Project H.M. was just the sort of thing one might expect the Internet to latch onto: it was a live streaming video of a frozen human brain being slowly sliced apart. Users who clicked the link on Twitter or Facebook between the 2nd and 4th of December 2009 were immediately confronted with a close-up shot of the brain's interior, which was…

The function of accurately monitoring one's own learning is to support effective control of study that enhances learning. Although this link between monitoring accuracy and learning is intuitively plausible and is assumed by general theories of self-regulated learning, it has not received a great deal of empirical scrutiny and no study to date has…

The present study focuses on the short-term effects of electronic entertainment media on memory and learning processes. It compares the effects of violent versus non-violent computer game content in a condition of playing and in another condition of watching the same game. The participants consisted of 83 female and 94 male adolescents with a mean…

The fading of instructional scripts can be regarded as necessary for allowing learners to take over control of their cognitive activities during the acquisition of skills such as argumentation. There is, however, the danger that learners might relapse into novice strategies after script prompts are faded. One possible solution could be monitoring…

This study explored retention of idioms and novel (i.e. newly created or grammatically generated) expressions in English-speaking girls following exposure only once during a conversation. Our hypothesis was that idioms, because of their inherent holistic, nonliteral and social characteristics, are acquired differently and more rapidly than novel…

There are many reasons to be curious about the way people learn, and the past several decades have seen an explosion of research that has important implications for individual learning, schooling, workforce training, and policy. In 2000, "How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition" was published and its…

This study starts with investigating the relation of perceived workload, motivation for learning and working memory capacity (WMC) with students' approaches to learning. Secondly, this study investigates if differences exist between different student profiles concerning their approach to the learning and the influence of workloads thereon. Results…

Critics have been attempting to debunk the mythical retention chart at least since 1971. The earliest critics, David Curl and Frank Dwyer, were addressing just the retention data. Beginning around 2002, a new generation of critics has taken on the illegitimate combination of the retention chart and Edgar Dale's Cone of Experience--the corrupted…

The authors are attempting to set the record straight regarding the sources frequently cited in the literature of the mythical retention chart and the corrupted Dale's Cone. They point out citations that do not actually connect with relevant works; provide correct citations of sources that are often cited erroneously; add references for overlooked…

A lot of research has focused on the beneficial effects of using multimedia, that is, text and pictures, for learning. Theories of multimedia learning are based on Baddeley's working memory model (Baddeley 1999). Despite this theoretical foundation, there is only little research that aims at empirically testing whether and more importantly how…

Loss of the Fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP) is associated with presumed postsynaptic deficits in mouse models of Fragile X syndrome. However, the possible presynaptic roles of FMRP in learning-related plasticity have received little attention. As a result, the mechanisms whereby FMRP influences synaptic function remain poorly…

The case-based instructional method uses fictionalized or actual narratives as instructional tools to support learning, decision-making, and improved transfer to practical settings. Educational theorists and researchers specializing in case-based instruction have suggested that cases can be made more realistic, engaging, and challenging, thus…

How can students' forgetting be reduced? The spacing effect--a promising strategy from the field of cognitive psychology--might hold some of the answers. Research has demonstrated that information is remembered two to three times better if study sessions are spaced in time rather than massed together. The testing effect is another research-based…

Our ability to learn about the reputations of others--that is, who is likely to cooperate versus cheat--contributes greatly to cooperativeness in society. There has been recent debate whether humans employ memory bias favoring cheaters (i.e., there is an evolved module for the detection of cheaters) or whether no such bias exists (i.e., reputation…

We have investigated the effect of protein kinase Mzeta (PKM[zeta]) inhibition in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) upon the retention of a nonspatial learned active avoidance response and conditioned taste-aversion (CTA) acquisition in rats. ZIP (10 nmol/[mu]L) injected into the BLA 24 h after training impaired retention of a learned…