2000 — 2002 |
Marsh, Elizabeth J |
F32Activity Code Description: To provide postdoctoral research training to individuals to broaden their scientific background and extend their potential for research in specified health-related areas. |
A Comprehensive Consideration of Source Memory
Current data on source monitoring provide and incomplete picture of how people remember the origin of their memories. To date, research has focused mainly on the role of a memory trace s qualitative characteristics (e.g., its vividness); a memory is supposedly attributed to the source for which its characteristics are typical (Johnson et al., 1993). While trace characteristics most certainly play a role in source monitoring, their importance has been inflated and the role of other processes largely ignored. Experiments 1 and 2 will test the hypothesis that the importance of particular trace characteristics (e.g., memory for processing operations) is a function of particular laboratory situations. Experiments 3, 4, and 5 will test the hypothesis that when possible, source attributions will be based on reasoning processes rather than an evaluation of trace characteristics. Experiments 6 and 7 will test the hypothesis that sometimes people will be able to explicitly store and retrieve tags to source. Experiments 8, 9, and 10 will extend the Source Monitoring Framework to an under-studied aspect of information monitoring: target monitoring, or how people remember to whom they have directed information. Collectively, these studies will lead to a better understanding of source monitoring and more generally to a better understanding of information monitoring.
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0.97 |
2008 — 2009 |
Marsh, Elizabeth J |
R03Activity Code Description: To provide research support specifically limited in time and amount for studies in categorical program areas. Small grants provide flexibility for initiating studies which are generally for preliminary short-term projects and are non-renewable. |
Memorial Consequences of Testing in School-Aged Children
[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal emphasizes the dynamic nature of testing; tests can change students' knowledge even as they attempt to measure that knowledge. Taking a test often improves performance on a later test, even if no feedback is provided. Tests' memorial benefits likely occur because tests provide additional study opportunities as well as retrieval practice. However, tests can also have negative memorial consequences. For example, multiple-choice (MC) tests expose students to both correct and incorrect answers - and MC lures can be viewed as a form of [unreadable] misinformation. Taking a MC exam increases the likelihood that college students will answer later cued recall questions with previously read MC lures (a negative testing effect). The proposed research will examine whether there are age differences in positive and negative testing effects. The consequences of taking an initial multiple-choice test on a later cued recall general knowledge test will be examined, for three different age groups: 1st graders, 3rd graders, and college students. All subjects will answer multiple-choice questions defined as 'easy' (1 grade level below their current level) and 'hard' (1 grade level above their current level). This will allow comparisons both across age groups on the same general knowledge questions, and between easy and hard questions within an age group. Of interest are age differences in the negative testing effect, as this will have theoretical implications (Aim 1). Two additional studies will examine the persistence of observed effects over a delay (Aim 2) and in the face of corrective feedback (Aim 3). From a theoretical perspective, this proposal will integrate work on developmental science with research on adult cognition. It will allow examination of memory errors in a different paradigm from the dominant ones in developmental research, namely eyewitness and autobiographical memory. Not all memory errors are driven by the same underlying mechanisms, and thus results should come from different paradigms. From an applied perspective, it is important to understand the consequences of testing, as it is becoming increasingly prevalent and valued in our society. Many children likely suffer from test anxiety, and poor performance on tests can lead to a referral for special services to aid learning. In this way, testing may have consequences not only for the school system, but also for the mental health system. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]
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1 |
2011 — 2016 |
Marsh, Elizabeth |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Dip: Collaborative Research: a Personalized Cyberlearning System Based On Cognitive Science
Investigators from Rice University and Duke University will build a Personalized Cyberlearning System, designed around three principles from cognitive science (retrieval practice, spacing, and enhanced feedback), that leverages advances in machine learning and makes use of an existing instructional content material and problem set database aimed at undergraduate engineering students. The system will use artificial intelligence methods to optimize practice and feedback for students. Research will seek to advance knowledge, in a real-world setting, about a range of issues concerning how feedback facilitates learning, how individual differences come in to play, as well as those more specifically aimed at the development of the learning technology system itself.
The project is important as part of the effort to harness the vast quantities of information on the web to personalize instruction for a wide range of learners. Moreover, the development of such cyberlearning technologies holds promise for opening up STEM education for motivated self-learners while also allowing access to a large volume of material for a range of students who might not otherwise have it.
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0.915 |
2018 — 2019 |
Marsh, Elizabeth J |
R03Activity Code Description: To provide research support specifically limited in time and amount for studies in categorical program areas. Small grants provide flexibility for initiating studies which are generally for preliminary short-term projects and are non-renewable. |
Leveraging Older Adults' Social Goals
Healthy aging is associated with structural and functional changes in the brain, resulting in memory declines. Unfortunately, the problem is made worse by older adults' failure to use effortful strategies like elaboration (i.e., relating new information to knowledge already stored in memory). While older adults can learn mnemonics (e.g., method of loci), they do not apply them in their everyday lives. In fact, they often avoid memory retrieval altogether when they can rely on an external aid instead. Critically, this retrieval reluctance may reflect incompatibilities between strategies provided by researchers and older adults' social goals. According to socioemotional selectivity theory, values and goals shift as people near the end of the lifespan, with the result that older adults preferentially attend to positive information, spend time with close friends and family, and prefer sharing their knowledge with others to learning new things. My focus is on the last preference, namely older adults' desire to share information with others, given that this behavior maps onto known mnemonic strategies. I will investigate whether the expectation of sharing information boosts older adults' later memory performance (Aim 1), lowers their subjective ages (Aim 2), and encourages them to rely on their own memories (Aim 3). Compared to intentional memory control conditions, subjects in experimental conditions will expect to explain complex processes to others (Experiment 1) or introduce people (Experiment 2). Expecting to share information should increase elaborative processing, boosting memory and making older adults feel younger. A third experiment will examine whether the expectation to share information reduces later reliance on an external memory aid. To encourage use of the information-sharing strategy beyond the lab, older adults will apply it strategy to other everyday memory problems (e.g., remembering a doctor's instructions) before leaving the lab, and will receive email reminders about the strategy, with the goal of increasing usage of the strategy in everyday life (as measured two months later). In short, tying learning to social goals offers a practical solution to older adults' memory problems: The strategy maps onto their natural tendency to share information, meaning it will be easy to teach and implement, inexpensive, and applicable in a wide range of situations, with the ultimate goal of improving memory.
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