npj Science of Learning最新文献

Adaptive learning systems increasingly employ pedagogical agents (PAs) to enhance students' engagement and learning outcomes, yet little is known about how motivational PAs influence students' conceptual understanding and strategic choice-making. This study compared 49 school students (at 9th and 10th grade) using an adaptive algebra learning environment with either motivational PAs or instructional prompts (non-PAs). Results revealed that while all students demonstrated learning gains, prior knowledge significantly moderated outcomes. Lower-knowledge students achieved the greatest gains through reflective engagement with foundational tasks, whereas higher-knowledge students often adopted intuitive but error-prone strategies. Notably, process mining and lag sequential analysis revealed distinct choice-making trajectories, uncovering how motivational PAs influenced self-regulation patterns over time. This study advances the field by operationalizing choice-making as a measurable self-regulated learning construct and reframing strategic disengagement as an adaptive, agentic behavior. Findings underscore the importance of designing adaptive systems that support both content mastery and strategic choice-making.

Despite its complexity, social learning is widespread, with humans navigating social environments with ease. However, the spatiotemporal trajectory of brain changes during facial imitation-based social learning (FISL) remains unestablished. In this study, participants (N = 80) learned to imitate facial emotions across 16 sessions over one month, with mirror neuron system (MNS) activity measured via fNIRS at three timepoints. fMRI assessed long-term effects of FISL on social perception. Our findings revealed that positive FISL was facilitated by changing spatiotemporal pattern similarity within the MNS, enhancing initial imitative performance and accelerating later learning speed. As sessions increased, information flow shifted from MNS synergy toward greater inferior frontal gyrus dominance. Furthermore, long-term FISL enhanced emotional faces not scenes perception, with increased connectivity between MNS and social cognition regions (e.g., orbital frontal cortex). These results advance our understanding of the spatiotemporal dynamics of social learning, potentially informing neurorehabilitation approaches for social deficits through imitation-based interventions.

Cultural background shapes intergroup impressions. While previous evidence suggests collectivistic cultures show stronger ingroup bias, cultural effects on impression formation processes remain unexplored. Here, we used reinforcement learning models to examine changes in intergroup impressions within gain and loss frames across individualistic (Western) and collectivistic (East Asian) cultures. Participants interacted with ingroup or outgroup individuals who increased (Gain) or decreased (Loss) their earnings, with identical net outcomes. Impression ratings were taken pre- and post-interaction. Results revealed higher ingroup identification in East Asians and initial ingroup bias in both cultures. Westerners learned to reduce this initial ingroup bias based on a learning signal (negative prediction error) generated if an ingroup individual reduced their earnings (i.e., Loss frame). East Asians showed the same learning mechanism, but only with low ingroup identification. Together, we show that learning from negatively perceived ingroup interactions can decrease ingroup bias across cultures, modulated by individual ingroup identification.

Using effective learning methods is central to self-regulated learning and contributes to academic achievement. We examined one psychological factor-a strategic mindset-that predicts differences in effective strategy use, and intervened on it. A strategic mindset is an orientation toward asking oneself questions that elicit the access and use of task-appropriate methods, especially in moments of difficulty or unproductivity. To investigate the implications of a strategic mindset on real-world academic outcomes, we conducted four studies with 7475 adolescent and adult students from over 30 Singapore schools. In correlational surveys, a strategic mindset predicted greater use of effective learning strategies, and in turn, higher exam performance. In a field experiment with 1070 students, a strategic mindset intervention increased students' reported use of effective learning strategies, and in turn, exam performance, among more academically prepared students and in conducive peer environments. This research advances self-regulated learning theory in a practically impactful way.

Lifelong learning is essential for active aging, yet interactive learning remains underexplored in older adults. Using fNIRS-based hyperscanning, this study investigated instructor-learner neural interactions in older learners during a concept learning task. Study 1 compared passive and active learning approaches in younger and older learners, while Study 2 compared intergenerational (younger instructors) versus intragenerational (older instructors) learning among older learners, using the more effective approach from Study 1. Older adults performed better with passive learning (Study 1) and when taught by younger instructors (Study 2). Passive learning increased frontopolar interpersonal neural synchronization (INS), while intergenerational learning enhanced INS in both frontopolar and dorsolateral prefrontal regions. Intersubject representational similarity analysis (IS-RSA) showed that learners with similar performance exhibited greater neural similarity in the frontopolar cortex. These findings reveal the neural basis of interactive learning in aging and offer practical guidance for optimizing educational practices in older populations.

Error-based and reward-based mechanisms of motor learning co-occur in real-world scenarios but are traditionally isolated in laboratory tasks via feedback manipulations. We examined the distinctiveness of these mechanisms by applying lab-based feedback manipulations to a real-world task. Using Embodied Virtual Reality of pool billiards, we introduced visual perturbations while maintaining full proprioception. 32 participants underwent two sessions, learning visuomotor rotation with either error or reward feedback. The reward-dependent motor variability and inter-trial variability decay - indicators of reward-based learning - were higher in the error-condition. Moreover, post-movement beta rebound (PMBR), a neural marker of learning mechanisms, showed expected decrease under the reward-condition but no consistent trend under the error-condition. These suggest that participants could engage in reward-based learning even without reward feedback. This underscores the complexity of motor learning processes and highlights that visual feedback by itself cannot elucidate the interplay between error-based and reward-based mechanisms in real-world contexts.

Human and animal behaviors are influenced by goal-directed planning or automatic habitual choices. Reinforcement learning (RL) models propose two distinct learning strategies: a model-based strategy, which is more flexible but computationally demanding, and a model-free strategy is less flexible yet computationally efficient. In the current RL tasks, we investigated how individuals adjusted these strategies under varying working memory (WM) loads and further explored how learning strategies and mental abilities (WM capacity and intelligence) affected learning performance. The results indicated that participants were more inclined to employ the model-based strategy under low WM load, while shifting towards the model-free strategy under high WM load. Linear regression models suggested that the utilization of model-based strategy and intelligence positively predicted learning performance. Furthermore, the model-based learning strategy could mediate the influence of WM load on learning performance. These findings underscore the critical role of WM capacity in strategic selection during RL process.

This study draws on data from 54,102 eighth-grade students across 717 middle schools in Shanghai, China, to examine the relationship between sleep duration and academic performance across subjects. Sleep duration was self-reported as average nightly sleep on school days, and academic performance was assessed through standardized subject tests administered in the same semester. Using OLS regression, threshold models, and Shapley value decomposition, we found that around 8 h of sleep was most strongly associated with higher academic performance, particularly in mathematics and science. The positive association was more evident among lower-achieving students. Girls generally required slightly longer sleep than boys to achieve their best performance in most subjects, except mathematics. Additionally, homework time and electronic device use were significantly linked to reduced sleep duration. These findings underscore the importance of adequate sleep in supporting adolescent learning and suggest that interventions should address sleep habits alongside academic demands in high-pressure educational contexts.

Research into statistical learning, the ability to learn structured patterns in the environment, faces a theory crisis. Specifically, three challenges must be addressed: a lack of robust phenomena to constrain theories, issues with construct validity, and challenges with establishing causality. Here, we describe and discuss each issue in relation to several prominent statistical learning phenomena. We then offer recommendations to help address the theory crisis and move the field forward.

Can you learn better by doing something yourself (DIY) or by watching somebody else do it? We present a new approach to examine this perennial question in research on learning and instruction. In a science learning task, children aged 5 to 7 years (N = 95) either generated predictions themselves (active condition) or observed the predictions of a fictitious other child (yoked condition) before seeing the outcome. Unlike previous yoked designs, we first emulated responses from a Bayesian learner. Critically, these responses were then individually matched to each yoked child given their unique prior beliefs at the start of the experiment. This novel approach allowed us to discern the effects of DIY on conceptual learning much more clearly than before. We found that actively generating predictions led to deeper conceptual understanding than observing another's matched predictions, and that this advantage of DIY was associated with an increased experience of agency.