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Learning new information requires practice. The degree of learning can be influenced by the amount of practice and whether subjects sleep between sessions. Over-practice, however, can lead to performance deterioration. The interaction between practice-dependent deterioration and sleep-dependent learning needs more study. We examine whether the amount of practice before sleep alters learning, and whether prior sleep protects against deterioration. Two groups (N = 33) were tested three times across two days on an orientation discrimination task. The High practice group was tested twice before a night of sleep and once after, at 9 a.m., 7 p.m., and 9 a.m. The Low practice group was tested once before a night of sleep and twice after, at 7 p.m., 9 a.m., and 7 p.m. Overall, both groups showed (1) deterioration with repeated, within-day testing, (2) performance improvement only after a night of sleep, (3) similar amounts of sleep-dependent learning and practice-dependent deterioration. In summary, we found that sleep resets visual contrast thresholds to a lower baseline (i.e., produces learning), but does not prevent over-practice deterioration effects. Likewise, over-practice deterioration does not influence the magnitude of overnight learning on this task. Keywords: sleep, learning, deterioration, vision, crowding

The authors used a within-subject blocking design to study the role of ventrolateral periaqueductal gray (v1PAG) opioid receptors in regulating prediction errors during Pavlovian fear conditioning. In Stage I, the authors trained rats to fear conditioned stimulus (CS) A by pairing it with shock. In Stage II, CSA and CSB were copresented and followed with shock. Two novel stimuli, CSC and CSD, were also copresented and followed with shock in Stage II. CSA blocked fear from accruing to CSB. Blocking was prevented by systemic pretreatment with naloxone. Blocking was also prevented in a dose-dependent and neuroanatomically specific fashion by v1PAG infusions of the [micro]-opioid receptor antagonist CTAP. These experiments show that v1PAG [micro]-opioid receptors contribute to Pavlovian fear learning by regulating predictive error. Keywords: blocking, surprise, predictive learning, PAG, opiod

Deletions of gria1 or gria2 genes encoding alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazole-4-propionicacid-receptor subunits differ in their effects on appetitive conditioning. The authors investigated whether similar differences would occur in an aversive conditioning test. The ability of a discrete stimulus paired with footshock to subsequently inhibit food-maintained operant responding (conditioned emotional response) was examined in mice with deletions of gria1 or gria2 genes. Whereas gria1 knockout (KO) mice performed normally compared with wild-type (WT) controls, gria2 KO mice displayed no reduction in response rates when the shock-paired stimulus was presented. Nevertheless, gria2 KOs displayed evidence of freezing in a footshock-paired context, indicating that aversive learning could occur. In addition, grial KO mice showed some evidence of increased anxiety, and gria2 KOs showed reduced anxiety, in the elevated plus-maze. Keywords: learning, anxiety, conditioned emotional response, conditioned fear, amygdala

Recent studies of delay eyeblink conditioning (EBC) in young rats have demonstrated different effects of various conditioned and unconditioned stimulus (CS-US) preexposure conditions on learning at different ages. The present study extends this research to trace EBC. Subjects experienced 1 of 3 preexposure conditions (paired CS-US, unpaired CS-US, or no stimuli) at either 20 or 24 days of age. Four days later, they were conditioned using either trace (Experiment 1) or delay (Experiment 2) EBC parameters. Results were similar at both ages tested. Paired preexposure facilitated acquisition of delay but not trace relative to context preexposure. Unpaired preexposure impaired acquisition of both delay and trace. These behavioral findings provide a foundation for hypotheses about the functional maturation of cerebellar, hippocampal, and entorhinal learning circuits. Keywords: eyeblink conditioning, trace conditioning, preexposure, learned irrelevance, development

Performance anxiety impacts every performance discipline, and regardless of why it happens, eventually, every musician experiences performance anxiety. Steven Brundage offers an explanation of the physical and mental phenomenon of [...]

Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children (before self-importance comes upon them) learn so easily--and why older [...]

The year was 1980. It was my first, and thankfully only, year of homeschool. This was back in the Dark Ages when homeschool was so new that the truant officer [...]

Despite the popularity of online courses, many faculty members harbor deep reservations about their quality. Perhaps most fundamentally, they have concerns about the experience of online students. Those of us [...]

Dreams can be familiar and strange, fantastical or boring. No one knows for certain why people dream, but some dreams might be connected to the mental processes that help us [...]

For years, learning and memory were considered to be electrical activities processed in the nervous system. The memory appeared to be stored in certain circuits in the brain, such as the limbic system. The knowledge embedded with a transactive memory system helps groups apply prior learning to new tasks and develop an abstract understanding of a problem domain, leading to sustained performance. The memory and learning process have their own chemical bases. Many chemical factors including neurotransmitters influences learning and memory through actions on different brain regions. This review is prepared with the view that an increased understanding of mechanism associated with memory and learning will opened up the possibility to explore drugs acting on cognitive functions. A central claim of this wonderful assemblage of articles is that memory is a hyphenated phenomenon, a material-semiotic one. It is a conceptual site where phenomenology meets ontology meets materiality. Keywords: Memory | Learning | Brain | neurotransmitters, Introduction In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain and subsequently retrieve information. 'Memory' is the ability of an individual to record sensory stimuli; events, information etc retain [...]

The article discusses how students can be motivated to study and learn better if they are given a better understanding of how the brain works. There is an inverse relationship between the brain and learning with each influencing the other positively.

The Institute for the Future of the Mind has revealed that mental visualization can contribute to the learning process. The theory is substantiated by the fact that well known sportsmen and women have used the method and improved their performance at competitions.

A crossword a day keeps the doctor away Learning protects newly formed brain cells in adult mammals KEEPING mentally agile protects against dementia but until now no one has known [...]

It's early morning, and I'm the only one up eating breakfast. Propped up in front of me is a college Hebrew text, open to lesson 3. I'm reading through my [...]

Children who have learning, attention, and behavior problems may be suffering from excessive daytime sleepiness, even though clinical tests show them sleeping long enough at night, a new study reports. [...]

A wasp may be the first invertebrate shown to have a special talent for learning faces of its own kind. Like people, Polistes fuscatus wasps can tell individuals of their [...]

An analysis of the role of speaking and listening in the development of thinking skills in students at early years and primary education levels. Teachers are encouraged to get their students to work in pairs or small groups in order to develop their speaking and listening skills.

The expertise of an educational psychologist is sometimes needed in solving children's learning problems. Psychologists often cooperate with schools to generate positive learning and behaviour strategies.

This letter was supposed to update on the education of my five-year-old, Ethan. I introduced you to Ethan in November when I chronicled the decision my wife and I made [...]