves an emphasis on a unitary learning system. Accordingly, this project brings to the domain of learning research the separation between implicit-behavioral learning (i.e., learning to react automatically, habitually, unconsciously) and explicit-declarative learning (i.e., learning new knowledge conceptually, consciously, perhaps verbalizably). The project uses innovative methods toward this end. These methods selectively suppress implicit learning, defeating habit-based learning that can interfere with explicit forms of learning, and therefore selectively fostering explicit learning. These methods fill important gaps in the learning literature. Applying them across humans and nonhuman primates has the potential to transform comparative psychology by opening a new window on animals’ reflective minds, and possibly providing illuminating insights into animal consciousness. The insights gained will also let researchers ask what contribution the use of language brings to explicit learning processes —an age-old question. For example: Are human rules and hypotheses necessarily couched in language, or only conveniently so? Is it possible to wordlessly conceive of abstract relations between things? Is developing language why young children slowly achieve mature analogical reasoning? Thus, this research will provide paradigms perfectly suited to future researchers studying the earliest manifestations of explicit learning in young children. New methods to foster explicit learning could help children with developmental delay, learning disabilities, and autism spectrum disorder—by teaching them basic approaches to that learning that are less language-bound or less introspective and self-conscious. The methods could let educators focus students’ learning effort toward the explicit/conceptual level and optimize their success. The research will produce animal models of explicit learning to further the neuro-scientific study of explicit cognition, revealing its brain organization, pointing to factors that may reduce its functionality and factors that may enhance it. Thus, the project bears on the evolution of humans’ highest cognitive capacities—an important part of the story of human emergence.Myriad human and animal learning studies have provided subjects with immediate, concrete, trial-by-trial reinforcement. This approach limits scientific understanding because it allows low-level forms of automated, habitual learning to control the learning process. In turn, this can interfere with the operation of higher-level forms of explicit-conceptual learning that may be more desirable. Accordingly, this project uses alternative reinforcement environments—that is, displaced reinforcement—to surmount this obstacle and achieve its ends. For example, one method will ask participants to complete a block of trials before receiving any feedback. The project will show that displaced reinforcement defeats the processes of implicit-procedural learning, while encouraging participants to think explicitly and conceptually about the task at hand. It will show that participants must self-supervise their learning in this reinforcement environment, relating the summary feedback to their self-discovered rule or strategy. Indeed, the crucial innovation of this project is that these effects operate synergistically, for with implicit-procedural learning selectively disabled, the investigators can observe a pivot to some other learning strategy such as the use of the explicit-declarative learning system. Thus, the investigators are observing conscious hypotheses and rules, conceptual knowledge, and analogical relationships particularly enhanced. Specifically, Experiment 1 (E1) trains humans and animals to thrive in the altered reinforcement environments used in the research, a key preliminary grounding later experiments. E2 shows that displaced reinforcement selectively fosters the learning of rules based on single dimensions (e.g., big things are A; small things are B) that is typical of pre-frontal brain regions. E3 asks whether a hypothesis-testing form of learning is selectively preserved under displaced reinforcement. E4 asks whether explicit learning under displaced reinforcement features conscious rule discovery and sudden learning (so-called “AHA experiences”). This may be a revolutionary finding about animal minds. E5 demonstrates that participants can self-supervise their own learning under displaced reinforcement, applying their own conceptual framework. E6 lets monkeys – for the first time, without having ever received immediate reinforcement -- declare their own conceptual rules and category boundaries. The later experiments demonstrate that explicit-declarative learning is distinctive for fostering knowledge that is more generalizable and more conceptual.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该奖项全部或部分由2021年美国救援计划法案（公法117-2）资助。学习和记忆对教育，智力功能和日常生活的各个方面都至关重要。研究记忆的研究人员已经明确表明，有不同的记忆系统（例如，无意识的习惯记忆与有意识的陈述性记忆）。这些知识改变了社会对认知老化、痴呆和健忘症的看法。然而，研究学习基本机制的研究人员没有参与这场系统革命，这是科学进步的障碍。例如，可能存在不同的学习系统，它们具有不同的优势、用途、大脑组织、认知发展轨迹以及认知老化期间的保存水平。但是，当学习文献中的主导思维模式保持对单一学习系统的强调时，这种区分就不能清楚地进行。因此，该项目将内隐行为学习（即，学习自动地、习惯地、无意识地反应）和外显-陈述性学习（即，学习新知识的概念，有意识的，也许口头）。为此，该项目采用了创新的方法。这些方法选择性地抑制内隐学习，击败可能干扰外显学习形式的习惯性学习，因此选择性地促进外显学习。这些方法填补了学习文献中的重要空白。将它们应用于人类和非人类灵长类动物，有可能通过打开动物反思思维的新窗口来改变比较心理学，并可能提供对动物意识的启发性见解。所获得的见解也将让研究人员询问语言的使用在外显学习过程中带来了什么贡献-这是一个古老的问题。例如：人类的规则和假设是否必须用语言表达，或者只是为了方便？有没有可能无言地想象事物之间的抽象关系？语言的发展是幼儿慢慢达到成熟类比推理的原因吗？因此，这项研究将提供范式完全适合未来的研究人员研究幼儿外显学习的最早表现。促进外显学习的新方法可以帮助发育迟缓、学习障碍和自闭症谱系障碍的儿童通过教授他们基本的学习方法，减少语言的束缚，减少内省和自我意识。这些方法可以让教育工作者将学生的学习努力集中在外显/概念层面，并优化他们的成功。这项研究将产生外显学习的动物模型，以进一步促进外显认知的神经科学研究，揭示其大脑组织，指出可能降低其功能的因素和可能增强其功能的因素。因此，该项目关系到人类最高认知能力的进化-这是人类出现故事的重要组成部分。无数的人类和动物学习研究为受试者提供了直接，混凝土，一次又一次的加固这种方法限制了科学理解，因为它允许低水平的自动化，习惯性学习来控制学习过程。反过来，这可能会干扰更高层次形式的外显概念学习的运作，而这可能是更可取的。因此，本项目使用替代加固环境，即置换水泥，以克服这一障碍，实现其目的。例如，一种方法会要求参与者在收到任何反馈之前完成一组试验。该项目将表明，替代强化击败了内隐程序学习的过程，同时鼓励参与者明确和概念性地思考手头的任务。它将表明，参与者必须在这种强化环境中自我监督他们的学习，将总结反馈与他们自己发现的规则或策略联系起来。事实上，这个项目的关键创新在于，这些效果协同作用，因为有选择地禁用内隐程序学习，研究人员可以观察到一个支点，以其他一些学习策略，如使用外显陈述学习系统。因此，研究者正在观察有意识的假设和规则，概念知识和类比关系特别增强。具体来说，实验1（E1）训练人类和动物在研究中使用的改变的强化环境中茁壮成长，这是后来实验的关键初步基础。E2表明，移位强化选择性地促进基于单一维度的规则学习（例如，大的事情是A;小的事情是B）这是典型的前额叶脑区。E3问的是，假设检验的学习形式是否在替代强化下被选择性地保留下来。E4询问在替代强化下的外显学习是否具有有意识的规则发现和突然学习（所谓的“AHA经验”）。这可能是关于动物思维的革命性发现。E5表明，参与者可以自我监督自己的学习下流离失所的强化，应用自己的概念框架。E6让猴子第一次在没有得到即时强化的情况下，宣布自己的概念规则和类别边界。后来的实验表明，外显陈述式学习是独特的培养知识，是更普遍和更概念化。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。