npj Science of Learning最新文献

Changes in performance over time can provide important information about one's ability and effort. Three preregistered studies examined how children aged 4 to 10 perceive and evaluate academic performance changes (N = 256; 131 girls, all Han ethnicity, China). When evaluating two characters with matched final performance but different performance trajectories, with age, children increasingly perceive the character with improving performance as less smart but more hardworking than the one with constant performance, and they evaluate the improving character more favorably than the constant character (Studies 1 and 2). However, they increasingly favor a constant character over one with declining performance (Study 2). When the improving character outperforms the constant character in the final performance and overall performance is matched (Study 3), even 4- to 6-year-olds favor the improving character over the constant character. These findings highlight children's developing ability to flexibly reason about and evaluate changes in performance over time.

Math anxiety impairs performance, but how its state and trait components interact with task characteristics remains unclear. We examined how state math anxiety varies as a function of trait math anxiety, task paradigm, and temporal dynamics, and how trait math anxiety relates to arithmetic performance. Results revealed that production paradigms, which require generating answers, elicited higher state math anxiety compared to decision paradigms, particularly for individuals with high trait math anxiety. Looking into different task phases, state math anxiety decreased during arithmetic due to habituation and after arithmetic due to relief. Additionally, the anxiety-complexity effect was replicated: Individuals with higher trait math anxiety were slower in solving complex arithmetic with a carry or borrow operation. This study confirmed the situation-dependent characteristics of state math anxiety and its dependency on paradigm and trait math anxiety, with implications for designing interventions that mitigate anxiety and optimize learning.

Sleep plays a role in memory consolidation, with slow oscillations (SO) and sleep spindles (SP) in non-rapid eye movement sleep being central to this process. While closed-loop auditory stimulation of slow oscillations has been well studied, precise real-time targeting of individual sleep spindles to assess their memory impact has remained technically challenging. This study investigates the effects of SO and SP stimulation, plus delayed stimulation (450 ms after spindle detection), on neurophysiology and declarative, procedural, and complex memory consolidation. Healthy young adults (N = 102) engaged in simple declarative and procedural learning tasks, plus a complex piano task requiring integrated use of multiple memory systems. Participants were randomly assigned to five groups (~20 each): wake control, undisturbed sleep, slow oscillation stimulation, immediate spindle stimulation, or delayed spindle stimulation. Results confirmed successful modulation of sleep neurophysiology. However, behavioural outcomes were complex: regardless of condition, declarative memory declined, motor sequence learning improved, and piano performance varied. Follow-up analyses showed modest links between evoked spindle activity and some tasks, while evoked SO strength had no clear relationship with performance change, highlighting behavioural outcome variability.

This study examined whether immersive virtual reality (VR) supports second-language vocabulary learning in school-aged children compared to passive computer-based training. Seventy-three Swedish middle-school students learned novel words by assembling objects in VR and by viewing object assembly on a computer screen in a crossover design. Word recall was tested after each condition, and individual differences in language aptitude and sustained attention were assessed. Overall, recall was higher after computer-based training than VR. However, sustained attention was the strongest predictor of learning outcomes, and the difference between conditions was (marginally) significant only for children with higher sustained attention. No VR behavioural measures (gaze, assembly time, rotation) explained learning outcomes. These findings suggest that VR may not universally enhance vocabulary learning but could benefit learners with specific attentional profiles. Further research should explore how VR design and training duration influence language acquisition in school settings.

The widespread rise of short videos has raised growing concerns about their influence on cognitive processing and memory, yet direct neural evidence remains scarce. In this study, 57 participants viewed either a continuous long video or multiple short videos matched for duration and content. Memory was tested with a recall task, and brain activity was measured with fMRI. Short video exposure led to poorer memory accuracy compared to the long video condition. Neuroimaging revealed reduced activation in the claustrum, caudate nucleus, and middle temporal gyrus, as well as weakened claustrum-caudate connectivity. These neural alterations were significantly associated with memory performance and habitual short video usage. Our findings indicate that learning through short videos impairs memory by disrupting brain systems involved in information integration, cognitive control, and semantic processing, providing novel neurobiological evidence of the cognitive costs of fragmented media exposure.

Acting successfully in dynamic environments requires learning supported by two systems that differ in computational demand: a fast, model-free system that repeats rewarded actions, and a more effortful model-based system that uses a mental model of the task structure to guide flexible, goal-directed decisions. A key open question is whether people engage effortful model-based strategies to the same extent when deciding for themselves versus others, and which computations underpin self-other differences. Using a two-step task with reinforcement learning drift-diffusion modelling in 92 adults, we found that deciding for others slowed down model-free learning and reduced reliance on model-based strategies, with the latter partially mediated by differences in non-decision time. Moreover, individual differences in social value orientation predicted the self-other discrepancy in model-based decision-making, with more prosocial individuals showing smaller gaps. Together, these findings identify the computational mechanisms underpinning prosocial model-based decision-making and demonstrate how individual differences modulate this computation.

Perceptual learning is traditionally retinotopically constrained, whereas category learning is thought to generalize across the visual field. Recent evidence challenges this distinction by showing that information-integration (II) category learning can also exhibit visual-field specificity. We investigated whether II learning transfers across retinal locations using a double-training paradigm. Participants learned to categorize gratings at one peripheral location, and transfer was tested at the opposite hemifield. We replicated visual-field specificity and found that transfer depended on the temporal order of training. Double training, with simultaneous or subsequent passive exposure to an irrelevant task at the untrained location, enabled robust transfer, whereas performing the irrelevant task before category training abolished it. This order-dependent pattern mirrors double-training effects in perceptual learning, suggesting that II category learning and perceptual learning share principles of location-specific plasticity and flexible transfer. These findings shed light on mechanisms of visual learning and inform strategies to enhance transfer.

Motor skill learning and performance is driven by the interplay between declarative and nondeclarative systems, which can complement or interfere with one another depending on task demands. In this study, we investigated whether an intervening declarative cued-recall task impairs motor skill performance in a finger-tapping-task and assessed three hypotheses: the consolidation disruption hypothesis, the shared resource hypothesis, and the breakdown of inhibition hypothesis. Intervening declarative tasks placed late in training failed to affect motor performance. In contrast, when introduced early in training (Experiment 3), motor performance appears to have been transiently impaired. Despite this impairment, there was no association between the intervening declarative task performance and motor impairment. We discuss the ramifications of these findings with regard to other motor skill tasks and intervening declarative tasks.

Motor learning is critical for effective motor rehabilitation, yet impaired in people with Parkinson's Disease (pwPD). Emerging evidence suggests that cardiovascular exercise (CVE), performed close to skill practice, may promote brain plasticity and motor learning. However, research has predominantly focused on acute effects of a single CVE session in neurotypical individuals. Here, we examined whether post-practice CVE enhances motor learning over multiple weeks. Twenty-four pwPD were randomly assigned to either moderate-intensity cycling or seated rest after practicing a novel balance task across six sessions. As hypothesized, CVE significantly improved motor learning, particularly in sessions 4 and 5. This effect was reflected in a non-significant trend toward greater within-session online learning, rather than in between-session offline gains. Exploratory analyses indicate that individuals with higher cardiorespiratory fitness benefited most from CVE. Our findings highlight CVE as an effective, low-cost tool to foster motor learning in neurorehabilitation and warrant further investigation.