T
language ability, which view it as largely innate,
Tacit Knowing
▶ Incidental Learning
Tacit Knowledge
PAUL J. HAGER
University of Technology, Sydney, Broadway, NSW,
Australia
Synonyms
Implicit knowledge; Know-how; Unconscious learning
Definition
Tacit knowledge is literally “knowledge that cannot be
put into words.” But this deceptively simple initial
formulation requires some explication. One complication
is that the “knowledge” involved typically has a very broad
scope, encompassing such things as unconscious habits
and unexamined cultural mores. Further, this generally
accepted initial characterization of tacit knowledge is
multiply ambiguous. As Winch (2010, p. 117) puts it:
" Propositional knowledge, practical knowledge and
knowledge by acquaintance can all be tacit in certain
circumstances. The tacitness of practical knowledge is,
however, of particular importance as it seems to point
to an ineffability or inexplicability in accomplished or
expert practical action which defies description or
explanation.
In fact “tacit knowledge” covers at least the follow-
ing distinct cases:
1. Knowledge or know-how that, in principle, cannot
be made explicit or codified. Examples are Chom-
sky and Fodor’s cognitivist accounts of human
N. Seel (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6,
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
having a neurological basis beyond the scope of
conscious awareness.
2. Knowledge or know-how that may be able to be
made explicit or codified, but how to achieve this
has not yet been discovered. In this case, research
can turn the tacit into the explicit, as, for instance,
the work of Shulman and colleagues on medical
problem solving demonstrates (Shulman 2004).
3. Knowledge or know-how that we exercise without
being aware that we are exercising them. These
encompass all kinds of automatic habits or routines
that we carry out, often very skillfully, but with
a minimum of conscious attention. Examples
include driving on the correct side of the road and
entering the pin number of our credit card. These
actions commonly become so habitual that we do
them without thinking about it. In some cases, such
as which side of the road to drive on, we can be
aware that we posses this knowledge or know-how
prior to exercising it subconsciously. In other cases,
we may be unaware that we possess such knowledge
or know-how until we realize that we have success-
fully exercised it.
4. Knowledge or know-how that we are able to exer-
cise, but without being able to explain how we do
so. For instance, normal humans develop profi-
ciency in activities such as walking, running, and
lifting without being able to explain in detail the
underpinning components of their proficiency.
These various distinct cases of tacit knowledge lead
Burbules (2008, p. 670) to conclude that there
“are, indeed, different kinds and degrees of ‘tacitness’
at work here.”
Theoretical Background
The differences between these various positions hinge
on several dimensions or key ideas. These include the
following.
3260 T Tacit Knowledge
Knowing That Versus Knowing How
The distinction between knowing that and knowing
how is sometimes deployed to elucidate the notion of
tacit knowledge. Knowing that (“factual knowledge”),
of course, encompasses propositional knowledge,
which by definition can be written down and codified,
whereas knowing how (“practical knowledge”) encom-
passes the kinds of knowing that underpin acting and
judging appropriately in a given practical situation.
The notion of “tacit” arises here because at least some
knowing how appears to be tacit in one or more of the
senses listed above. It is easy to identify cases of know-
ing how that fit each of the four cases of tacit knowl-
edge outlined above. This is not so for knowing that.
Only the second and third cases of tacit knowledge
outlined above can sometimes involve propositional
knowledge. It seems then that propositional knowledge
can be tacit in more limited senses. So, at best, the
distinction between knowing that and knowing how
provides only an approximate understanding to the
domain of the tacit and the diverse interpretations
surrounding it. Indeed, without careful elaboration,
the distinction between knowing that and knowing
how itself becomes problematic (see, e.g., Winch
2010; Burbules 2008).
The Rich Diversity of Know-how Itself
The ambiguity and multiplicity of meanings surround-
ing the notion of the tacit can be traced in part to the
rich diversity of items that fall under the term “know-
how.” Knowing how to act and judge appropriately in
a given practical situation potentially involves
a bewildering array of capacities, abilities, skills, com-
petencies, dispositions, habits, feels, knacks, and, per-
haps, intuitions. Some of these may be largely innate,
others may be able to be acquired through training or
mentoring, still others may be derived from experience.
Whilst various attempts have been made to describe
and codify each of these diverse constituents of know-
ing how, such attempts are typically partial, provi-
sional, and contested. Tacit knowledge becomes the
term to capture the ingredients that these descriptions
and codifications are thought to lack.
While the bewildering array of components that
apparently underpin know-how contribute to its ambi-
guity, further ambiguity arises from the sorts of inter-
related yet distinct activities that fall under the term
“know-how.” As Burbules (2008, p. 672) notes, as well
as the basic case of being able to do something well
without being aware of what is involved, know-how
also includes related yet different activities. One such
instance is being able to do something in a particular
style or manner without being aware of how one does it
(e.g., a capacity to put people at ease). Another instance
is the capacity to diagnose and solve problems (e.g., to
quickly take stock of a situation and devise a strategy to
cope with it).
The Practice Turn and Links to the
Tacit
Notions of the tacit are central to the so-called “practice
turn” (Schatzki 2001) that has influenced many diverse
disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Prac-
tice theorists conceive of “practices as embodied, mate-
rially mediated arrays of human activity centrally
organized around shared practical understanding”
(Schatzki 2001, p. 2). For practice theorists, “embodied
capacities such as know-how, skills, tacit understand-
ing, and dispositions” displace “once cited mental enti-
ties such as beliefs, desires, emotions and purposes”
(Schatzki 2001, p. 7), thereby overturning traditional
intellectualist and individualist models of cognition,
group interaction, and learning. Whilst there are sig-
nificant differences between various practice theorists,
a theme common to all such theorists is that the pre-
suppositions that constitute a practice are tacit in that
they cannot be fully articulated. But, as Rouse (2006,
pp. 515–518) has noted, even this commonality is illu-
sory, since different practice theorists understand the
tacit in very different ways. He identifies four different
senses, ranging from weakly constitutive to strongly
constitutive.
Overall then, there is significant variation in mean-
ings of the tacit. This variation is magnified by similar
variations in closely related theoretical concepts such as
know-how, skills, and practice.
Modes of Attaining or Sharing Tacit
Knowledge
Whilst classical propositional knowledge is customar-
ily taught by conventional discursive methods, the
situation is more varied for instances of tacit knowl-
edge. Some kinds are more readily developed than
others. For instance, some, such as case 1 and some
instances of case 4 above, may be innate or

developmental. Others, such as cases 2, 3, and some
instances of case 4 above, may be attained best by
novices modeling or copying the activities of suitable
mentors or masters. This works best through personal
contact in nurturing situations founded on trust.
Other instances of cases 3 and 4 are often developed
from personal experience. Thus, in the diversity of tacit
knowledge, some kinds are more easily shared amongst
peers than are others.
Burbules (2008, pp. 672–3) describes a continuum
of tacit teaching activities:
" [First]. . .we are observed unknowingly and in this
become examples to others whether we realise it or
not [although we may be] actively behaving with an
eye toward how others may be learning from us. Sec-
ond, in trying to explain one’s tacit know-how one
person may try to indicate at least ostensively and
indirectly what they want another to notice: “see
that?” “try to do it like this” etc. .... Third, a certain kind
of know-how is gained only through repetition:
watching and doing the same thing over and over,
under the watchful eye of a skilled practitioner. Over
time, proper performance becomes habitual in ways
that may be almost entirely tacit and inexpressi-
ble. . .such repetition is sometimes called “practice.”
Fourth, one sometimes tries to demonstrate the cor-
rect way of doing something by at least being able to
point out when it is being done incorrectly.... Fifthly,
and similarly, sometimes teaching through questions
can lead thought towards important inferences and
connections, without saying explicitly what they are –
this kind of teaching can provide a kind of scaffolding
that can guide the learner to formulate their own ver-
sion of understanding against their background knowl-
edge, experiences, and point of view. Finally, analogies
or similes can be useful, though indirect, ways of guid-
ing understanding: “look at it like this,” or “imagine if it
were....” Needless to say, those are open to interpreta-
tion and guesswork too.
Burbules’ point with these examples is that teaching
of the tacit is not itself a thoroughly tacit undertaking.
Burbules’ continuum demonstrates that “there is a
degree of structure or intention in the process of teach-
ing (it need not be entirely tacit), even when it must
necessarily involve processes of indirection, allusion
and guesswork” (Burbules 2008, p. 673). Burbules’
continuum invites comparison with the Dreyfus
Tacit Learning T 3261
model of skill acquisition (Dreyfus and Dreyfus
1986), in which the tacit becomes increasingly promi-
nent in the higher stages.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Given that a single definition of tacit knowledge is
inevitably flawed, what set of replacement terms
might be advanced so as to eliminate the multiple
ambiguity that accompanies common usage of the
term “tacit knowledge”?
Can such a set of replacement terms be adapted to
help clarify the various dimensions of theoretical con-
cepts that are closely related to tacit knowledge, such as
know-how, skills, and practice?
How might a more nuanced account of tacit
knowledge inform our understanding of expertise,
and vice versa?
Cross-References
▶ Experiential Learning
▶ Expertise
▶ Incidental Learning
▶ Informal Learning
▶ Unconscious and Conscious Learning
▶ Vocational Learning
References
Burbules, N. (2008). Tacit teaching. Educational Philosophy and The-
ory, 40(5), 666–677.
Dreyfus, H. L., & Dreyfus, S. E. (1986). Mind over machine: The power
of human intuition and expertise in the era of the computer.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Rouse, J. (2006). Practice theory. In S. Turner & M. Risjord (Eds.),
Volume 15: Philosophy of anthropology and sociology (pp. 500–
540). In D. M. Gabbay, P. Thagard, & J. Woods (Eds.), Handbook
of the philosophy of science. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Schatzki, T. R. (2001). Introduction: Practice theory. In T. R. Schatzki,
K. Knorr Cetina, & E. von Savigny (Eds.), The practice turn in
T
contemporary theory (pp. 1–14). London & New York: Routledge.
Shulman, L. S. (2004). In S. M. Wilson (Ed.), The wisdom of practice:
Essays on teaching, learning, and learning to teach. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Winch, C. (2010). Dimensions of expertise: A conceptual exploration of
vocational knowledge. London & New York: Continuum.
Tacit Learning
▶ Informal Learning
3262 T Tactical Deception
Tactical Deception
▶ Cognitive Aspects of Deception
Tailored Instruction
▶ Adaptation to Learning Styles
Talent
Talent is the somewhat mythical term commonly used
to describe a rare quality, dispersed among all humans,
that leads to musical greatness or ineptitude. Talent is
typically viewed as a quality that only a few individuals
possess, while aptitude is commonly viewed as some-
thing that all individuals possess to some degree.
Talk
▶ Discourse
▶ Discourse and the Production of Knowledge
Tandem Learning
CYNTHIA J. WHITE
School of Linguistics & International Languages,
Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
Synonyms
e-tandem learning; Language partners; Teletandem
learning
Definition
The notion of a mutually supportive partnership is
central to tandem learning, where the focus is on learn-
ing through authentic communication with a native
speaker. Tandem learning involves the pairing of
individuals with different mother tongues working
together in order to learn each other’s language.
Learners can benefit from their partner’s expert knowl-
edge about language and cultural issues, and they are
able to improve their communicative competence by
conversing with native speakers as well as by receiving
feedback. As such, tandem learning is a highly social
form of learning which has been used in institutional
settings but has also been configured as a form of open
learning available to individuals through language
learning networks on the Web.
Telecollaboration described as “online communica-
tion used to bring together language learners in differ-
ent countries in order to carry out collaborative
projects or undertake intercultural exchanges”
(O’Dowd and Ritter 2006, p. 623) is closely aligned to
tandem learning. While tandem learning requires part-
ners to set their personal agendas for learning and
to negotiate discussion topics, the focus of telecolla-
boration is on discussion, debate, enquiry, and collabora-
tion as part of intercultural project work in class-to-class
partnerships. The interconnectedness of language learn-
ing and culture learning underpins telecollaboration, and
aims to promote students’ linguistic development and
intercultural awareness. Most telecollaborative projects
involve students with higher proficiency levels.
Theoretical Background
The earliest forms of tandem learning set up in the
1960s were conducted face-to-face (Stickler and Lewis
2008) in which the primary channel of communication
was oral: at this stage tandem learning did not receive
much attention as a way of organizing language learn-
ing. However, the advent of the Internet meant that
students could meet virtually to interact using different
configurations of computer-mediated communication:
synchronous forms include chat or videoconferencing
and asynchronous modalities include email and discus-
sion forums. Since the problem of limited access to
authentic opportunities to use the target language has
been an enduring challenge in language learning, this too
stimulated research into the potential of email tandem
language exchanges which allow learners to try out their
developing second language with native speakers.
Important theoretical developments in tandem
learning came with the work of Little and Brammerts
(1996) who argued that the pedagogical potential of
tandem learning was based on two fundamental

principles, reciprocity and learner autonomy. Reci-
procity underpins the collaborative dimension of
tandem learning in terms of mutual support, equal
contribution, equivalent benefit, and, critically, the
degree to which individuals enact and alternate both
roles of learner and expert. Moreover, reciprocity lies
behind partners’ acknowledgment of each other’s
learning needs and styles, while offering encourage-
ment and providing correction. The principle of
autonomy underlies the host of decisions learners
make throughout the tandem partnership, including
the topic of the co-operative exchanges, and the
nature, extent, and focus of feedback and correction.
Importantly too the balance between conversational
activity and peer feedback or correction as decided by
the learners is a further aspect of autonomy. The
responsibility learners must assume for their own
learning and for the nature of the learning is seen as
the product of an interdependent, collaborative pro-
cess (Little 2001).
Sociocultural and interactionist frameworks have
also been applied to tandem exchanges and telecolla-
borative language learning. Interactionist perspectives
focus on how online interaction can contribute to
learners’ grammatical competence, using transcripts of
interactions to identify gains in terms of linguistic accu-
racy or fluency. Sociocultural interpretations have
focused on intercultural exploration, the role of the
teacher, as well as the influence of socioinstitutional
contexts on students’ participation patterns and atti-
tudes toward online correspondence (Ware and
O’Dowd 2008). Sociocultural theory has also been
used to examine miscommunication and to enquire
into the development of intercultural competence
online, most recently using Web 2.0 tools such as wikis
and blogs as well as social networking and virtual worlds.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
The first decade of research into Internet-mediated
tandem learning opened a number of important
domains of enquiry common to different configura-
tions of interactive exchanges. Kötter (2002), for exam-
ple, identified ways in which learners improved their
target language skills as a result of participation in
MOO-based tandem exchanges: they learned lexical
items used in the exchange, including some of their
partner’s typical expressions, and, importantly, raised
Tandem Learning T 3263
their metacognitive awareness of the processes which
language learning entails. In terms of acting as
a resource for their partners, they provided lexical
assistance and engaged in negotiation of meaning at
critical points. Importantly, Kötter’s research revealed
that the tandem learning partnership is an opportunity
for learners to develop both their linguistic and meta-
linguistic skills. Subsequent research in other contexts,
however, revealed that learners are not always equipped
with a sufficiently strong understanding of the struc-
ture of their native languages to provide metalinguistic
explanations, raising questions about how best to pre-
pare such students for tandem exchanges.
While telecollaboration has long been heralded as
having strong intercultural learning potential, and edu-
cators have assumed that engaging learners in
exchanges with members of the target culture would
produce a better understanding of both language and
culture, research has tended to challenge these assump-
tions: breakdowns in communication are common and
have been analyzed as relating to factors at the individ-
ual, classroom, socioinstitutional, and interaction level
(O’Dowd and Ritter 2006). Importantly, Belz has
argued that such tensions should not be seen as aspects
that can or should be eliminated, but rather as “cultural
rich–points that we want our students to explore”
(2003, p. 87). Further research is needed into to what
extent and in what ways online contact actually con-
tributes to intercultural learning, and how that can be
measured or assessed. Further research is also needed
that explores the role of task type in promoting the
learning of both language and culture online. The
articulation between classroom activities and online
participation throughout the online exchanges is
another area worthy of further enquiry, as well as how
this relates to other domains of language learning. T
Finally, the last two decades of research into tandem
learning have revealed that while the ability to commu-
nicate and interact across linguistic and cultural
boundaries is an important personal and professional
asset, such interactions are also inherently complex, at
times conflictual and potentially at variance with the
expectations of participants. Understanding how indi-
viduals work with such complexity and with what may
be at times problematic forms of engagement is
a challenge of critical importance to tandem learning,
telecollaborative projects, and numerous other
domains of human interaction.
3264 T Target Domain

Cross-References goal, or task, can be achieved successfully. In a flow chart,

▶ 21st Century Skills the steps can be arranged linearly and sequentially, illus-
▶ Computer-Based Learning Environments trating where a learner begins and ends.
▶ Computer-Enhanced Learning and Learning
Environments
▶ Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning
▶ Language and Learning
▶ Online Collaborative Learning
Task- and Ego-Involvement
▶ Online Learning ▶ Age-Related Differences in Achievement Goal
▶ Second Language Learning Differentiation

References
Belz, J. A. (2003). Linguistic perspectives on the development of
intercultural competence in telecollaboration. Language Learn-
ing and Technology, 7(2), 68–117.
Task Aversion
Kötter, M. (2002). Tandem learning on the internet. Frankfurt am
Tasks perceived to be unpleasant or unmotivating.
Main: Peter Lang.
Little, D. (2001). Learner autonomy and the challenge of tandem
language learning via the Internet. In A. Chambers & G. Davies
(Eds.), ICT and Language Learning: a European Perspective
(pp. 29–38). Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.
Little, D., & Brammerts, H. (1996). A guide to language learning in Task Difficulty in Auditory
tandem via the Internet, CLCS occasional paper, 46. CLCS,
Dublin.
Discrimination Learning
O’Dowd, R., & Ritter, M. (2006). Understanding and working with
‘Failed Communication’ in telecollaborative exchanges. CAL- SIMONE KURT
ICO, 23(3), 623–642. University of Ulm, Institute of Neurobiology,
Stickler, U., & Lewis, T. (2008). Collaborative learning strategies in an Ulm, Germany
email tandem exchange. In M. Hurd & T. Lewis (Eds.), Language
learning strategies in Independent settings (pp. 237–261).
Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Ware, P. D., & O’Dowd, R. (2008). Peer feedback on language form in Synonyms
telecollaboration. Language Learning and Technology, 12(1), Hard-to-easy effect in acoustic conditioning
43–63.
Definition
Effects of task difficulty on procedural and perceptual
knowledge transfer between tasks (hard-to-easy or
easy-to-hard task) in auditory discrimination learning
Target Domain in a shuttle box.
Unfamiliar situation, context, or problem; the general-
ization context.
Theoretical Background
The transfer of learned skills or knowledge from one
task to another is a higher cognitive function that is
characteristic for humans but has rarely been investi-
gated in other mammals. Examples for such transfer
Task Analysis capabilities are generalization of stimuli within and
across physical categories or transfer of knowledge
Procedures can be simple, whereby a learner follows one from one stimulus discrimination task to another. As
set of steps in a straightforward sequential fashion, or the acquirement of the capability to discriminate sen-
complex, with many decisions that a learner must make. sory stimuli in a certain task involves both procedural
A task analysis breaks down the steps so that the overall and perceptual learning, the type of knowledge that

may be transferred between tasks may also be proce-
dural, perceptual, or both. In this context, the task
difficulty may play a critical role in determining what
type of knowledge will be transferred between
tasks, and if there is any benefit or disadvantage from
the previously acquired knowledge for learning the new
task, especially in tasks that differ in difficulty of the
perceptual discrimination and classification.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Whereas knowledge transfer between tasks in auditory
discrimination learning has been investigated in
a number of mammalian species including humans
(e.g., Ohl et al. 2001; Wetzel et al. 1998), the effect of
task difficulty on knowledge transfer in such tasks has
so far been investigated only in humans (Delhommeau
et al. 2002; Liu et al. 2008; Wright and Zhang 2009) and
mice (Kurt and Ehret 2010). In these latter studies, the
amount of knowledge transfer between tasks with pos-
sible benefits or disadvantages for the learning perfor-
mance in the second task has been compared between
easy-to-hard and hard-to-easy successions of percep-
tual discrimination of stimuli. It was found that two
forms of learning could be distinguished in the audi-
tory discrimination tasks: an initial rapid improvement
in auditory learning that is interpreted as rapid proce-
dural learning (learning the response demands of the
task), and a following slower improvement that is taken
as evidence for perceptual learning (improvement of
discriminative perceptual judgments). It was con-
cluded that the perceptual dimension for the discrim-
ination or classification in the easy task is clear from the
beginning of the training so that a rapid procedural
learning effect becomes obvious in the initial improve-
ment of the performance. This procedural learning
effect is masked in the hard task in which the subjects
seem initially unable to perceptually identify what has
to be discriminated, so that the acquired procedural
knowledge does not help to do the task. In the hard
discrimination tasks, mice show a slow improvement
presumably because of the difficulties in perceptual
task identification (difficulties to direct their attention
to the stimulus features to be discriminated). Since the
slopes of improvement of the discrimination perfor-
mance in the hard tasks are very similar to the slope of
the late improvement in the easy task, a constant aver-
age increase in attention to the stimuli to be
Task Difficulty in Auditory Discrimination Learning T 3265
discriminated is assumed. Based on this assumption,
the average level of attention is the limiting factor for
the level of the discrimination performance reached in
a training session in the perceptually hard task. In the
perceptually easy task, the amount of attention to the
stimuli would be a limiting factor for the performance
only after the initial performance improvement by
procedural knowledge.
In the transition from one task to another, there
seems to be no perceptual generalization and knowledge
transfer across sounds from different perceptual classes
and, therefore, no performance benefit in discrimination
when switching the sounds between the classes (e.g.,
sounds with different pitches vs. sounds with different
rhythms) in a discrimination task. Thus, there is no
beneficial effect when switching from an easy to a hard
discrimination task if, at the same time, the perceptual
classes of the sounds are changed.
In contrast, when switching from a hard to an easy
task, subjects benefited in the easy task from knowledge
acquired in the previous hard task. Because the stimulus
classes in the two tasks were different, human studies
suggest that the benefit (hard-to-easy effect) was not
based on knowledge of or generalization across stimuli
(Liu et al. 2008) but rather on implicitly learned infor-
mation integration. Integration of information about
the stimuli, the procedural context, and the acquired
cognitive skills in the experimental setting seems to be
the key for understanding the discrimination perfor-
mance of the subjects. When the task changed, the new
stimulus situation was immediately clear and the
learned cognitive skill of response demands of the task
could rapidly be adapted to the new sounds because of
the perceptually easy discrimination of the tones.
A possible impediment of learning performance
may occur during task transition if the new sounds to T
be learned share perceptual features like spectral con-
tent with the already learned sounds so that unlearning
and relearning of cognitive skills is required. If this is
not the case, rapid improvement in directing the atten-
tion to the new and clearly perceptible stimuli is seen as
a beneficial effect in hard-to-easy task transitions.
Since mice show effects similar to humans in audi-
tory discrimination tasks when the task difficulty is
changed from easy to hard or from hard to easy, mice
offers a promising perspective for testing the influence
of different genetic backgrounds on auditory percep-
tion and/or learning abilities in future studies.
3266 T Task Goals

Cross-References
▶ Animal Learning and Intelligence
▶ Animal Perceptual Learning
▶ Conditioning
▶ Discrimination Learning Model
▶ Discriminative Learning
▶ Generalization vs. Discrimination
▶ Task Difficulty and Learning
▶ Task-Irrelevant Perceptual Learning
▶ Transfer of Learning
References
Delhommeau, K., Micheyl, C., Jouvet, R., & Collet, L. (2002). Trans-
fer of learning across durations and ears in auditory frequency
discrimination. Perception & Psychophysics, 64, 426–436.
Kurt, S., & Ehret, G. (2010). Auditory discrimination learning and
knowledge transfer in mice depends on task difficulty. Proceed-
ings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of
America, 107, 8481–8485.
Liu, E. H., Mercado, I. E., Church, B. A., & Orduña, I. (2008). The
easy-to-hard effect in human (Homo sapiens) and rat (Rattus
norvegicus) auditory identification. Journal of Comparative Psy-
chology, 122, 132–145.
Ohl, F. W., Scheich, H., & Freeman, W. J. (2001). Change in pattern of
ongoing cortical activity with auditory category learning. Nature,
412, 733–736.
Wetzel, W., Wagner, T., Ohl, F. W., & Scheich, H. (1998). Categorical
discrimination of direction in frequency-modulated tones by
Mongolian gerbils. Behavioural Brain Research, 91, 29–39.
Wright, B. A., & Zhang, Y. (2009). A review of the generalization of
auditory learning. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
B: Biological Sciences, 364, 301–311.
Task Goals
▶ Goal Theory/Goal Setting
Task Sequencing and Learning
JOSEPHINE COCK, BEAT MEIER
Department of Psychology, University of Bern,
Bern, Switzerland
Synonyms
Problem solving; Proceduralization; Sequence learn-
ing; Skill acquisition; Task-based instruction; Transfer
learning
Definition
A task is a challenge or duty that is normally accom-
plished during a problem-solving activity or a series of
activities. It involves the pursuit of prior or emergent
goals. The activity involved in the learning of
a sequence of tasks engages perceptual, cognitive, com-
municative, and procedural skills which are applied to
novel or preexisting stimulus materials. Exploration of
this topic includes methods and findings from disci-
plines including cognitive science, machine learning,
instruction, and ergonomics. Research into task
sequencing and learning is of interest to scientists and
educationalists because it generates suggestions for
improving learning through more stable, more versa-
tile, or simply more appropriate forms of sequencing.
The central question is whether different orders of
presenting materials and techniques, in natural as well
as artificial situations, can lead to qualitatively and
quantitatively different learning outcomes.
Theoretical Background
Task sequencing plays a role in all tutoring and teaching
systems, whether they involve human or artificial
intelligence. Sequencing is based on a component-skills
approach to learning. The order in which facts, mate-
rials, and tasks are presented may influence what is
learned, how it is learned, how fast it is learned, and
even whether anything at all is learned. Additionally, it
may influence the kind of errors that are made, the
amount of practice that is needed, duration of reten-
tion, and transfer of knowledge to other domains.
Sequencing effects arise when learning is affected by
choice of training materials (data sampling), order of
presentation, and speed of presentation. Learners and
learning systems vary in the degree to which they are
influenced by these parameters.
There are various approaches for how best to
sequence materials and techniques in teaching and
training, for example, hierarchical, procedural, topical,
and spiral sequencing. The application of a hierarchical
sequence for teaching “intellectual skills” was put for-
ward by Gagne (1968). It is based on the observation
that skills are made up of subcomponents that are
mostly built upon one another, often to the point
where some higher level skills cannot be taught before
lower level ones. Gagne’s model begins with simple
signal learning and stimulus-response learning, which
are prerequisites for chaining and verbal associations.

In turn, these are prerequisites for discrimination learn-
ing, which is a prerequisite for concept learning. Con-
cept learning is the basis for rule learning, which is
a prerequisite for problem-solving. Although Gagne’s
model is comprehensive and moves from simple to
complex tasks in a clear-cut fashion, in reality
the hierarchy may need to incorporate loops and
the possibility of moving more directly to higher levels.
Furthermore, although hierarchical learning can
encompass both topical and spiral sequencing
(described below), it is limited in that instruction is
fragmented and perhaps de-motivating for the learner,
and it may be difficult to transfer resultant knowledge
to other domains.
In procedural sequencing, learning proceeds in steps,
each allowing for the learner’s “level of entry.” Proce-
dural learning and performance are closely entwined.
However, procedural task analysis (creation of a flow
chart) reveals that at least some hierarchical learning
components must be included in procedural learning.
This is because each step comprises a separate concept
and each learner has a different degree of expertise for
each concept. The two main strengths of a procedural
sequence are that it feels logical to the learner and that it
does not require much input from the trainer. Its main
weakness is that “branching” will create a dilemma for
the learner, as will anything that cannot be carried out
in a unidirectional, step-by-step fashion.
In topical sequencing, a task, or topic, is taught to
the appropriate level of understanding before
a subsequent stage is attempted, but there is a risk
that the task is insufficiently learned or that it is for-
gotten over time. To avoid this problem, in spiral
sequencing, topics or tasks are perfected by means of
repetitive cyclical increments. With each return, the
topic or task is treated in more depth. The advantage
of this approach is that it provides its own review
system but the disadvantage is that it causes disruption
to general learning through constant switching of
schemas and techniques. As neither topical nor spiral
sequencing are “pure” in practice, perhaps rather than
ask which approach is preferable, one should ask when
one should be applied rather than the other, and when
a combination of the two might be better.
An example for such a combined approach is the
Simplifying Conditions Method (cf., Reigeluth 2007). It
provides a guideline for developing a “simple-to-com-
plex” task sequence that induces holistic rather than
Task Sequencing and Learning T 3267
fragmented learning. It begins with the simplest version
of a task that is broadly representative of the task at its
most complex. Progressively more complex versions of
the task are encountered and practiced until the desired
level of expertise is attained, with the learner being
made explicitly aware of relations throughout. Each
version of the task can be performed and presented as
a “finished” item in its own right. Each captures the
essence of what is required but at different stages of
representation or completion. In contrast,
a hierarchical sequence cannot “run” until the details
are filled in at each level. The Simplifying Conditions
Method has two parts: epitomizing (the simplest ver-
sion that is still representative of the whole task) and
elaborating (moving through progressively more
detailed versions). By helping learners understand
tasks holistically from the very beginning, elaboration
sequencing can enhance motivation, even when instruc-
tion is highly directive. Elaboration sequences can be
conceptual as well as procedural. Hence, elaboration
sequences can help learners build their own cognitive
and creative scaffolding. The main disadvantages are
that the task area must be large enough in content
(expertise domain) to make the learning worthwhile,
and the elaboration sequence must still be used in
conjunction with procedural and hierarchical learning.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Effects of task sequencing on learning have been mainly
explored in the areas of second language acquisition,
instructional design, and machine learning. In the first
area, the aim is to subdivide the domain into compo-
nents, or skills, that can be learned separately
(e.g., vocabulary, grammar, and articulation) but also
combined in ways that will enable students from different T
backgrounds and with different levels of preexisting
knowledge to acquire the language quickly, efficiently,
and enduringly. Robinson (2010) has proposed two
hypotheses that are relevant here: the Cognition
Hypothesis and the Aptitude/Ability Differentiation
Framework. The Cognition Hypothesis proposes that
increasing the cognitive demands of tasks will (a) push
learners toward greater accuracy and complexity of
language production in order to meet the greater func-
tional/communicative demands that are placed on the
learner; (b) promote heightened attention to, and
memory for, the input, thereby increasing learning of
3268 T Task Sequencing and Learning
the input and incorporating forms of information
made salient by the input; (c) facilitate longer-term
retention of the input; and (d) lead to automaticity
and efficient scheduling of components of complex
language-task performance. The Aptitude/Ability Dif-
ferentiation Framework hypothesis proposes that indi-
vidual differences will affect learners’ efficiency with
regard to allocation of attention, rehearsal of attended
information, awareness, and ultimately, extent of long-
term retention. Hence, Robinson’s framework aims to
match individual learners to particular instructional
conditions.
In the area of instructional design, the aim is to
provide design guidelines that help to identify situa-
tions in which order is modifiable and in which an
activity can be interrupted without disturbing learning.
For example, in a classroom setting, it may be desirable
to include short lessons on related subtopics, or addi-
tional modules, at certain points in the curriculum. In
order to know how to modify sequences and facilitate
transfer between areas so that complexity of subsequent
learning is reduced, a two-step teaching strategy can be
applied. The first step involves compiling a list of all
relevant tasks according to the current student model;
a task is relevant if it contains appropriate goals and has
all the necessary knowledge elements already learned or
ready to be learned. The second involves selecting the
most appropriate task for each student at any given
point from the list of relevant tasks. The pragmatic
tutoring strategy is to select the relevant task with the
fewest familiar skills if a student is progressing quickly,
but to select the relevant task with the fewest unfamiliar
skills (i.e., those as yet unlearned) if a student is
progressing slowly. As it is known that students tend
to tackle easier tasks first and rarely adopt sophisticated
strategies of their own accord (such as spiral sequenc-
ing, epitomizing, and elaborating), these techniques
may need to be taught explicitly. Yet another question
is how tools, such as educational software packages and
technical equipment, can be developed so that tutoring
systems compute optimal orders automatically, while
also providing learners with flexibility.
In the area of machine learning, the aim is to develop
flexible and powerful incremental learning algorithms
that have useful and minimally adverse ordering effects.
The best orders can be found either by experimentation
or by computation. The core question is: how do rules,
speed, and space requirements (learning trajectories)
influence order effects and vice versa? In the field
of computer science, “▶ transfer learning” is used in
conjunction with task sequencing. Transfer learning
is a specialist term for improving machine learning
algorithms by training the system on a sequence of
tasks rather than single tasks in isolation (Taylor et al.
2007). Typically, the system or agent learns a certain set of
materials or a routine in what is called a “source task” and
then applies the knowledge that has been gained to what
is called a “target task.” Experience on the simpler “source
task” is conveyed to the related but more complex “target
task” in order to reduce the amount of time required to
learn the latter task. “Transfer learning” provides a way to
accelerate training. Learning algorithms that rely on rein-
forcement are powerful but costly in terms of time,
especially when they have to learn “from scratch” and
when they are in complex domains. Even so, with “trans-
fer learning,” if the goal is to minimize total training time,
or to minimize total data required in order to learn, then
the order in which the tasks are presented may still be
critical.Optimal ordering of tasks for machine learning
algorithms is, therefore, an open problem and at present
there is no systematic way to determine how best to
construct such a sequence of tasks. A second problem is
that of “negative transfer.” Here, learning of one or more
“source tasks” before a “target task” may impair the
system’s ability to learn due to bias. At present, no general
technique exists to prevent negative transfer. A third
problem concerns how much time to spend training the
system on “source tasks.” Whereas a human instructor
can use her experience to guide students as to how long
they should spend at each stage, suitable curricula for
machine learning have not been established as yet.
Although some work has been carried out on “autono-
mous transfer” in machine learning, “transfer learning”
relies mostly on humans for task order selection. An
emerging proposition is that workers in the area of
machine learning should make task selection a more
explicit part of the transfer process, and second, that
they should embark on new research to uncover how
best to design machine learning curricula. At least three
roles are envisaged for human designers in this field,
namely, “common sense,” “domain expertise,” and
“algorithmic expertise.” It is then a question of using
human knowledge to assist machine learning. Studies
on task sequencing and learning can also facilitate better
understanding of how human and machine learning can
be successfully integrated.

One model of cognitive architecture, widely used by
researchers, is ACT (Adaptive Control of Thought)
by Anderson (e.g., Anderson and Lebiere 1998).
This model is relevant to task sequencing because it
successfully combines declarative knowledge and
proceduralization. It incorporates long-term memory
in the form of ▶ production rules, against which goals
and short-term memory are matched. The most recent
version of this model is called ACT-R and involves
a mathematical approach to cognition which Anderson
refers to as “Rational Analysis”. Among many other
applications, ACT-R has been used to model the
order and structure of interactions between tutors
and students. Theoretical models in this area still have
many general as well as specific questions to answer,
including: “How can an optimal sequence be deter-
mined in the first place? How can it be applied under
differing instructional conditions?,” “How can negative
transfer be avoided?,” “How can the appropriate
amount of time for allocation to source tasks be
selected?,” and “How are order choices to be made
between subsequent tasks?” As a separate issue, age,
prior expertise, and motivation must also be taken
into account when models of task sequencing and
learning are proposed (Ritter et al. 2007).
Cross-References
▶ 2nd Language Learning
▶ ACT
▶ Adult Teaching and Learning
▶ Cognitive Tasks and Learning
▶ Human Cognitive Architecture
▶ Implicit Sequence Learning
▶ Integrated Learning Systems
▶ Learning Spiral
▶ Learning Task(s)
▶ Procedural Learning
▶ Sequential Learning
References
Anderson, T. R., & Lebiere, C. (1998). The atomic components of
thought. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Gagne, R. M. (1968). Learning hierarchies. Educational Psychology, 6,
1–9.
Reigeluth, C. M. (2007). Order, first step to mastery: An introduction
to sequencing in instructional design. In F. R. Ritter, J. Nerb,
E. Lehtinen, & T. M. O’Shea (Eds.), In order to learn: How the
sequence of topics influences learning (pp. 19–40). Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Task-Irrelevant Learning T 3269
Ritter, F. R., Nerb, J., Lehtinen, E., & O’Shea, T. M. (2007). In order to
learn: How the sequence of topics influences learning. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Robinson, P. (2010). Second language task complexity: Researching the
cognition hypothesis of second language learning and performance.
Philadelphia/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Taylor, M. E., Stone, P., & Liu, Y. (2007). Transfer learning via inter-
task mappings for temporal difference learning. Journal of
Machine Learning Research, 8, 2125–2167.
Task-Based Instruction
▶ Task Sequencing and Learning
Task-Induced Involvement
Load
Task involvement load is a motivational-cognitive con-
struct proposed by Hulstijn and Laufer (2001) to mea-
sure the amount of mental processing that learners do
when working on a vocabulary learning task. It consists
of three basic components: need, search, and evalua-
tion. Each of these three factors can be absent or pre-
sent when processing a word in a natural or artificially
designed task. The combination of factors with their
degree of prominence constitute involvement load.
References
Hulstijn, J. H. & Laufer, B. (2001). Some empirical evidence for the
involvement load hypothesis in vocabulary acquisition. Language
Learning, 51(3), 539–558.
T
Task-Involved Goals
▶ Goal Theory/Goal Setting
Task-Irrelevant Learning
▶ Task-Irrelevant Perceptual Learning
3270 T Task-Irrelevant Perceptual Learning
Task-Irrelevant Perceptual
Learning
AARON R. SEITZ
Department of Psychology, University of California –
Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA
Synonyms
Subliminal perceptual learning; Task-irrelevant
learning
Definition
Task-irrelevant perceptual learning is a relatively per-
manent and consistent change in the perception of
a stimulus array after experience with that stimulus
array when the stimulus did not directly inform one’s
goal-directed behavior. Task-irrelevant perceptual
learning is distinguished from other forms of percep-
tual learning in that it is not dependent on attention
being directed toward, nor having awareness of, the
stimulus array during the period of learning. Stimulus
arrays that are unnoticed, and even subliminally
presented, can be learned through task-irrelevant per-
ceptual learning when presented in conjunction with
appropriate reinforcing events.
Theoretical Background
Task-irrelevant perceptual learning is a form of percep-
tual learning that has been used primarily to study the
learning of low-level sensory primitives in adult sub-
jects. Perceptual learning concerns the extent to which
the perceptual system is able to adapt to changes in the
perceptual environment. While it is clear that during
early development there exists a substantial degree of
plasticity in the perceptual systems, the adult percep-
tual system is significantly more stable and robust to
change. For example, in an infant prolonged closure of
one eye will result in a reorganization of primary visual
cortex favoring the open eye. However, in an adult
a similar manipulation may result in no noticeable
change in the territory of visual cortex responsive to
each eye. This reduction of the degree of plasticity in
the adult sensory cortices is one that has serious con-
sequences to those suffering conditions impacting the
organization or function of the sensory systems. For
example, in the case of Amblyopia treatments that are
offered during the first few years of life are highly
effectual. However, widely accepted treatments for
Amblyopia in adults are lacking. However, while there
exists broad consensus that the early stages of sensory/
perceptual processing are less plastic in adults than
infants, there exists a burgeoning literature demon-
strating perceptual learning can occur in adults.
A notable example of adult perceptual plasticity is that
of a radiologist; a radiologist typically starts their train-
ing as an adult and after training is able to discriminate
and categorize subtle visual stimuli that have no consis-
tent form to untrained observers. This, and other exam-
ples, of perceptual expertise provide strong evidence that
the adult perceptual system retains some level of plastic-
ity. There currently exists an active research climate to
understand the extent of, and the mechanisms underly-
ing, plasticity in the adult sensory/perceptual systems
under the guise of perceptual learning.
Recent theories of perceptual learning suggest that
attentional and/or reinforcement gating systems serve
to allow or to restrict the learning process. For example,
it is well established that improvements in perceptual
tasks arise out of practice with those tasks. This has led
to the view that focused attention to a stimulus array is
necessary to produce perceptual learning on that array.
However, the recently discovered research paradigm of
task-irrelevant perceptual learning demonstrates that
focused attention toward a stimulus is not required for
that stimulus to be learned (for a review see Seitz and
Watanabe 2005, 2009). Task-irrelevant perceptual
learning has captured a growing interest in the field of
learning science. The basic phenomenon is that stimu-
lus features that are irrelevant to a subject’s task (i.e.,
convey no useful information to that task) can be
learned due to their consistent presentation with
behaviorally relevant events. The grounding idea is
that stimuli that are important to the organism will
produce more learning than those that are not.
Task-irrelevant perceptual learning demonstrates
a process of learning that is qualitatively different
than that suggested by contemporary models of atten-
tional selection in perceptual learning (e.g., Ahissar and
Hochstein 2004). In task-irrelevant perceptual learn-
ing, selection is thought to arise through temporal
coincidences between the stimulus arrays and behav-
iorally relevant events. Thus goal-directed behavior
involving the stimulus arrays and stimulus awareness
are not required for task-irrelevant learning, as they are

in attentional learning. However, task-irrelevant learn-
ing is not contrary to all theories of attentional selec-
tion. There are many different types of attentional and
learning signals that have been identified by psycholog-
ical and neuroscience research and active research is
underway to understand how they each contribute to
perceptual learning. Seitz and Watanabe (2005) specu-
lated that neuromodulatory chemicals, such as acetyl-
choline, norepinephrine, and dopamine, which have
also been implicated as mechanisms modulating atten-
tion, are candidate learning signals that may underlie
task-irrelevant perceptual learning. The fact that simi-
lar brain chemicals are implicated in task-irrelevant
perceptual learning and attention suggests that while
task-irrelevant perceptual learning may not engage
focused attention, it is not entirely dissociated from
other forms of attention.
Task-irrelevant perceptual learning has emerged as
an important mechanism of perceptual learning. This
learning can occur without awareness of the learned
stimuli and even outside of the context of a task. How-
ever, task-irrelevant perceptual learning is not purely
passive and requires the release of learning signals that
can be triggered by important task events or an external
reward (for a review see Seitz and Watanabe 2009). To
date, task-irrelevant perceptual learning has been
shown to occur most consistently for learning of things
that are below the perceptual threshold. This aspect of
task-irrelevant perceptual learning may be important for
enabling the perceptual systems to improve their
processing of subtle, unattended, cues whose incidences
are correlated with important behavioral events and as
such task-irrelevant perceptual learning may be a general
mechanism for the enhancement of stimulus features
that are consistently presented at behaviorally relevant
times.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
An important characteristic of task-irrelevant percep-
tual learning is that the learning takes place for stimuli
to which the subject is not attending (and is typically
unaware of) and that the learning is difficult to explain
as an effect of subjects discovering the distinguishing
features by which to perform the testing tasks. The
phenomenon of task-irrelevant perceptual learning
was first identified by Watanabe et al. (2001), when
they exposed subjects to a motion stimulus while the
Task-Irrelevant Perceptual Learning T 3271
subjects performed a letter identification task. Despite
the fact that the motion stimuli were below the thresh-
old of visibility and were irrelevant to the subjects’
tasks, the repetitive exposure improved performance
specifically for the direction of the exposed motion
when tested in a subsequent suprathreshold test.
A subsequent study by Seitz and Watanabe (2003)
provided mechanistic insight regarding this learning
phenomenon. They found that task-irrelevant percep-
tual learning occurred as the result of temporal-pairing
between the presentation of a subliminal, task-irrele-
vant, motion stimulus and a task-target. Seitz and
Watanabe exposed subjects to four different directions
of motion an equal number of times, but a single direc-
tion was consistently paired (temporally preceded and
then overlapped) with the targets of the letter identifi-
cation task. Learning was found only for the motion-
direction that was paired with the task-targets, not for
the other motion-directions. Together these results
imply that the learning signal involved in perceptual
learning does not require focused attention. The latter
result argues against the notion that task-irrelevant
perceptual learning results from passive processing of
the learned stimulus arrays.
A model proposed by Seitz and Watanabe (2005)
suggests that task-irrelevant perceptual learning is
gated by the confluence between a spatially diffusive
task-related signal and a task-irrelevant feature.
According to the model, when subjects detect the
task-targets the release of chemicals (i.e., a learning
signal) is triggered in the brain that results in learning.
This learning signal triggers both task-relevant learning
for task-targets and also task-irrelevant learning of the
stimulus arrays that are presented at the same time as
the task-targets. This model resembles theories of rein-
forcement learning in that learning is thought to be T
gated by behaviorally relevant events (rewards, punish-
ment, novelty, etc.). At these times learning signals are
released to enhance processing of those aspects of the
environment (even those for which the observer is not
consciously aware) that are predictive of, or covary
with, the event. Key evidence for this model has been
found in a recent study in which task-irrelevant learn-
ing occurred in the absence of any task whatsoever.
Seitz et al. (2009) found that subliminally presented
stimuli in conjunction with liquid rewards (in subjects
who were thirsty) also resulted in perceptual learning.
This gives evidence of the role of reinforcement in
3272 T Taste Aversion Learning
task-irrelevant learning. However future work is required
to determine the correlates in the brain of the learning
signals implicated in task-irrelevant perceptual learning.
An important aspect of research on task-irrelevant
perceptual learning has regarded what types of learning
can occur through. Task-irrelevant perceptual learning
has been found to impact performance on a variety of
testing tasks including detection, discrimination, and
identification tasks and to occur for a variety of differ-
ent stimuli including visual motion and orientation,
critical flicker fusion, and also for auditory stimuli.
Furthermore, benefits resulting from task-irrelevant
perceptual learning can last for years. This research
has produced psychophysical and electrophysiological
evidence indicating that task-irrelevant perceptual
learning can involve plasticity in the earliest stages of
sensory processing (see Seitz et al. 2009; Seitz and
Watanabe 2009). Thus task-irrelevant perceptual learn-
ing may be a particularly good paradigm by which to
identify low-level effects of perceptual learning because
it dissociates what is being learned (i.e., the task-
irrelevant stimulus) from the decision processes that
correspond to the training task, and thus task-
irrelevant perceptual learning cannot easily be
explained by learning in the decision processes. Future
research is required to better understand the levels
of stimulus processing and the types of learning that
can arise through task-irrelevant perceptual learning.
For example, does task-irrelevant perceptual learning
generalize to non-perceptual aspects of learning?
Cross-References
▶ Exposure-Based Perceptual Learning
▶ Incidental Learning
▶ Perceptual Learning
▶ Reinforcement Learning
▶ Unconscious Learning
References
Ahissar, M., & Hochstein, S. (2004). The reverse hierarchy theory of
visual perceptual learning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(10),
457–464.
Seitz, A. R., & Watanabe, T. (2003). Psychophysics: is subliminal
learning really passive? Nature, 422(6927), 36.
Seitz, A., & Watanabe, T. (2005). A unified model for perceptual
learning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(7), 329–334.
Seitz, A. R., & Watanabe, T. (2009). The phenomenon of task-irrelevant
perceptual learning. Vision Research, 49(21), 2604–2610.
Seitz, A. R., Kim, D., & Watanabe, T. (2009). Rewards evoke learning
of unconsciously processed visual stimuli in adult humans. Neu-
ron, 61(5), 700–707.
Watanabe, T., Nanez, J. E., & Sasaki, Y. (2001). Perceptual learning
without perception. Nature, 413(6858), 844–848.
Taste Aversion Learning
W. ROBERT BATSELL, JR.
Department of Psychology, Kalamazoo College,
Kalamazoo, MI, USA
Synonyms
Conditioned taste aversion; Flavor-aversion learning;
Garcia effect
Definition
Taste-aversion learning occurs when an organism dem-
onstrates a pronounced decrease in consumption of
a food or liquid after experiencing that substance
prior to an illness episode. Taste-aversion learning is
a ubiquitous phenomenon that has been recorded at all
levels of the animal kingdom, ranging from insects to
mammals, including humans. The adaptive benefits of
this form of learning are obvious: a foraging animal
that is able to associate the taste of a noxious substance
with its aversive consequences is more likely later to
avoid consuming a larger, and potentially toxic, por-
tion of that same substance. It is notable that although
the term taste-aversion learning is most commonly
used in the literature, the synonym of flavor-aversion
learning is preferred by some researchers because it
captures both the gustatory and olfactory components
of a substance that are probably present whenever
a food or liquid is consumed.
Theoretical Background
Taste-aversion learning is a form of classical or Pavlov-
ian conditioning. The neutral taste of the food or liquid
is the conditioned stimulus (CS), the illness-inducing
event is the unconditioned stimulus (US), the resulting
illness is the unconditioned response (UCR), and the
subsequent decrease in consumption when the taste
is reencountered is the conditioned response (CR).

There appear to be few limitations from either the CS
or US on taste-aversion learning. Taste aversions have
been reported with a range of tastes (e.g., sweet, sour,
bitter, salty, and those that are hedonically preferred or
rejected) and odors. Moreover, a range of stimuli has
been reported to be effective in producing taste aver-
sions, including those that directly produce gastroin-
testinal distress (irradiation or an intraperitoneal
injection of the salt, lithium chloride), or vestibular
disturbances via rotational stimulation. Interestingly,
other USs that do not directly produce illness have also
been shown effective in producing conditioned taste
aversions; these include swimming stress, running
stress, and some drugs of abuse that produce pleasur-
able aftereffects.
Empirical analysis of taste-aversion learning arose
from two distinct areas of research, rodent/pest control
studies developed by the British during World War II
and analyses of the effects of radiation conducted by the
US military in the 1950s. In the 1960s, taste-aversion
learning became a popular paradigm to investigate asso-
ciative learning because of its ecological validity and
a number of unique learning phenomena that were
first identified in taste-aversion research. Indeed,
throughout the heyday of taste-aversion learning
research (1960s–1980s), the primary theoretical ques-
tions involved were whether taste-aversion learning
represented a qualitatively different or quantitatively
different form of learning. This question of whether
taste-aversion learning operated under a set of rules
different from other forms of classical conditioning like
fear conditioning or eyeblink conditioning was theoret-
ically important because it challenged general process
approaches to learning. Many early learning theorists
from Thorndike to Skinner have proposed general prin-
ciples of learning that were assumed to be unrestricted
by organism or conditioning paradigm. Therefore, in the
early 1960s, the prevailing dogma in associative learning
theory reflected this General Process Approach, in which
an underlying assumption was that the rules that gov-
ern the formation of associations should be present in
all associative learning, regardless of the exact identity
of those stimuli (for a review of the modern status of
this debate, see Domjan 2008). The individual who had
the most profound influence on the scientific study of
taste-aversion learning was John Garcia, who
conducted some of the aforementioned radiation
Taste Aversion Learning T 3273
research for the US military. Indeed, in some cases
Garcia has been termed the “Father of Taste-Aversion
Learning,” and the term “Garcia Effect” has been
substituted for “taste-aversion learning.” In addition
to developing many of the basic procedural details of
taste-aversion learning, Garcia and his colleagues were
involved in reporting many of the seminal studies that
promoted the unique features of taste-aversion learn-
ing, including cue-to-consequence learning, long-delay
learning, one-trial learning, and potentiation.
It is quite possible that the most influential taste-
aversion publication was the set of four experiments in
which Garcia and Koelling (1966) introduced cue-to-
consequence learning. In these experiments, rats were
presented a complex compound of stimuli that included
a sweet taste, a clicking relay, and a flash of lights (the
“bright-noisy, and tasty water study”). Rats were then
exposed to one of two different unconditioned stimuli,
either one producing peripheral pain (immediate or
delayed foot shock) or one producing illness (radiation
or lithium chloride). For testing, rats were presented
with a subset of cues from the bright-noisy, tasty water.
One test condition involved consumption of water in the
presence of the auditory and visual stimuli (bright-noisy
water) whereas the other test condition involved
consumption of the sweet taste solution (tasty water).
The key finding from this work was the demonstration
that the strength of learning was dependent on the
correspondence of the CS (the cue) to each US (the
consequence). Specifically, following conditioning with
the shock US, the audiovisual complex produced signif-
icantly greater suppression of drinking compared
with the aversion produced by the taste. However, the
opposite pattern was observed in the groups that
received conditioning with the illness-producing US:
these rats drank significantly less of the tasty solution T
than the bright-noisy water solution. In short, selective
associations were demonstrated as audiovisual cues
were better associated with shock and taste was better
associated with illness. The presence of these selective
associations was in direct contrast to the prevailing
view that learning reflected a general set of processes
and that a given US should produce effective learning
regardless of its correspondence with a specific CS.
Following this seminal work, researchers actively
explored and found evidence of selective associations
in other forms of associative learning.
3274 T Taste Aversion Learning
Another feature of taste-aversion learning that
appeared to distinguish it from other forms of associa-
tive learning was the presence of long-delay learning.
The CS–US interval refers to the duration in time from
the termination of the CS and the onset of the US. In
most associative learning paradigms, the strength of the
CR is inversely related to the CS–US interval where
increases in the CS–US interval lead to progressively
weaker CRs. Indeed, in most classical conditioning
preparations, if the CS–US interval exceeds a matter
of seconds or minutes, no evidence of learning is
obtained. In contrast, Garcia et al. (1966) demon-
strated that reliable taste aversions could be demon-
strated with CS–US intervals as long as 6–12 h. Because
the order of magnitude of this difference was substan-
tial, it spurred new conjecture that the rules that govern
taste-aversion learning are different. Subsequent work
in this area revealed that one reason taste aversions
were able to survive long delays between the CS and
US was the absence of interference effects. Specifically,
in a fear-conditioning design with a visual CS, follow-
ing termination of this CS, the organism is likely to
view a range of other visual stimuli during the CS–US
interval that would be more contingent with the
subsequent US. As a result, these interfering stimuli
would likely signal the impending US, and decrease
learning to the distal, visual CS. In most taste-aversion
learning preparations, however, the organism was not
given any other taste to consume during the CS–US
interval, and thus, there was minimal interference with
the target taste. When Revusky (1971) inserted an
interfering taste between the target taste and presenta-
tion of the US, learning to the target taste was signifi-
cantly decreased. Therefore, it was concluded that
taste-aversion learning does not violate the rules of
contiguity that influence other forms of associative
learning; instead, its procedures are better able to
reduce interference effects.
A third, notable feature of taste-aversion learning
evident in the work of Garcia et al. (1966) is that robust
aversions form after only a single pairing of a taste CS
with an illness-inducing US (i.e., one-trial learning).
The fact that taste aversions can form after a single
trial is consistent with the adaptive value of the phe-
nomenon because it promotes the organism’s rapid
identification of poisonous substances within its diet.
However, considering the need to identify and avoid
predator signals also has high adaptive value, one-trial
learning should have been readily identifiable in other
preparations such as fear conditioning. Nonetheless,
after the presence of one-trial learning in taste-aversion
learning was confirmed, one-trial learning was detected
in other behavioral preparations (see context fear
learning).
A final, unique phenomenon that arose from
research in taste-aversion learning is taste-mediated
potentiation. Typically, when two CSs are conditioned
in compound with a US, the CSs will compete for
associative strength, and learning to each cue is weak-
ened relative to conditioning each CS alone,
a competitive form of learning that Pavlov termed
overshadowing. Overshadowing can be most pro-
nounced when a more salient CS is paired with a less
salient CS, and the learning to the less salient CS is
substantially decreased. In contrast, when a weak
odor CS is presented simultaneously with a strong
taste CS prior to aversion conditioning, the subse-
quent odor aversion is significantly stronger than if
the odor alone is paired with illness. Thus, the pres-
ence of taste-mediated potentiation is another unique
finding that originally arose from research in taste-
aversion learning that demonstrated a pattern of
learning that was different from that seen in other
forms of classical conditioning. Evidence of potenti-
ation in the taste-aversion literature was present for
30 years before the first reliable evidence of potentia-
tion was reported in a fear-conditioning preparation
(Urcelay and Miller 2009). In a series of four experi-
ments, Urcelay and Miller conducted fear condition-
ing with a compound stimulus composed of two
auditory CSs paired with a shock US. Importantly,
they also varied the CS–US interval from 0 s to 20 s.
Following compound conditioning with the 0 s CS–
US interval, testing the weaker auditory cue revealed
overshadowing relative to a single-element control. In
contrast, following compound conditioning with the
20 s CS–US interval, potentiation of the fear CR was
recorded to the weaker auditory cue compared to its
single-element control. Therefore, much like cue-to-
consequence learning and one-trial learning, potentia-
tion-like effects have now been identified in a traditional
Pavlovian conditioning paradigm.
In sum, one of the primary contributions of taste-
aversion learning to the larger field of associative

learning is that the initial evidence for some unique
learning phenomena (e.g., one-trial learning, cue-to-
consequence learning, long-delay learning, and taste-
mediated potentiation) was first obtained in this
preparation. Although subsequent work has shown
that these phenomena are not exclusive to taste-
aversion learning, the challenges these phenomena -
provided for existing theories was a major catalyst for
much innovative research.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
As evidenced by the recent book focused on taste-
aversion learning by Reilly and Schachtman (2009),
many of the outstanding open questions in taste-
aversion learning are related. For example, as it has
been in other areas of behavioral neuroscience,
a central research question involves identifying the neu-
ral substrates of a particular learning phenomenon.
Once these substrates have been identified, research
that incorporates behavioral and physiological manipu-
lations provides opportunities for greater understanding
of learning. Currently, there is common agreement that
the following structures are necessary for gastrointesti-
nal illness-mediated taste aversions: nucleus of the
solitary tract, parabrachial nucleus, thalamus, amygdala,
and insular cortex in the temporal lobe. The
parabrachial nucleus, in particular, appears to be the
first anatomical site of convergence for gustatory infor-
mation and illness signals from the gut. Of course, other
structures like the hippocampus and the orbitofrontal
cortex may receive indirect projections of this informa-
tion. Present work continues to determine if the struc-
tures along these pathways have complimentary roles or
specific functional roles.
Another important research question that is
addressed within the Reilly and Schachtman (2009)
collection concerns taste aversions produced in the
absence of illness. As detailed earlier, although the
majority of behavioral and physiological investigations
of taste-aversion learning have involved chemical
agents or radiation that induce toxicosis, reliable taste
aversions have also been demonstrated with
a “bivalent” US, like a drug of abuse. For example,
presentation of a saccharin solution in a distinctive
context prior to delivery of a drug of abuse like mor-
phine is capable of producing a conditioned aversion to
Taxonomy of Educational Resources T 3275
the saccharin, but a conditioned place preference to the
context. Similarly, recent work has shown that physical
exercise, such as running or swimming, may have a
similar bivalent effect of producing reliable taste aver-
sions while imbuing hedonic reactions to other cues.
Currently, different theoretical mechanisms have been
proposed to account for these effects, but no consensus
has been reached.
Cross-References
▶ Associative Learning
▶ Behavior Systems and Learning
▶ Biological and Evolutionary Constraints of Learning
▶ Competitive Learning
▶ Conditioning
▶ Context Fear Learning
▶ Eyeblink Conditioning
▶ Fear Conditioning
▶ Pavlov, Ivan P. (1849–1936)
References
Domjan, M. (2008). Adaptive specializations and generality of the
laws of classical and instrumental conditioning. In R. Menzel
(Ed.), Learning theory and behavior. Vol. [1] of learning and
memory: A comprehensive reference (pp. 327–340). Oxford:
Elsevier.
Garcia, J., & Koelling, R. A. (1966). Relation of cue to consequence in
avoidance learning. Psychonomic Science, 4, 123–124.
Garcia, J., Ervin, F. R., & Koelling, R. A. (1966). Learning with
prolonged delay of reinforcement. Psychonomic Science, 5,
121–122.
Reilly, S., & Schachtman, T. R. (Eds.). (2009). Conditioned taste
aversion: Behavioral and neural processes. Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
Revusky, S. (1971). The role of interference in association over a delay.
In W. K. Honig & P. H. R. James (Eds.), Animal memory
(pp. 155–213). New York: Academic. T
Urcelay, G. P., & Miller, R. R. (2009). Potentiation and overshadowing
in Pavlovian fear conditioning. Journal of Experimental Psychol-
ogy: Animal Behavior Processes, 35, 340–356.
Taxonomy of Educational
Resources
▶ Classification of Learning Objects
3276 T Taxonomy of Engagement
Taxonomy of Engagement
▶ Styles of Engagement in Learning
Taxonomy of Learning Objects
▶ Classification of Learning Objects
TCP
TCP stands for transmission control protocol. It is
a transport layer protocol that enables two computers
to establish a two-way connection and exchange
streams of data. TCP guarantees data delivery.
Teacher Work Sample Method
(TWSM)
▶ Alignment of Learning, Teaching, and Assessment
Teachers and Burnout
▶ Burnout in Teaching and Learning
Teaching
Involves presenting knowledge and modeling its struc-
ture in such a way that it can be accurately acquired and
reproduced. The instructor is the transmitter of knowl-
edge and the learner is a receiver.
Teaching Environment
▶ Climate of Learning
Teaching Experiments and
Professional Learning
JANEEN LAMB, VINCENT GEIGER
School of Education, Australian Catholic University,
Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Synonyms
Action research; Design experiments; Professional
development; Professional learning community
Definition
Teaching experiments are a sequence of teaching epi-
sodes where researchers test hypotheses about how
students learn and reason in mathematics. During the
course of the teaching episodes new hypotheses can also
be generated. These hypotheses are tested through obser-
vation and recording of data (Steffe and Thompson
2000). These data provide researchers with greater
understanding of how students construct mathemati-
cal concepts and operations. These findings then form
the bases for the development of subsequent teaching
episodes.
Professional learning can be defined as teachers
working as a community in a sustained and intensive
way where they use evidence-based learning strategies
to improve the effectiveness of their teaching that leads
to raising student achievement. When professional
learning is used in conjunction with teaching experi-
ments, researchers and teachers work as co-learners
collaborating to understanding what is happening
within the classroom (Lesh and Kelly 2000).
Theoretical Background
It can be argued that teaching experiments developed
from the clinical interview of experimental design. The
intention of the clinical interview was to understand
the students’ current knowledge. However, in the 1970s
researchers realized that progress in understanding
a student’s mathematical constructions resulted from
conducting mathematical conversations with their
peers, teachers, and researchers (Steffe and Thompson
2000). Documenting such conversations required
working with students and teachers over extended
periods of time. Use of the word “teaching” in the

term teaching experiment also recognizes the challenge
of studying classroom interactions in the messiness of
day-to-day teaching experience.
By the 1980s mathematics education was entering
the postmodern period, which led to changes in the
way mathematical knowing was understood. It was
during this time that teaching experiments came
more fully into prominence as a methodology for
investigating mathematical learning and development
(Cobb and Steffe 1983). Fundamental to this method-
ology is the intention that researchers focus on explor-
ing students’ ways and means of operating
mathematically and not the researchers own ways and
means of doing so. Consequently, this research meth-
odology is not about recording and reporting if
a student is right or wrong, rather the significance of
the teaching experiment is to understand what the
students can do and how they can do it. Over the course
of a teaching experiment, interactions with students
provide researchers with the opportunity to observe
when students’ reorganize their thinking – identified
by changes in language and actions. This approach is
consistent with Vygotsky’s (1978) work on zones of
proximal development.
Adaptations to the teaching experiment methodol-
ogy have developed as research needs have changed.
One such change is the use of professional learning for
teachers as an associated outcome of teaching experi-
ments. Teachers’ professional learning is documented
as occurring in the classroom during teaching experi-
ments and also during discussions that follow
(e.g., Cobb 2000). Due to teacher collaboration and
contribution to the development of theory, some
researchers began to include teachers more formally
in their research projects as coresearchers. This depar-
ture from the original methodological conception of
teaching experiments, by including the teachers as
researchers, has led to the evolution of new methodol-
ogies such as design experiments and action research.
Involvement of teachers in this ways is also the subject
of other research into teachers’ professional learning.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Teaching experiments, originally designed to investi-
gate how students learn and reason in mathematics,
continues to be widely used today. The important role
of teacher professional learning can be addressed in
Teaching Experiments and Professional Learning T 3277
conjunction with this methodology. In more recent
years, this combination of teaching experiments and
professional learning has been used as the stepping
stone to other methodologies such as design experi-
ments and action research.
As with all research methodologies there are inherent
challenges. Being alert to these challenges will assist both
researchers and teachers to appreciate the desired out-
comes of the other. The challenges that may result from
the combination of teaching experiments and profes-
sional learning, that warrant ongoing monitoring
include allocating sufficient time for researcher/teacher
interactions; teacher content knowledge in the field
under study, limiting teachers understanding of the
experimental process; researcher interest in the experi-
mental process in comparison to teacher interest in the
outcome of that process; lack of teacher involvement in
the forming and testing of hypotheses, restricting own-
ership by teachers. Dealing with these challenges leads to
many questions for researchers to consider. Researchers
using teaching experiments that are combined with
teacher professional learning will need to consider ways
to successfully work with this combination of method-
ologies knowing the recognized challenges.
Cross-References
▶ Action Research on Learning
▶ Design Experiments
▶ Professional Learning and Development
References
Cobb, P. (2000). Conducting teaching experiments in collaboration
with teachers. In A. Kelly & R. A. Lesh (Eds.), Handbook of research
design in mathematics and science education (pp. 307–333).
Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.
Cobb, P., & Steffe, L. P. (1983). The constructivist researcher as T
teacher and model builder. Journal for Research in Mathematics
Education, 14(2), 83–94.
Lesh, R. A., & Kelly, A. (2000). Multitiered teaching experiments. In
A. Kelly & R. A. Lesh (Eds.), Handbook of research design in
mathematics and science education (pp. 197–205). Mahwah: Law-
rence Erlbaum Associates Inc.
Steffe, L. P., & Thompson, P. W. (2000). Teaching experiment meth-
odology: Underlying principles and essential elements. In A.
Kelly & R. A. Lesh (Eds.), Handbook of research design in math-
ematics and science education (pp. 266–287). Mahwah: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates Inc.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher
psychological processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
(Original work published in 1934).
3278 T Teaching Health Professionals

Teaching Health Professionals Team Learning Strategies

▶ Empowering Health Learning for the Elderly (EHLE) ▶ Collaborative Learning Strategies

Teaching Story
Team Mental Model
▶ Intuition Pumps and Augmentation of Learning
▶ Role-Play and the Development of Mental Models

Teaching Styles
▶ Adult Learning Styles
Technical Writing
▶ Learning to Write

Teaching Tales
▶ Stories in Psychotherapy
Teaching-Learning
Environment
Teaching–learning environment describes the whole
range of teaching and learning activities and assessment
practices that take place within university courses. Effec-
tive learning, that is likely to lead toward conceptual
understanding, depends on these activities being aligned
congruently and coherently – with each other, with the
students, and with main aims of the courses.
Team Cognition
▶ Shared Cognition
Technological Learning in
Organizations
ELIAS G. CARAYANNIS
Global and Entrepreneurial Finance Research Institute
(GEFRI), School of Business, George Washington
University, Washington, DC, USA
Synonyms
Technology enhancement in organizational learning
Definition
Technological learning (TL) refers to a specific area of
organizational learning. It is defined as the process by
which a technology-driven firm creates, renews, and
upgrades its latent and enacted capabilities based on its
stock of explicit and tacit resources. TL combines both
technical and administrative learning processes
(Carayannis 1994).

Theoretical Background
In today’s globalizing and hypercompetitive market-
Team Learning place, knowledge and learning are major capabilities
to provide sustained competitive advantage:
▶ Collaborative Learning
▶ Cooperative Learning ● Knowledge is the content of learning, where a firm
▶ Group Learning gains competitive superiority by either knowing
 Technological Learning in Organizations T 3279

SMOTL (Entire Area Is

of High Economic Rent)

Non-Substitutable Resources

Institutional Strategy
Level (Intuition Driven) SMOTA High Economic
Rent Area

Corporate Strategy Level Imperfectly Imitable Resources

(Intelligence Driven)
SMOT High Economic
Rent Area
Business Strategy Level
(Knowledge Driven)
Rare Resources

MOT High Economic

Functional Strategy Level Rent Area
(Information Driven)

Valuable Resources

Operational Strategy
Level (Data Driven)

Generic Resources

Area of Technology Derived

STRATEGIC “CURRENCY” GENRE Economic Rents

Technological Learning in Organizations. Fig. 1 Illustration of concentric levels of technological learning. MOT
management of technology, SMOT strategic management of technology, SMOTA strategic management of technology
assets, SMOTL strategic management of technological learning (Adapted from: Carayannis (1994))

something that its competitors do not know or by
having a certain type of knowledge that cannot be
easily replicated.
● Learning is the process of gaining new knowledge so
that the firm is constantly accumulating and assim-
ilating new knowledge which becomes the basis for
creating and improving organizational routines.
● Learning is the basis of what strategists are calling
the dynamic capabilities of a firm (Nonaka 1994),
where firms build new competences in an evolu-
tionary cycle to maintain an edge in an ever-
changing industry environment.
The management of technological capabilities pro-
ducing increasing economic returns as they focus more
narrowly on knowledge assets and processes that
are non-substitutable, imperfectly imitable, rare, and
valuable (Carayannis 1994). As the cone in Fig. 1 indi-
cates, the highest value is derived from the strategic
management of technological learning as these pro-
cesses enable the renewal of critical capabilities and
assets and the generation of new sources of competitive T
advantage (Carayannis 1994).
Adopting a learning-based view of competitive
advantage changes the basis for identifying how various
activities by firms are linked to improved performance
(Spender 1996). In the terminology of the resource-
based view of firms (Peteraf 1993), learning which
improves performance will tend to display:
● Heterogeneity (processes are not identical across all
firms)
● Durability (learning processes must endure over
time)
3280 T Technological Learning in Organizations
● Causal ambiguity (the basis and development of
learning processes are not immediately apparent)
● Imperfect mobility (learning processes are difficult
to transfer across organizational boundaries)
● Non-replicability (learning processes cannot be eas-
ily imitated)
● Appropriability (firms are able to profit from
learning)
For the concept of technological learning to be
useful to strategic management, it must be unbundled
to identify different dimensions of organizational
learning so that these can then be used to evaluate
and even predict performance. For researchers to iso-
late how learning affects performance, learning activi-
ties must also have the attributes of:
● Distinguishability (good learning can be seen as
distinct from bad learning)
● Pervasiveness (the learning style is present throughout
the organization, thus representing organizational
learning rather than individual or group learning)
● Communicability (new employees can learn the
new style of learning through explicit teaching,
tacit socialization, or other processes)
● Flexibility (the learning style can be changed to
meet new needs and new conditions)
This leads to an architecture of learning activities,
where learning takes place at three interrelated concep-
tual levels (Carayannis 1994) as shown in Fig. 2:
● On the operational learning level, we have accumu-
lated experience and learning by doing: we learn
new things. This is the short to medium term per-
spective on learning, focusing on new or improved
capabilities built through the content learned by an
organization. This learning contributes to the man-
agement of core organizational capabilities (Prahalad
and Hamel 1990), resource allocation (Andrews
1971), and competitive strategy (Porter 1980).
● On the tactical learning level, we have learning of
new tactics about applying the accumulating expe-
rience and the learning process: we build new con-
tingency models of decision making by changing the
rules for making decisions and/or adding new ones.
This is the medium- to long-term perspective on
learning, resulting in a process of reinventing and
reengineering the corporation (Argyris and Schon
1978; Quinn 1980; Senge 1990). Tactical learning
enables firms to approach new organizational oppor-
tunities in a more efficient and more effective manner,
and to leverage or combine existing core capabilities in
novel formations for greater competitive advantage.
● On the strategic learning level, we have development
and learning (internalization and institutionaliza-
tion) of new views of our operating universe or
▶ Weltanschauungen, hence we learn new strategies
of learning. Thus, we redefine our fundamentals (our
rules and contingencies) for our decision making, or
we redefine the fundamentals of our operating uni-
verse. This is the very long-term perspective on learn-
ing that focuses on reshaping our reinventing and
reengineering organizational methods and processes.
● The strategic learning level involves the expan-
sion and reformulation of concepts about the
limits and potential of the firm’s strategic envi-
ronment, where the older framework is seen as
simply a “special case” within the new, more
inclusive framework (akin to the relationship
between “normal” and “revolutionary” science
developed by Thomas Kuhn). Strategic learning
serves to “leap-frog” to a new competitive realm
and “to increase the slope of the learning curve as
well as the rate by which the slope per se increases
by means of enhanced and innovative organiza-
tional routines” (Carayannis 1994, pp. 582–583).
The result is what other authors refer to as
“changing the rules of the game” (D’Aveni
1994) or creating new “ecologies of business”
(Moore 1996). The firm pioneers a new concep-
tualization of its business, its market, and/or its
overall competitive environment, which gives it
greater strategic flexibility not only in its own
course of actions but also in influencing and
leading the firms around it.
The effect on firm performance of activities at each
level of technological learning initially appears difficult
to discern, but is brought into sharp relief by consider-
ing the performance effects of the absence of each type
of learning:
● Firms which are unable to learn (absence of opera-
tional learning) are quickly eliminated from com-
petition as they are unable to develop new
capabilities to match changes in their environment
and to maintain performance parity with other
firms.
 Technological Learning in Organizations T 3281

S.O.F.
STRATEGIC
TECHNOLOGICAL INTEGRATE
LEARNING
FB
FF FB

TACTICAL
TECHNOLOGICAL ESCALATE
LEARNING
S.O.F.
FF
FB

OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE
TECHNOLOGICAL
LEARNING

S.O.F.

Technological Learning in Organizations. Fig. 2 A triple-layered architecture of technological learning: strategic,

tactical, and operational. SOF self-organization feedback, FB feedback loop, FF feedforward loop (Adapted from
Carayannis 1994)

● Firms which are unable to learn how to learn (absence
of tactical learning) are able to compete in the short
term, but in the medium term are unable to adopt
new learning strategies which could enable them to
make discontinuous leaps in performance (analogous
to changes in quanta). Thus, such firms are unable to
maintain the same rate of performance improvement
as firms which engage in tactical learning.
● Firms which are unable to learn to learn-how-to-learn
(absence of strategic learning) are able to compete in
the medium term, but in the long term are eliminated
because they cannot maintain a consistent rate of
improvement in learning processes and, therefore,
cannot control the timing and scale of quantum
leaps in performance. Such firms are outmaneuvered
at the hyper-learning level by firms which have devel-
oped the organizational capacity to generate new
strategic learning processes through self-regulating,
emergent, and adaptive mechanisms.
Differentiating among the learning styles of various
firms requires further decomposition of technological
learning within each of the three levels. In our model,
we identify and study four general aspects of techno-
logical learning present at each level. Each of these
aspects itself has several dimensions, enabling
a greater degree of specification in describing the par-
ticular approach to technological learning adopted by
a firm. The four aspects are:
● Content (what is being learned, whether it is a skill,
a theory, or a new way of thinking)
● Process (the conceptual level of learning, whether it is
simply learning new content, learning to learn, or
learning to learn-how-to-learn)
● Context (the environmental conditions of the learn-
ing activity under study)
● Impact (the change resulting from learning on the
firm)
Table 1 shows the range of dimensions found within T
each aspect.
● The content of the learning describes the nature
of the corporate capability which is improved
or added through organizational learning. One
breakdown of learning content distinguishes among
learning facts, learning rules, and learning meta-rules
(or know-what, know-how, and know-why).
● The process of learning concerns whether the learn-
ing is limited to the improvement of existing capa-
bilities or the creation of new capabilities
(technological learning), or if learning encompasses
3282 T Technological Learning in Organizations

Technological Learning in Organizations. Table 1 Framework for the assessment of learning

Aspect Description Dimensions
Learning content Nature of the capability added or improved ● Facts (operational)
through learning ● Rules, theories, models (tactical)
● Meta-rules (strategic)
Learning process Nature and effectiveness of the mechanism of ● Learning (learning new capabilities or
learning improving existing capabilities)
● Learning to learn (learning how to improve
firm performance through learning)
● Learning to learn-how-to-learn (learning how
to redesign organizational paradigms to
generate improved learning)
Learning context Environmental conditions affecting and affected ● Focus (administrative versus technical)
by learning content & process ● Scope (individual, group, firm, industry)
● Nature, including:
● Timeframe (short, medium, or long term)
● Structure (formal to informal)
● Tangibility (explicit to tacit)
● Magnitude (radical to incremental)
● Relation (competitive to cooperative)
● Function (sociocultural change, socioeconomic
change, etc.)
Learning impact Nature and function of the change which results ● Instrumental change (operational)
from learning in the technological operations and ● Innovative change (tactical)
activities of the firm ● Creative change (strategic)

Operational
Technological
Learning

Tactical
Technological
Learning

Strategic
Technological
Qualitative
Learning
Indicators

Content Process Context Impact Quantitative

Indicators

Technological Learning in Organizations. Fig. 3 An architecture of concepts in technological learning

 Technological Learning in Organizations T 3283

Technological Learning in Organizations. Table 2 new ways to learn (learning about learning) and the
Typologies of technological learning content: strategic, development of a new capacity to synthesize and
tactical, and operational forms Carayannis (1994b) manage learning capabilities (learning to learn-
Typology of operational technological learning how-to-learn) (Carayannis 1994).
● The context of learning refers to the level and scope
Individual Group
within which a learning activity is analyzed and
Tacit Know-how, expertise Group texture, work measured. Context consists of many different vari-
practice
ables, each measured along a continuum, which
Explicit Rules of thumb, Drills, stories together is analogous to the “magnification” of the
procedures
lens used to view learning.
Typology of tactical technological learning
To these three dimensions, we add a fourth aspect of
Individual Group
learning, namely, impact (the nature of the resulting
Tacit Common Sense, Good Work practice, core change due to learning). This impact operates on
Judgment competencies
three levels as well:
Explicit Design rules, Best practices, work
procedures processes ● Instrumental impact, corresponding to operational
learning, which produces incremental change in firm
Typology of strategic technological learning
processes, outputs, operations and performance
Individual Group ● Innovative impact, corresponding to tactical learn-
Tacit Wisdom, intuition Organizational ing, which produces radical change in firm pro-
intelligence cesses, outputs, operations, and performance
Explicit Design meta-rules Business process ● Creative impact, corresponding to strategic learn-
re-engineering ing, which produces architectural change in firm
processes, outputs, operations, and performance

Technological Learning in Organizations. Table 3 Indicators of technological learning

Indicator type Indicator domains Examples

Technical learning Indicators of R&D ● R&D intensity or R&D spending/assets
indicators productivity ● Number of new patents per R&D spending
● Number of new products per R&D spending
Indicators of absorptive ● R&D spending per employee
capacity ● Ratio of R&D personnel to total employees
● Licensing agreements signed T
● Formation of strategic alliances
Administrative Indicators of new ● Introduction of new methods of managing innovation, such as
learning indicators approaches to innovation alliances
● Announcement of new R&D facilities and organization, e.g.,
movement of R&D closer to business units
● Adoption of radical new forms of organizing innovation, such as
concurrent engineering, global R&D
Human capital ● New training programs and initiatives, such as partnerships with
development universities
● Changes in compensation practices, especially for technical/
research personnel
3284 T Technological Learning in Organizations
Technological Learning in Organizations. Table 4 Contrast between TL and HTL activities
Technological learning Higher-order technological learning
Technical learning Administrative learning Technical learning
Change in the rate Changes in the Change in the productivity
and volume of organization of and effectiveness of
innovation innovation activities innovation
Technological Learning in Organizations. Table 5 Sam-
ple terms used as indicators of technological activities
Research and development indicators Research
Development
Patent
Technology
Collaborative research indicators Alliance
Joint
Venture
License
Management of technology indicators Acquisition
Innovation
Quality
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
The creation and transfer of knowledge within an
organization has increasingly become a critical factor
in that organization’s success and competitiveness.
Studies done in various organizations found that the
two main knowledge activities that need to be
balanced are the creation of knowledge and the trans-
ferring of knowledge across time and space. Many
organizations are now concentrating their efforts on
how knowledge can be transferred throughout the
organization. This is seen to be particularly important
in the development domain, where knowledge is
a large, critical, and changing component of policy-
making processes.
Carayannis and Alexander (2002) showed empiri-
cally, through longitudinal, time-series-data-based
analysis, that there can be too little as well as too
much technological learning taking place in firms.
This is directly related to their intrinsic absorptive
capacity in that learning activities may initially
improve performance, but that there is some limit to
Administrative learning
Introduction of new approaches to the
management and organization of
innovation
a firm’s absorptive capacity for learning. Larger incre-
ments of technological learning begin to depress per-
formance, until a new critical point is reached and
performance again improves. This suggests the pres-
ence of an optimal learning absorption bandwidth for
each firm, where learning activities should not exceed
the absorptive capacity of the firm but also must be
sufficient to sustain improved performance.
Carayannis (2004) discussed how the ability of an
organization to manage intangible assets matures along
a continuum from potential to added value where the
potential value has two stages – unrealized or realized.
When members of an organization are not aware of the
knowledge they possess, this is unrealized potential.
Through the progression of awareness, the organization
collectively comes to understand their intangible assets,
but there is no system for putting this knowledge to
cohesive use. This marks the stage of unrealized poten-
tial, but the value add is still absent. The maturation to
added value also has two stages: non-leveraged and
captured. Systemic awareness of knowledge may permit
the development of superior solutions, but if the deploy-
ment of these solutions is constrained by subpar pro-
cesses, it marks the condition of non-leveraged value
add. The final stage of maturity is when the value add
is effectively captured and reflected in tangible outcomes
– as an extrinsic capability of the organization.
We close with the following open-ended research
questions:
1. In what instances and through which aspects do
learning activities contribute to or detract from
firm market performance?
2. What is the scale of the impact of technological
learning activities on firm market performance,
and how does that impact vary under different
firm, industry and market conditions?
3. What is the time lag between learning activities and
their impact on firm market performance, and how
does that lag vary?
 Technology in Music Instruction and Learning T 3285

4. How does the scope of learning activities affect the Nonaka, I. (1994). A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge
resulting impact on firm market performance? creation. Organization Science, 5, 14–37.
Peteraf, M. A. (1993). The cornerstones of competitive advantage:
5. How does the level of investment in learning activ-
A resource-based view. Strategic Management Journal, 14, 170–181.
ities affect the impact of those activities on firm Porter, M. E. (1980). Competitive strategy. New York: Free Press.
market performance? Prahalad, C. K., & Hamel, G. (1990). The core competence of the
corporation. Harvard Business Review, May–June, 79–91.
The key issue for this research focused on techno- Quinn, J. B. (1980). Strategies for change: Logical incremnentalismn.
logical learning is not simply to extrapolate future firm Homewood: Irwin.
or organizational performance from past performance. Senge, P. M. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the
Instead, the key issue is to discover the underlying learning organization. New York: Doubleday Currency.
Spender, J. C. (1996). Competitive advantage from tacit knowledge?
drivers of past performance and examine predictable
Unpacking the concept and its strategic implications. In B. Moingeon
patterns in learning activities versus performance. & A. Edmondson (Eds.), Organisational learning and competitive
advantage. London: Sage.
Szulanski, G. (1996). Exploring internal stickiness: Impediments to
Cross-References the transfer of best-practice within the firm. Strategic Manage-
▶ Absorptive Capacity and Learning ment Journal, 17, 27–43.
▶ Creative Inquiry
▶ Creativity and Learning Resources
▶ High Performance Learning Spaces
▶ Human Resource Development and Performance
Improvement
Technology Enhanced Learning
▶ Knowledge Acquisition: Constructing Meaning from ▶ Advanced Learning Technologies
Multiple Information Sources
▶ Knowledge Organization
▶ Management Learning
▶ Learning Organization
▶ Organizational Change and Learning
▶ Resource-based Learning
Technology Enhancement in
Organizational Learning
References ▶ Technological Learning in Organizations: Key
Andrews, K. R. (1971). The concept of corporate strategy. Homewood: Concepts and Implications for Theory and Practice
Dow-Jones Irwin.
Argyris, C., & Schon, D. (1978). Organizational learning: A theory of
action perspective. Reading: Addison Wesley.
Carayannis, E. (1994). The strategic management of technological
learning: Transnational decision making frameworks and their
empirical effectiveness. Published Ph.D. dissertation, School of Technology in Music Instruction
Management, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy.
and Learning T
Carayannis, E., & Alexander, J. (2002). Is technological learning a firm
core competence; when, how, and why: A longitudinal, multi-
industry study of firm technological learning and market perfor- PETER R. WEBSTER
mance. International Journal of Technovation, 22(10), 625–643. Department of Music Studies, Henry and Leigh Bienen
Carayannis, E., et al. (2006). Technological learning for entrepreneur- School of Music, Northwestern University, Evanston,
ial development (TL4ED) in the knowledge economy (KE): Case IL, USA
studies and lessons learned. International Journal of
Technovation, 9, 419–443.
D’Aveni, R. A. (1994). Hypercompetition: Managing the dynamics of
strategic maneuvering. New York: Free Press.
Edmondson, A., & Moingeon, B. (1999). Learning, trust and organi-
Synonyms
zational change. In M. Easterby-Smith, L. Araujo, & J. Burgoyne CAIM (Computer-aided [assisted] instruction in
(Eds.), Organizational learning and the learning organization. music); Computer-based music instruction (CBMI);
London: Sage. Music technology
3286 T Technology in Music Instruction and Learning
Definition
Technology in music instruction and learning refers to
the use of hardware and software resources designed to
assist in teaching about music and music experience.
The term “technology” in this context refers mainly to
personal computers, tablet/smartphone devices, and all
of the music and nonmusic peripherals needed to per-
form music tasks with computers/tablets/phones.
These peripheral devices include such hardware as
electronic music keyboards, digital interfaces, digital
recording devices, disc drives, printers, scanners, and
a wide array of music software designed to work with
this hardware. Online sites designed to assist student
learning are also part of the understood meaning of
music technology in service to education.
Theoretical Background
Music teachers at all levels of instruction, including
adult community learning as well as more traditional
venues in K-12 schools and higher education, are likely
to actively consider some kind of technology to support
their philosophies of teaching. The modern-day use of
technology in music instruction and learning is
a complicated confluence of music technology devel-
opment in its own right, the varieties of music evident
in our pluralistic societies, and an emerging pedagogy
that favors individual expression, constructionist
learning, and creative thinking while respecting the
need for conceptual learning.
Music, and its development as either a more formal
art or as part of a practical cultural experience, has been
influenced historically by technology of all sorts. This
ranges from the design of instruments and the atten-
dant issues of physics of sound to the most recent ways
that music is consumed and distributed across the
world. Of most importance in recent times has been
the development of digital audio and its representation
of music which is, humanly speaking, an analog human
experience. Advances in the representation of music
digitally has transformed the way musicians improvise,
compose, store, perform, distribute, and certainly teach
and listen to music. On the hardware side, digital
devices such as personal computers, tablets, phones,
and personal music players all support music sound
files. The development of hard disk storage, laser disc
technology, and sampled sound as hardware resources
has had a major effect on how music teachers do their
jobs. Software advances in the 1980s such as the devel-
opment of the Music Instrument Digital Interface
(MIDI) – a digital set of codes that described sound
for hardware devices to use – changed the way hard-
ware and software worked together to serve the needs
of music production (e.g., notation, music printing)
for teachers a well as all those involved in the musical
enterprise. Further developments in music software in
recent years have included many commercial titles for
the support of music production (digital audio editing,
traditional notation and graphics-based composition
programs, loop-based composition and arranging, CD/
DVD creation, music video/podcast presentations) and
specifically for music teaching and learning (intelligent
accompaniment, simulators for composition and
improvisation, and titles designed to teach music con-
cepts in a game-like or guided instruction setting).
Complicating the background further is the moral
imperative felt by many teachers to use the technology
more democratically to represent a wider array of sonic
landscapes other than the traditional “Western canon.”
The cultural use of music technology by wider
populations of music makers in many countries of the
world present interesting and important challenges for
the pedagogy of music technology and its use by all
students in schools. It is no longer possible to discuss
music technology in instruction and learning without
careful consideration of social context. Still further
discussion in the literature of music teaching and learn-
ing centers on the use of technology as a way to encour-
age explorative learning in creative music tasks that
help the learner understand music less as teacher-
dominated “do as I do” environment but more as
a guided construction of learning. Because the technol-
ogy can be used as powerful tools for student-generated
products, music teachers often see an interesting syn-
thesis of technology tools with the adoption of new
models of music learning. Recent development of
interactive Internet resources, especially the sharing
seen in social networking communities, adds still
more flavor to this interesting topic.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Despite the rise in use of technology as noted above,
extensive empirical evidence of its long-term effective-
ness as a way to learn about music is not present.
 Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments for Science Inquiry
Much work remains too with important social context
issues such as gender bias, effectiveness with students
with learning differences, and equal access to technology
among poorly funded schools. The question of the
effectiveness and wisdom of distance education music
learning is still another open question.
Important professional organizations that are
engaged in the study and promotion of technology in
music instruction and learning:
Association for Technology in Music Instruction
(ATMI) http://atmionline.org/
Technology Institute for Music Education (TI:ME)
http://www.ti-me.org/
Cross-References
▶ Computer-Based Learning Environments
▶ Constructivist Learning
▶ Learning Technology
▶ Music Instructional Methods
References
Archambault, L., & Crippen, K. (2009). Examining TPACK among K-
12 online distance educators in the United States. Contemporary
Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1). Retrieved from
http://www.citejournal.org/vol9/iss1/general/article2.cfm
Finney, J., & Burnard, P. (Eds.). (2007). Music education with digital
technology. London: Continuum International.
Webster, P. (2007). Computer-based technology and music teaching
and learning: 2000–2005. In L. Bresler (Ed.), The international
handbook of research in arts education (pp. 1311–1328). Dor-
drecht: Springer.
Williams, D., & Webster, P. (2008). Experiencing music technology
(3rd ed.). New York: Cengage.
Technology of Teaching
▶ Behavioral Approaches to Instruction
Technology-Enhanced Learning
▶ e-Learning and Digital Learning
▶ Socio-technical Learning
▶ Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments for
Science Inquiry
T 3287
Technology-Enhanced Learning
Environments for Science
Inquiry
JAMES D. SLOTTA, HEDIEH NAJAFI
Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning,
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Synonyms
Inquiry-based learning environments; Science inquiry;
Technology-enhanced learning
Definitions
Scaffolding: Technological or pedagogical supports that
enable students to undertake tasks they would be
unable to accomplish otherwise. In some cases, such
scaffolds would be removed, “faded” away over time,
resulting in autonomous performance of the same
tasks. In other cases, such fading is not an explicit
part of the definition.
Inquiry: In science education, inquiry-oriented
methods are those that emphasize the active
constructing, refining, and applying of students’
understandings of scientific concepts through formal
experimentation, informal observations and reflec-
tions, designs or other productive processes, critique
or comparison of arguments, and collaborative discus-
sions with peers. The specific definitions of inquiry
adopted by researchers vary from the formal “scientific
inquiry method” (i.e., of hypothesis, experiment, and
evaluation) to more open-ended processes of
questioning, reflecting, and sensemaking.
T
Theoretical Background
For decades, the developers of educational technologies
have heralded a great impact of their innovations on
teaching and learning in K-12 classrooms. However, to
date there has been very little significant change, and
the most striking feature of K-12 classrooms today is
their similarity to those of previous generations: rows
of desks sitting face-forward toward the teacher, who
continues to lecture about topics and requires students
to perform “problem sets” and prepare for summative
exams. Still, educators continue to call for a radical
3288 T Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments for Science Inquiry
transformation of learning and instruction, and con-
tinue to note a possible role for technology in
supporting new forms of activity and new patterns of
interactions within our classrooms (diSessa 2000;
Slotta and Linn 2009; Collins and Halverson 2009).
This entry summarizes the major applications of
technology within educational research that offer some
promise for transforming K-12 classrooms. Consider-
able research has focused on the domain of science, in
part because of the historically high levels of funding
available for science education, and in part because
science is well suited as a domain of inquiry for educa-
tional researchers, given its highly structured and chal-
lenging conceptual content, and assessable learning
outcomes. An implicit assumption has been that if new
technologies and pedagogical approaches can succeed in
the domain of science, then they can be reappropriated
for purposes of learning within other domains. Thus,
our discussion is focused on innovations for science
education, letting the reader decide whether there may
be possible applications in other domains.
The most compelling innovations have been
advanced not as general-purpose technologies (e.g.,
interactive white boards, or the Internet), but rather
as specific applications that support new forms of
learning, which might otherwise be difficult or impos-
sible. For example, powerful scientific visualizations
have been developed where students can assemble
their own molecules or create chemical reactions
online; in another project, students are assembled
into online communities where they can exchange
resources and hold virtual debates; in still another
effort, students interact with avatars to explore myste-
rious diseases in an online virtual environment. As
research has progressed in exploring new pedagogical
models, it has advanced new technology materials and
environments in service to those models. Investigators
often refer to their technology elements as “scaffolds,”
in the sense that they enable students and teachers to
conduct activities or engage in interactions that might
otherwise be out of reach.
Research has typically explored alternatives to lec-
ture-based instruction, primarily because lecture has
been established as an ineffective approach for helping
students develop a deep conceptual understanding,
particularly as compared with models such as tutoring
or even peer instruction (Bransford et al. 1999).
A common pedagogical approach in science education
research is that of “inquiry,” where students are guided
to develop a personal understanding of instructional
topics through the exploration of personally relevant
questions about scientific phenomena. While inquiry is
sometimes construed as a formal “scientific cycle” of
hypothesis and experimentation, it more often refers to
a wider class of activities and interactions where stu-
dents are engaged in direct manipulation of raw data or
rich visualizations, reflection, and conceptual explana-
tions – often in collaboration with peers and teachers
(Linn and Eylon 2006). This is a constructivist notion
of learning, in the sense that students are challenged to
build upon their own existing ideas, and develop
a personal understanding of science topics.
Many technology-enhanced learning environments
have been developed by researchers to support their
investigations of different models of inquiry, or specific
features of inquiry such as collaboration or the use of
scientific visualizations. Below, we summarize these
technology environments in several main categories.
First, scaffolded inquiry environments, typically deliv-
ered via the Internet, support student investigations
and collaborations through the use of interactive mate-
rials and inquiry tools. Second, immersive environ-
ments engage students with their peers or with
fictional characters within a virtual world designed to
present otherwise unattainable learning opportunities.
Third, ubiquitous learning environments empower
students through the use of handheld computers in
order to provide contextualized learning where stu-
dents capture observations during field trips or in the
course of everyday activities. For each kind of environ-
ment, we summarize some prominent examples and
offer some comments concerning their efficacy and
relevance for K-12 learning. Finally, we close with
a brief discussion of the “open questions” relating to
the continuing evolution of educational technologies
and educational institutions in the twenty-first century.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Scaffolded Inquiry Environments
Scaffolded inquiry environments are designed to help
orchestrate students’ inquiry, providing supports
(or “scaffolds”) in the form of tools, prompts, hints,
or structured materials. Approaches to the design of
such environments vary. Some are focused on helping
 Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments for Science Inquiry T 3289

Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments for Science Inquiry. Fig. 1 The Web-based Inquiry Science Environment
(WISE) scaffolds inquiry projects for K-12 science. An inquiry map (left-hand side) guides students through activities,
with many different technology tools and interactive materials

students conduct designed inquiry “projects,” where
the environment helps to guide students through
reflection, critique, and peer collaboration activities.
In other technology environments, students are
supported as they conduct more open-ended experi-
mentation and investigation of empirical questions,
design artifacts, or debate scientific controversies.
Across this spectrum, there are good examples of tech-
nology-enhanced learning environments that scaffold
students in the use of scientific models, simulations,
and various knowledge building and reflection tech-
niques (e.g., concept mapping, online discussion,
journals, etc.). Below, we describe several environments
in order to illustrate the variety of perspectives about
inquiry, and the corresponding diversity of technology
environment, inquiry tools, and approaches to student
collaborations, curriculum, and assessment.
One example of scaffolded inquiry for K-12 science
is the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE,
see Fig. 1), which guides students and teachers to per-
form inquiry activities that embody four principles: to
make science accessible; to make thinking visible; to
support collaborative learning; and to foster lifelong
learning (Slotta and Linn 2009). WISE inquiry projects
are divided into steps that are completed in sequence by
students. Each step consists of a specific activity,
including a technological scaffold, such as online
discussions, reflection notes, inquiry journals,
whiteboards, scientific models, or interactive visualiza-
tions. As students progress through the steps, evidence
for their understanding of the topic is collected
through embedded assessment, which are accessed
and evaluated online by the teacher. Students work
collaboratively (typically in pairs) within a WISE pro-
ject, taking turns at the computer keyboard, interacting
with peers in online discussions, and even conducting
off-line activities, such as classroom debates or labora-
tory experiments. In one WISE project, students learn
about photosynthesis, then download instructions for
building a terrarium, which they construct in their
classroom, then follow inquiry instructions to conduct
an experiment where they grow plants within their T
terrarium under different lighting conditions. The
WISE technology environment serves in scaffolding
the experiment, collecting students’ data, and engaging
them in discussions and reflections.
Another scaffolded inquiry environment is that of
BGuILE, the Biology Guided Inquiry Environment.
Developed by researchers at Northwestern University
(Reiser et al. 2001), BGuILE(see Fig. 2) provides ana-
lytical toolkits and inquiry scaffolds to engage students
in iterative cycles of asking research questions about
a biological phenomenon, constructing hypotheses,
using data to examine their tentative explanations,
3290 T Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments for Science Inquiry

Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments for Science Inquiry. Fig. 2 Biology Guided Inquiry Learning
Environment (BGuILE) supports student investigations of rich datasets. In the Galapagos Finches projects, students
interact with scientific data such as rainfall patterns and beak length, similar to that employed by Darwin

refining their questions and explanations, and finally
explaining the phenomenon under study and sharing
their findings with peers (Reiser et al. 2001). A scaffold
for student reflections, known as the Explanation Con-
structor, prompts students to attend to specific com-
ponents of the inquiry process during planning,
conducting, and sharing explanations for their investi-
gations. Collaboration is an important part of inquiry
in BGuILE, as it provides opportunities for students to
provide evidence to support conflicting or alternative
explanations shared by group members. BGuILE
attends to discipline-specific knowledge and skills as
it scaffolds students within domain-specific methodol-
ogies. In contrast with WISE, curriculum materials in
BGuILE were developed for research purposes only,
and have not been adopted widely by K-12 teachers.
 Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments for Science Inquiry T 3291

Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments for Science Inquiry. Fig. 3 WorldWatcher software engages students
with real climate data in support of personally relevant inquiry curriculum projects. ClimateWatcher software includes
a visualization window displaying surface temperatures. Cut-and-fold diagrams show surface temperatures created by the
GlobeBuilder application

A similar inquiry environment is WorldWatcher Another form of scaffolded inquiry environment is

(Edelson 2006), developed by researchers at North-
western University as a virtual inquiry environment
where middle and high school students engage with
visualizations and conduct scientific investigations on
climate data. WorldWatcher (Fig. 3) was designed to
promote a model of inquiry known as Learning for
Use, where learning activities promote the develop-
ment of useful knowledge that can be recalled in future
situations. This form of inquiry occurs in three sequen-
tial yet interacting processes: Creating conceptual need,
constructing knowledge, and refining knowledge. Stu-
dents learn within this model as they recognize the
limitations of their knowledge in a given situation,
integrate new knowledge with their existing ideas, and
reorganize connections between their previously held
ideas and new ones encountered during the
instruction.
that of microworlds or simulation environments,
where students manipulate interactive technologies to
test their understandings. For example, ThinkerTools
(White and Frederiksen 1998) engaged middle school
science students in inquiry about Newtonian physics,
T
using interactive computer simulations and analytic
tools to create and test experimental models that
would have been impossible in the real world.
ThinkerTools scaffolded students to more accurately
measure phenomena, develop graphs, and determine
results from their measurements, avoiding the obser-
vational errors that typify traditional K-12 physics
laboratory activities. Another simulation environment
is that of SimQuest, developed by researchers at the
University of Twente, in the Netherlands, where stu-
dents manipulate variables within a simulated envi-
ronment, as well as other formal representations such
3292 T Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments for Science Inquiry
Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments for Science Inquiry. Fig. 4 SimQuest presents a simulation microworld
where students explore relationships between variables by conducting experiments, supported by various
representations and inquiry scaffolds
as graphs and equations, to explore the relationships
among these entities. SimQuest (see Fig. 4) has been
employed as a foundation for several research projects
and is still actively used within many classrooms and
ongoing research projects (de Jong and van Joolingen
1998).
The general category of scaffolded inquiry environ-
ments has emerged over the past 3 decades as
a prominent direction for educational technologies.
In part, this is because they offer a well-designed,
structured form of learning and instruction, in con-
trast with the alternative approach of simply adding
computers and the Internet into science classrooms
and hoping the teacher can determine some effective
applications. Inquiry-based instruction is effective
because it engages students in constructivist learning
activities where they build on their preexisting ideas,
and develop conceptual understandings through
personally relevant activities. However, such an
instruction is difficult to achieve without the aid of
technology environments, which support students and
teachers alike through their use of structured and
sequenced activities, with embedded assessments,
relevant resources, contextualized guidance, and well-
designed materials. While more work is required to
extend the models and materials described above to
the wider community of educators, such efforts are
currently underway, and scaffolded inquiry environ-
ments have become increasingly accessible to students
and teachers worldwide.
Immersive Environments
Immersive environments, sometimes known as Multi-
User Virtual Environments (MUVEs), allow multiple
users to collaborate with peers and other virtual char-
acters and objects within a rich media environment in
order to address compelling issues or problems. Char-
acters, both real and fictional, are typically represented
as avatars, which are digital representations of users
that allow them to interact within the virtual world.
Two examples of educational MUVEs for science edu-
cation are Quest Atlantis and River City – both of
which have been developed to foster problem solving
and scientific inquiry.
Quest Atlantis (QA) is a multimedia, multi-user,
3D online environment designed at the University of
Indiana to engage K-12 students in collaborative game-
based curricular activities to target science content
learning goals, as well as the growth of social responsi-
bility. Students are engaged in “quests” with the aim of
solving a problem and improving the state of the vir-
tual world, called Atlantis. When assigned to a quest,
students take on a role (as well as the form of an avatar)
and use their existing knowledge as well as resources
provided to them by the inquiry environment, to inter-
act with other students (who represent different roles),
in order to address problems and answer scaffolding
questions (Barab et al. 2005).
River City creates new ways for students to learn
within MUVEs that are enhanced with simulations and
models, allowing an interactive, social form of online
 Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments for Science Inquiry T 3293

Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments for Science Inquiry. Fig. 5 River City is a multi-user virtual environment
(MUVE) where students collaborate with peers and virtual characters to investigate health and biological science topics
within a meaningful inquiry context. The software provides supports for student investigation of data

adventure, where the technology environment supports
student interactions and captures detailed logs of
students’ learning processes (Dieterle and Clarke 2007).
Developed at Harvard University, River City curricu-
lum addresses scientific knowledge and twenty-first
century skills by engaging middle school students in
proposing and testing hypotheses about what the cause
of a mysterious illness in a fictitious nineteenth-century
city in the USA is (see Fig. 5). The environment scaf-
folds teams of students to use multimedia clues pro-
vided in various locations within River City – including
interactions with virtual citizens who provide clues
about the sources, symptoms, and spread of the disease.
All student actions are tracked by the software environ-
ment, which then provides customized guidance to
scaffold students’ inquiry.
While the work in immersive multi-user virtual
environments is still in its relative infancy, the projects
above have demonstrated a proof of concept that such
technologies can serve to scaffold meaningful student
inquiry. With the recent explosion of popular interest
in such environments (e.g., World of Warcraft and
Second Life), it seems likely that students and teachers
will come to expect such virtual environments for pur-
poses of learning. At time of this writing, there is
a wealth of research and development activity in this
area, with a number of powerful new open-source
technologies available for the development of
platforms and materials. Still, more research is neces-
sary about the kinds of interactions and inquiry activ-
ities that can help students develop deep conceptual
understandings and powerful lifelong learning skills
within such environments.
Handheld Computers and Smart
Phones
Another means of supporting student inquiry that has
been prominent over the past 2 decades is that of
handheld computing, most recently enacted through
the use of smart phones and tablet computers. Early
efforts focused on the use of scientific “probeware” to
help students collect physical measurements of envi-
ronmental variables. Researchers from the University
of Michigan offered some of the first examples of such T
remote data collection devices, where students col-
lected measures of water temperature, acidity, and tur-
bidity in a local creek (Krajcik et al. 1998). These early
endeavors were often supported by prototype technol-
ogies, referred to as “portable microcomputers,” many
of which were developed by Bob Tinker and his col-
leagues at the Concord Consortium.
With the advent of Palm Pilot computers in the late
1990s, educational researchers expanded their develop-
ment of interactive materials for handheld computers,
as well as the technological integration of handheld
applications with software running on personal
3294 T Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments for Science Inquiry
computers, or with Web-based applications. Elliot
Soloway and his colleagues in the Highly Interactive
Computing for Education (HI-CE) group at the Uni-
versity of Michigan developed a small library of high-
quality applications for Palm computers, including
“Cooties” – an application that relied on the Palm hand-
held computer’s infrared “beaming” capabilities to
enable a participatory simulation where students wan-
dered around the classroom infecting their peers with
a fictitious disease that could be pre-configured in terms
of its level of infectiousness and incubation time.
Other projects, such as Biokids, developed at the
University of Michigan, employ handheld observation
forms that allowed students to record their observa-
tions during field trips or outdoor adventures (e.g.,
observing insects or birds on the playground). At the
University of California, Berkeley, Jim Slotta, and Tim
Zimmerman expanded the WISE platform to include
a role for handheld forms. They added an aquarium
visit to a WISE project about evolution in marine
habitats, scaffolding students to conduct observations
about fish and their habitats with “observation forms”
that were loaded onto handheld computers. All student
observations were then uploaded into WISE, providing
a classroom data set to be used in subsequent activities
within the WISE evolution project.
New roles for handheld computers are rapidly
emerging, such as delivering context-sensitive informa-
tion to users during the course of their daily activities.
Often referred to as “ubiquitous computing” because
the user is seen as being “logged on all the time, every-
where,” this functionality can support dramatic new
kinds of inquiry learning. For example, students can
now use smart phones to create an “augmented reality,”
where their observations of the world around them are
supplemented with a digital layer of information pro-
vided by the handheld computer (i.e., as indexed
according to GPS data, or other semantic variables).
Other interesting applications of handheld computers
are concerned with their capacity to link networks of
individuals through text messaging, such as in the
recent applications of Twitter and other social net-
works. These functions have given rise to a wealth of
research on new models of student inquiry within
social networks. While handheld computers have yet
to make a substantive impact on teaching and learning
in K-12 or higher education, there is clearly a great
opportunity for advances in this area, as nearly all
students are coming to possess cellular technologies,
and Internet connectivity is nearly ubiquitous. It is
expected that handheld, ubiquitous computing will be
a major area of educational research in coming decades
(Roschelle et al. 2000).
Summary
This entry has reviewed educational technologies that
have made an impact over the past few decades,
emphasizing a perspective of inquiry-oriented learning
and instruction. It has focused on those educational
technologies that scaffold inquiry-oriented models
learning and teaching, supporting students and
teachers as they adopt previously unfamiliar practices.
At the time of this writing, such technologies have not
yet gained a permanent foot hold in schools. Moreover,
technology itself is a rapidly evolving collection of
media and media practices. Laptop computers, the
Internet, smartphones, tablet PCs, and many other
technologies are still in their relative infancy. It remains
an open question how these technologies will continue
to unfold, and how students, teachers, and scientists
will learn to use them in new ways. Finally, educational
institutions continue to evolve, changing the landscape
in which our technologies must perform. Currently, the
structure of K-12 schooling is not well suited for deep
inquiry learning. Science instruction, for example,
tends to emphasize the coverage of a great breadth of
curriculum topics, which places heavy requirements
and expectations on teachers that hinder their adop-
tion of inquiry methods. Thus, the open questions in
this area of the learning sciences are concerned with the
evolution of schools, and the continued rapid evolu-
tion of the technologies themselves.
Cross-References
▶ 21st-Century Skills
▶ Adaptive Game-Based Learning
▶ Adaptive Instruction Systems and Learning
▶ Adaptive Learning Systems
▶ Advanced Distributed Learning
▶ Advanced Learning Technologies
▶ Affective and Cognitive Learning in the Online
Classroom
▶ Agent-Based Modeling
▶ Collaborative Knowledge Building
▶ Collaborative Learning Supported by Digital Media
▶ Computer-Based Learning
 Tele-education T 3295

▶ Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Linn, M. C., & Eylon, B.-S. (2006). Science education: Integrating
▶ Constructivist Learning views of learning and instruction. In P. A. Alexander & P. H.
Winne (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (2nd ed.,
▶ Design of Learning Environments
pp. 511–544). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
▶ Designing Educational Computer Games Reiser, B., Tabak, I., & Sandoval, W. (2001). BGuILE: Strategic and
▶ Human–Computer Interaction and Learning conceptual scaffolds for scientific inquiry. In S. M. Carver &
▶ Inquiry Learning D. Klahr (Eds.), Cognition and instruction: Twenty-five years of
▶ Integrated, Multidisciplinary, and Technology- progress (pp. 263–305). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Roschelle, J. M., Pea, R. D., Hoadley, C. M., Gordin, D., & Means, B.
Enhanced Science Learning
(2000). Changing how and what children learn in school with
▶ Interactive Learning Environments computer-based technologies. The Future of Children, 10(2),
▶ Learning Agents and Agent-Based Modeling 76–101. Los Altos, CA: The David and Lucile Packard
▶ Learning Environment(s) Foundation.
▶ Ontology of Learning Objects Repository for Slotta, J. D., & Linn, M. C. (2009). WISE science: Inquiry and the
Knowledge Sharing internet in the science classroom. New York: Teachers College
Press.
▶ Project-Based Learning
White, B., & Frederiksen, J. (1998). Inquiry, modeling, and metacog-
▶ Scaffolding nition: making science accessible to all students. Cognition and
▶ Scaffolding Discovery Learning Spaces Instruction, 16(1), 3–118.
▶ Scaffolding Learning by the Use of Visual
Further Reading
Representations Linn, M. C., & Hsi, S. (2000). Computers, teachers, peers: Science
▶ Situated Learning learning partners. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
▶ Situated Prompts in Authentic Learning
Environments
▶ Virtual Reality Learning Environments
▶ Zone of Proximal Development
Technology-Enriched
References Playgrounds
Barab, S., Thomas, M., Dodge, T., Carteaux, R., & Tuzun, H. (2005).
Making learning fun: Quest Atlantis, a game without guns. ▶ Playful Learning Environments: Effects on
Educational Technology Research and Development, 53(1), Children’s Learning
86–107.
Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. (1999). How people
learn: Brain, mind, experience and schooling. Washington, DC:
National Academy Press.
Collins, A., & Halverson, R. (2009). Rethinking education in the age
of technology: The digital revolution and schooling in America.
Technology-Rich Learning
New York: Teachers College Press. Environments
de Jong, T., & van Joolingen, W. R. (1998). Scientific discovery
learning with computer simulations of conceptual domains. ▶ Computer-Based Learning Environments
Review of Educational Research, 68, 179–201. T
Dieterle, E., & Clarke, J. (2007). Multi-user virtual environments for
teaching and learning. In M. Pagani (Ed.), Encyclopedia of mul-
timedia technology and networking (2nd ed.). Hershey: Idea
Group, Inc.
diSessa, A. A. (2000). Changing minds: Computers, learning and
Technotainment
literacy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
▶ Edutainment and Learning
Edelson, D. C. (2006). Engineering pedagogical reform: A case study
of technology-supported inquiry. In R. Duschl & R. Grandy
(Eds.), Establishing a consensus agenda for K-12 science inquiry.
Rotterdam: Sense Press.
Krajcik, J., Blumenfeld, P. C., Marx, R. W., Bass, K., Fredricks, J., &
Soloway, E. (1998). Inquiry in project-based science classrooms: Tele-education
initial attempts by middle school students. Journal of the Learn-
ing Sciences, 7(3), 313–350. ▶ Tele-Learning
3296 T TelElearning
TelElearning
▶ Tele-Learning
Tele-Learning
DON PASSEY
Department of Educational Research, Lancaster
University, Lancaster, UK
Synonyms
Distance learning; telElearning; TelElearning; Tele-
education
Definition
Tele-learning (alternatively written as telElearning or
TelElearning) is also referred to as tele-education, and
in contexts where technologies are used widely to sup-
port learning and teaching, it can be included as an
element of distance learning, Elearning, e-learning,
technology-based learning, or information and com-
munications technology (ICT)-based learning. The
term “Tele-learning” is made up of two component
words: tele (from the Greek tZlέ, meaning “far off ”
or “at a distance”) and learning. The “tele” component
of the term (referring to uses of telecommunications)
distinguishes it from distance learning (which could be
paper-based only) and other elements in technological
learning practices that are not designed for use “at
a distance.” Collis (1998) defines Tele-learning as
“using telematics for learning-related purposes . . .
this definition does not say anything about geograph-
ical distance, one way or the other. This is intentional,
because with telematics when we make a connection
with persons they may be in the next room or the next
continent; when we connect to information with
telematics tools, we may be accumulating it from the
hard drives of our own computers, from our own local
servers or from computers on the other side of the
world. The point is that with telematics, the distance
between myself and the persons with whom I am com-
municating or between myself and the information
with which I am working is not particularly relevant.”
In the context of Tele-learning, radios, televisions,
mobile devices, audiocassettes, compact disks (CDs),
digital video disks (DVDs), mp3 players, email, Inter-
net, virtual learning environments (VLEs), or video-
conferencing could all be used to provide sharing or
linking through electronic means. In all cases, these
electronic links allow individuals to interact, but in
some cases (radios, televisions, audiocassettes, CDs,
DVDs) the interactions will be asynchronous, while in
other cases they will be synchronous. The forms of
interaction involved in Tele-learning practices can
vary; interactions may occur between learner and
resource, learner and teacher, learner and teacher and
resource, or learner and learner, for example, as well as
between groups of learners, or learners and teacher(s).
Similarly, the forms of technological access devices can
vary and affect the learning process: mobile devices can
capture audio, images, and video at specific sites and be
used to share them with others immediately, which is
not feasible with desktop equipment.
Theoretical Background
A number of Tele-learning practices have been in use
for many decades; these include radio school broad-
casts in Australia, and television broadcasts for Open
University (OU) courses in the United Kingdom. They
were initially based on a model of “delivery,” rather
than “interactivity.” The term “Tele-learning” first
appeared in the early 1990s when telecommunication
systems were advanced enough to allow adequate shar-
ing of data (initially in textual or data spreadsheet
formats, and then increasingly in imagery, video, and
graphic formats), and has tended to persist in Canada,
the USA, and the Nordic countries. In other countries,
the term “Tele-learning” has often become
encompassed within a wider term such as Elearning,
e-learning, and technology-based or ICT-based learn-
ing, which include learning applications through all
available forms of electronic communication and sup-
port devices (distant and local), and in yet other coun-
tries (e.g., India), the use of the term “Tele-learning”
has increased as higher levels of broadband communi-
cation infrastructures have become available.
Individuals engage in Tele-learning practices
because of their individual interests and drives (see
entries on “▶ Motivation and Learning” and “▶ Moti-
vation to Learn”), influences of formal education (see
the entry on “▶ Formal Learning”), social and informal
learning influences (see entries on “▶ Informal

Learning” and “▶ Social Construction of Learning”),
opportunities through additional online resources
(human and other), and influences of accessing or
using additional media (see the entry on “▶ Digital
Learning”). Engagement due to individual interests
and drives (see the entry on “▶ Motivation to Learn”)
is a complex area, but can be considered within five
major groups – physiological (e.g., access to online
resources about personal health), safety (e.g., access to
online mentors who can advise about issues of personal
safety), social (e.g., being able to ask peers online about
problems with specific learning tasks), esteem (e.g.,
accessing online “drill and practice” activities to gain
the highest levels of success possible), and self-
actualization (e.g., using online applications to gain
feedback and produce work of publishable quality).
Tele-learning supports engagement for ranges of
learners, and many research studies have identified
positive impacts and outcomes on learning also.
Ouellette (2001), for example, found that Tele-learning
can impact positively on young people who find it hard
to learn; the medium allows ease of manipulation
(when editing, when gathering information, when try-
ing out alternative versions and formats, as well as
when using a working canvas for drafting or simulation
of ideas). Opportunities to produce outcomes in dif-
ferent formats (e.g., using imagery, perhaps moving
imagery, with diagrams, perhaps linked to audio, and
integrated with textual material in electronic presen-
tations) have enhanced the abilities of some learners
(often those who find it difficult to work in a textual
medium alone) to express ideas and extents of
learning.
A variety of explanations are offered for the
enhancements to learning brought about by Tele-learn-
ing practices. Enhanced opportunities for social inter-
action, using both synchronous and asynchronous
means, have allowed wider or deeper levels of discus-
sion, and have in parallel offered opportunities
concerned with timeliness (learners being able to ask
questions at the time they arise in mind, without fear of
interruption, and then gaining feedback that is consid-
ered more neutral than it would be in a face-to-face
environment). The importance of discussion in formu-
lating ideas and concepts is well recognized (see entry
on “▶ Social Interaction Dynamics in Supporting
Learning”); some learners have identified the benefits
of Tele-learning environments that relate to these
Tele-Learning T 3297
theoretical constructs. Similarly, external discussion
leading to social engagement and internal discussion
leading to social integration of ideas have been shown
to impact learners engaging in “community-based”
discussions. How Tele-learning practices lead to “com-
munities of practice” is an area of exploration for
a range of research activities. Early findings in this
area (Wegerif 1998) indicate that discussions at
a social group level are important in terms of learner
outcomes when they lead to feelings of “belonging.”
Tele-learning practices often involve aspects of social
and emotional behaviors, so positive learning out-
comes do not always arise from a simple response to
a perceived cognitive need.
Tele-learning practices have allowed some learners
to gain in the short term (through immediacy of infor-
mation access and online mentor access). Tele-learning
can support learners in the wider or longer term as well
as in the short term. Forms of Tele-learning (uses of
email, chat rooms, and social networking sites) have
supported mediators and others in interacting with
and supporting people (perhaps in terms of caring for
others). These uses often integrate emotional aspects of
involvement, as a Tele-learning environment can offer
greater anonymity, greater neutrality, and greater par-
ticipation (e.g., for those who are reticent in the phys-
ical presence of others).
Beyond the cognitive arena, Tele-learning offers
support to some individuals at a metacognitive level
of learning (enhancing opportunities for review, pro-
viding time and opportunity for self-evaluation, and
offering access to alternatives that learners might
explore when they are initially unsuccessful). In some
cases, Tele-learning offers ways for learners to gain
overviews of subjects and topics, offers them ways to
see and construct “big pictures,” and provides tutors T
with ways to support different starting points as well as
the size of steps and the distance to learning end-points
for different learners. Schachter and Fagnano (1999),
from a review of over 700 empirical research studies
carried out in the United States of America, stated that
when students used a range of educational technolo-
gies, positive gains in achievement were shown; impor-
tantly, these findings showed that uses could lead to
improvements in metacognition (enhanced abilities to
identify conceptual abilities) and motivation
(increased personal expectations and depth of knowl-
edge aspirations). Schellens and Valcke (2005) similarly
3298 T Tele-Learning
concluded that: “The results [from 230 freshmen tak-
ing a course on educational sciences using asynchro-
nous electronic discussion groups] confirm that
interaction in the discussion is very task-oriented,
stays task-oriented and reflects high phases in knowl-
edge construction.”
In all five categories of individual interests and
drives, research studies have shown positive engage-
ment in and impacts of Tele-learning in terms of both
the management of learning and the processes of learn-
ing (see entries on “▶ Cognitive Learning” and
“▶ Metacognition and Learning”). Recent studies
have continued to point to the importance of learners
being able to combine key features of Tele-learning.
Opportunities for distant document sharing and feed-
back have become increasingly possible by using email
attachments or posting documents onto VLEs, while
the creation of multimedia materials by individuals has
provided for new forms of individual expression (see
entries on “▶ Attitudes and Learning Styles” and
“▶ Digital Learning”). The increasing range of forms
of interaction and modes of expression have enabled
wider opportunities for blended learning – where
forms of learning can be varied over time to suit the
purpose and approaches for teaching and learning (see
entry on “▶ Blended Learning”).
More fully integrated electronic facilities now allow
learners to undertake parallel activities and to collabo-
rate at a distance: for example, to use email discussion
and Internet resource access alongside each other; to
jointly construct and create documents or diagrams
using collaborative software; to participate by observ-
ing the discussion of others; or to interact when an
individual chooses, without the need to remain “silent”
as might be the case in a face-to-face environment.
Luckin (2010) offers a model that allows key learning
influences in a Tele-learning environment to be con-
sidered as a series of actions and interactions within
a Zone of Collaboration – coming from a Zone of
Available Assistance (the space within which the entire
width of resources available to a learner can be appro-
priately reviewed and selected by that learner), the
learner moves through a Zone of Proximal Adjustment
(the space within which the learner negotiates their
learning with “more able others”) to a Zone of Proxi-
mal Development (see the entry on “▶ Zone of Proxi-
mal Development”) (the space within which the learner
identifies goals and undertakes activities to complete
one or more tasks). It is clear that this model highlights
the key importance of the learner both developing and
using metacognitive processes when undertaking
learning actions and interactions.
However, it should also be noted that certain nega-
tive aspects continue to be identified with Tele-learning
practices. Of particular recent importance has been the
ease with which learners can simply “copy and paste,”
which fails to lead to understanding or a transfer
of knowledge or ideas because the processes of engage-
ment with and manipulation of information and ideas
are lacking. In such cases, it is particularly important
for tutors and teachers to give guidance and advice to
learners as well as consider how to instigate, develop,
and ensure learner independence of action.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Although studies have shown that different aspects of
learning can be impacted by Tele-learning practices,
questions still remain as to the extents of these impacts
and whether such measures are themselves valuable, or
whether impacts for learners are related far more to
individual, personal, or affective characteristics that
need to be explored concurrently. Concerns raised
about a potential reduction of cognitive interactions
for the learner when Tele-learning practices are used
(e.g., due to decreased levels of handwriting) have often
been balanced with a recognition of positive impacts
arising (learners finding that typing allows an easier
match of cognitive activity to levels of attention,
engagement, or motor interactions). Although some
motivational aspects of Tele-learning involvement
have been studied (both motivations that engage the
learner, as well as motivations arising after use by the
learner), many questions remain at this time about how
Tele-learning interacts with and impacts on motiva-
tional aspects such as self-efficacy, learning goals, and
self-confidence.
Knowing more about how Tele-learning practices
can be developed effectively when teachers or mentors
are involved has been highlighted as an important
research need by some authors. For example, Laferrière
and Breuleux (2002) state that: “the complexity of the
educational transformations that the teaching profes-
sion is facing calls for powerful conceptual tools to

think about learning and leading. We are collectively
faced with new questions that cannot be answered from
our past experiences. For example, what does it mean
to ‘lead’ a community of learners, considering that such
communities cannot simply be engineered but that
they are highly complex, self-organizing, and ecological
entities?” In this context, Wasson and Mørch (2000)
highlight four different collaboration patterns arising
from their research (adaptation, coordinated
desynchronization, informal language, and construc-
tive commenting), and argue that “what these exam-
ples illustrate is that training and practice in the art of
collaboration is equally, if not more important, than
just being trained in using the tools.” More recent
research from Salmon (2004) has continued to identify
the key roles of e-moderation in supporting teaching
and learning online, while Ertl, Reiserer, and Mandl
(2005) explore how content schemes and collaboration
scripts can impact outcomes for students; their work
also highlights the importance of relating effective sup-
portive practices and identification of outcomes
through research to specific technologies, as well as to
specific concepts of learning. Oubenaissa-Giardina
(2007) highlights the need to consider “the non-
availability of design tools that consider learners’ per-
spectives, beliefs, and how those elements affect the
learners’ socio-cognitive and metacognitive interac-
tion. Therefore, it is clear that we need to understand
how interactions are affected by personal and cultural
differences.” The complexity of this field is further
deepened by the need to consider practices and related
outcomes in specific subject domains (e.g., uses and
outcomes in medicine as described by Moser et al.
2003) and the development and use of specific learning
resources (see Busetti et al. 2007).
Tele-learning practices are undoubtedly supporting
the management and processes of learning for a range
of individuals. Although research has identified uses
and impacts, outcomes relating to particular groups of
learners (e.g., those who are working at the level of
physiological needs, safety needs, those who are shy,
those who find it hard to learn, and those who are
emotionally unstable) have not always been specifically
focused on and delineated. Indeed, some studies have
simply grouped outcomes arising from potentially dis-
parate groups together, appearing also to assume sim-
ilarities of learning approach across all of those
Tele-Learning T 3299
individuals. As Tele-learning practices move from
more focused uses in higher education contexts to
uses in school and informal learning contexts increas-
ingly, research studies will need to be more specifically
targeted if they are to answer fundamental questions
and allow findings to be applied usefully to specific
groups of users in terms of practice and policy.
Technologically, questions also remain. Even in
countries where broadband-linked technologies are
now well established, full interoperability and ease of
resource access are still not always easy. Learners can
find that their applications (e.g., videoconferencing or
VLEs) do not interoperate with those used by other
learners or mentors and some systems do not allow ease
of sharing documents. While some nations have
attempted to address these issues through national
standards and national system provision, the issue of
ease of access and interoperability across nations is yet
to be addressed.
Over the past 20 years, research has explored learn-
ing impacts arising as successive Tele-learning technol-
ogies have been developed and implemented. New
technologies will continue to be developed and applied
to educational contexts, and there is clearly a continued
need for research in this area. The development of Tele-
learning practices within an increasing range of nations
is an important topic in itself. Although questions are
sometimes raised about the priorities of such research,
Panda and Chaudhary (2001) say in the context of Tele-
learning developments in India: “the fact is that India
needs the jet and the bullock cart, the global connec-
tions and the local delivery. The rural poor and the
urban disadvantaged must be helped to become more
empowered and self-reliant through education, to
enjoy better health and lifestyles.”
T
Cross-References
▶ Computer-Based Learning
▶ Computer-Based Learning Environments
▶ Computer-Enhanced Learning and Learning
Environments
▶ Interactive Learning Environments
▶ Literacy and Learning
▶ Online Learning
▶ Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments
▶ Virtual Reality Learning Environments
3300 T Telescoping

References
Busetti, E., Dettori, G., Forcheri, P., & Ierardi, M. G. (2007). Teletandem Learning
A pedagogical approach to the design of learning objects for
complex domains. International Journal of Distance Education
▶ Tandem Learning
Technologies, 5(2), 1–17.
Collis, B. A. (1998). New wine and old bottles? Tele-learning,
telematics, and the University of Twente. In M. F. Verdejo & G.
Davies (Eds.), The virtual campus: trends for higher education and
training (pp. 3–17). London: Chapman and Hall.
Television Violence
Ertl, B., Reiserer, M., & Mandl, H. (2005). Fostering collaborative
▶ Media Violence Effects on Learning
learning in videoconferencing: the influence of content schemes
and collaboration scripts on collaboration outcomes and indi-
vidual learning outcomes. Education, Communication and Infor-
mation, 5(2), 147–166.
Laferrière, T., & Breuleux, A. (2002). Leadership issues and challenges
in telelearning and teacher education. Technology, Pedagogy and
Temperament
Education, 11(3), 335–354. ▶ Emotional Intelligence in Animals
Luckin, R. (2010). Re-designing learning contexts: Technology-rich,
▶ Neuroticism as a Predictor of Mood Change
learner-centred ecologies. London: Routledge.
Moser, P. L., Hager, M., Lorenz, I. H., Sogner, P., Schubert, H. M., ▶ Personality Effects on Learning
Mikuz, G., & Kolbitsch, C. (2003). Acceptance of telemedicine
and new media: a survey of Austrian medical students. Journal of
Telemedicine and Telecare, 9(5), 273–277.
Oubenaissa-Giardina, L. (2007). Managing technological constraints
and educational aspiration in a multicultural e-learning environ-
Template Consistency Problem
ment design. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 18(1),
135–145.
▶ Constraint Satisfaction for Learning Hypotheses in
Ouellette, P. M. (2001). Creating a telelearning community for train- Inductive Logic Programming
ing social work practitioners working with troubled youth and
their families. Journal of Technology in Human Services, 18(1),
101–116.
Panda, S., & Chaudhary, S. (2001). Telelearning and telelearning centres
in India. In C. Latchem & D. Walker (Eds.), Telecentre: Case studies Template Theory
and key issues. Vancouver: Commonwealth of Learning.
Salmon, G. (2004). E-moderating: The key to teaching and learning
Theory of expertise, developed in 1996 by Gobet and
online. London: Taylor and Francis. Simon, building on the chunking theory and proposing
Schachter, J., & Fagnano, C. (1999). Does technology improve stu- that well-elaborated chunks lead to larger meaningful
dent learning and achievement? How, when and under what units (templates).
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Schellens, T., & Valcke, M. (2005). Collaborative learning in asyn-
Cross-References
chronous discussion groups: what about the impact on cognitive ▶ Learning in the CHREST Cognitive Architecture
processing? Computers in Human Behavior, 21(6), 957–975.
Wasson, B., & Mørch, A. I. (2000). Identifying collaboration patterns
in collaborative telelearning scenarios. Educational Technology
and Society, 3(3), 237–248.
Wegerif, R. (1998). The social dimension of asynchronous learning
Temporal Contiguity
networks. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 2(1), 34–49. ▶ Split-Attention Effect

Temporal Extension of
Telescoping Memories
▶ Accelerated Learning ▶ Memory Persistence

Temporal Learning in Humans
and Other Animals
RUSSELL M. CHURCH
Department of Psychology, Brown University,
Providence, RI, USA
Synonyms
Duration discrimination; Timing
Definition
Temporal learning refers to the acquisition of knowl-
edge about the physical time between events. The events
may be stimuli or responses. Thus, a person with expe-
rience at a particular traffic light may learn the dura-
tion of the red light, the interval between the yellow and
red light, the time from the change in one of the lights
until a response can be made on the accelerator or
brake pedal, the temporal relationship between the
responses on the two pedals, etc. This knowledge is
usually described in terms of psychological time between
events, which is referred to as temporal perception, or
equivalently, the subjective representation of physical
time. Temporal learning involves more than just the
perception of time; it also involves temporal memory
(the remembered psychological time) and temporal
decision that is based on a comparison between tempo-
ral perception and temporal memory.
Theoretical Background
Humans and other animals live in a physical world
characterized by space and time. With experience they
learn the distinctive features of many locations, the
relationship of these locations to each other, their
own present location, and how to navigate to other
locations. This is referred to as spatial learning, and it
is done in a three-dimensional world. With experience
they also learn the times at which events happen, and
their durations. This is referred to as temporal learning,
and it requires only a single dimension.
In thinking about temporal learning, it is important
to distinguish between physical time and psychological
time. Physical time refers to time as measured by phys-
ical instruments (e.g., clocks); psychological time refers
to time as measured by biological instruments (e.g.,
behavior). To distinguish psychological time from
Temporal Learning in Humans and Other Animals T 3301
physical time, it is useful to consider an example:
A person is presented tones with durations randomly
selected from a list of 11 durations (e.g., 1.0, 1.1, 1.2,
1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 1.9, and 2.0 s) and asked to
report the apparent durations of the tones. The physi-
cal duration is the number of seconds recorded by an
accurate clock; the psychological duration is the
reported duration.
There are many different ways that a person might
be asked to report a duration. Some of the possibilities
are as follows: (a) report the number of “seconds”; (b)
report the duration on a scale of 1–7, or (c) report
whether the tone was “short” or “long.” These reports
may be spoken or written, or they may be based on
pressing a key on a computer keyboard. Another way
that a person might be asked to report a duration is to
hold down a key to reproduce the duration. The differ-
ent methods to obtain a report of the psychological
duration produce similar results. One of the advantages
of the methods that do not require spoken or written
language is that they may be used for nonhuman, as
well as human, animals. This permits comparison of
the psychological timing of different species. The rela-
tionship between the psychological duration and the
physical duration is known as the psychophysical func-
tion, that is, the function relating the duration reported
by a person to the duration measured with a physical
device.
Although it seems natural to time the duration of
a continuous stimulus, what does it mean to time the
duration between two brief stimuli, for example,
the duration between two clicks? Between the two
clicks there is only “empty time,” and how is it possible
to time the duration of nothing? Humans and other
animals can easily time the duration between two
clicks, and philosophers and psychologists have spent T
considerable time and effort to explain how this can be
done. The current standard approach of psychologists
is to introduce the concept of a “time marker” that is
a physical stimulus, and a psychological process that
changes in a regular way with physical time since the
onset of the time marker. This psychological process is
usually called an “internal clock,” but some writers
prefer to use other names. To explain how it is possible
to time the duration of nothing, the approach is to say
that a click (an external stimulus) is a time marker, and
an internal clock times begins at the time marker and
can be read at any time, such as the next click.
3302 T Temporal Learning in Humans and Other Animals
Four types of time markers have been identified:
(a) external stimuli, (b) contexts, (c) outcomes, and
(d) responses. The time marker may be the onset or
termination of an external stimulus (such as a tone or
a click). It may also be a context, which refers to
a relatively unchanging environmental location. Thus
a rat can learn to expect food two minutes after it has
been put in a particular box. Time markers also may be
outcomes, such as rewards or punishments. This makes
it possible for a person or a rat to respond differentially
to different sequences of reward (R) and nonreward
(N), such as (RNRNRN. . . or RRNRRN. . .). Thus, they
can anticipate the time of the next food on the basis of
the time of delivery of the last food. Time markers may
also be responses. For example, a person or a rat can
learn to respond slowly if a long interval between
responses is necessary in order to obtain food. They
can also learn to time from multiple time markers
(simultaneous temporal processing).
In his famous textbook, William James (1890) pro-
vided a thoughtful review of the perception and learn-
ing of time in humans. In his lectures, Ivan Pavlov
(1927) provided strong evidence of the perception
and learning of time by dogs. These approaches to the
study of human and nonhuman animal time percep-
tion and learning were quite different. The similarities
are now more clearly understood (1993).
Two types of explanations of temporal learning
have been extensively used – explanation with princi-
ples, and explanation by processes. The principles are
“if-then” statements, such as “if food is delivered to
a rat at a fixed time after the onset of a stimulus, then
the rat will learn to anticipate the food after the onset of
the stimulus.” A deduction from this principles follows
from a procedural statement that “food was delivered
to a rat at a fixed time,” and a definition of a behavioral
measure of “anticipation.” Some of the most general
principles have been referred to as “laws.”
The principles of scalar timing have been inten-
sively investigated (Gibbon 1991). They are impressive
because of their ability to provide quantitative predic-
tions of behavior of individuals and to apply to a wide
range of species. These principles provide a way to
make predictions about behavior from a single physical
time to all other physical times. The scalar timing
principles are as follows: (a) The mean psychological
time of an outcome is a linear function of the mean
physical time; (b) The standard deviation of the
psychological time of an outcome is proportional to
the mean physical time; (c) The ratio of the standard
deviation of the psychological time to the mean of the
psychological time is a constant; and (d) The distribu-
tion of relative psychological times of an outcome is the
same for all intervals. These principles provide an
excellent approximation to observed behavior under
most conditions. A deeper understanding of the con-
ditions under which there are systematic deviations
from the scalar property have revealed important
clues about the underlying neural basis for timing.
Standard learning theories are focused on the determi-
nants of strength of associations, and do not make pre-
dictions about temporal learning. Other theories have
been developed to account for temporal learning but do
not make predictions about associative learning. Three
approaches have been used for the integration of these
two types of theories: (a) modification of a theory of
associative strength to include predictions regarding tem-
poral learning, (b) modifications of a theory of temporal
learning to include predictions regarding associative learn-
ing, and (c) development of a hybrid model to do both.
Some theories make quantitative predictions of times of
individual responses of individual participants. Ideally,
these models will be simple, and easy to modify and test.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
A major open question for scientific research on tem-
poral learning in the twenty-first century concerns the
explanation of temporal learning. In the twentieth cen-
tury most effort on temporal learning was put into the
discovery of facts, and the organization of these facts
into general principles. The enormous developments in
neuroscience, some of which has been devoted to tem-
poral learning, is now likely to lead to discoveries
regarding the biological basis of internal clocks, tem-
poral perception, memory, and decision processes.
There have also been enormous developments in com-
putational sciences, some of which have been devoted
to temporal learning. This is likely to establish mathe-
matical theories of the relationship between temporal
experience and timed behavior. A thorough knowledge
of the temporal experiences of an individual may be
sufficient to lead to accurate predictions of behavior. It
is also possible that observation of the temporal behav-
ior may lead to an accurate diagnosis of the experiences
of an individual.
 Test Postdiction T 3303

Cross-References should be obtained following the current policy. It

▶ Animal Intelligence updates incrementally the value associated to the dif-
▶ Animal Perceptual Learning ferent states of the system, while concurrently modify-
▶ Anticipatory Learning ing the current policy.
▶ Associative Learning
▶ Cognitive Models of Learning
▶ Computational Models of Classical Conditioning
▶ Pavlov, Ivan P. (1849–1936)
▶ Reinforcement Learning Temporal-Difference Learning
▶ Reinforcement Learning in Animals
This reinforcement-learning algorithm learns to predict
▶ Sequential Learning
future rewards through a reward prediction-error signal.
▶ Skinner, B. F.
It is an extension of the Rescorla–Wagner learning rule
▶ Stochastic Models of Learning
with an elaborated representation of time. Besides being
an efficient machine-learning algorithm, temporal-
References difference learning is widely used in neurosciences as
Church, R. M. (1993). Human models of animal behavior. Psycho-
a model for animal behavior and dopamine cell activity.
logical Science, 4, 170–173.
Gibbon, J. (1991). Origin of scalar timing theory. Learning and
Motivation, 22, 3–38.
James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology (Vol. 1). New York:
Holt. Chapter 15.
Pavlov, I. P. (1927). Conditioned reflexes. (trans: Anrep, G. V.). Ten Steps to Complex Learning
New York: Dover.
▶ Four-Component Instructional Design

Temporal Lobe
Tending to Remedy Math
The lateral region of the brain that is associated with
speech, hearing, and memory functions.
Abilities
▶ Effects of Remedial Mathematics on the Learning of
Economics

Temporal Memory
▶ Memory for “What,” “Where, and “When” Informa-
tion in Animals
Test Anxiety T
A state-emotion related to negative cognitive and phys-
iological reactions during an evaluative situation.

Temporal-Difference (TD) Cross-References

▶ Stress and Learning
Algorithm
The temporal difference algorithm (TD) is a classical
method in reinforcement learning. It is a bootstrapping
method that learns to predict a quantity that depends
on future values of a given signal. It is especially used in
Test Postdiction
predicting the expected sum of future rewards that ▶ Calibration
3304 T Test Prediction
Test Prediction
▶ Calibration
Test-Enhanced Learning
JESSYE BRICK, MARK A. MCDANIEL
Department of Psychology, Washington University,
Saint Louis, MO, USA
Synonyms
Retrieval practice; Testing effect
Definition
In educational settings, tests are generally viewed as
a high-stakes means of assessing learning. Much
research, however, suggests that tests can be used to
promote learning, rather than merely evaluate it.
In fact, research has shown that taking a test on studied
material improves retention of the material beyond
merely restudying the material. This phenomenon is
termed the testing effect and has been demonstrated to
enhance learning even with retention intervals of
months (see McDaniel et al. 2011). While the concept
that testing improves memory has existed for hundreds
of years, it has not received wide attention in the edu-
cational community. Only recently have researchers
begun to explore both the applied potential and the
theoretical nuances of test-enhanced learning.
Theoretical Background
In 1620, Bacon argued that: “if you read a piece of text
through twenty times, you will not learn it by heart so
easily as if you read it ten times while attempting to
recite from time to time and consulting the text when
your memory fails” (F. Bacon, 1620/2000 cited in
Roediger and Karpicke 2006, p. 181). The earliest
experiments to assess this theory took place in the
early 1900s and the results suggested that, in compar-
ison to restudying material, a certain period of studying
followed by self-testing in the form of recitation led to
superior performance on subsequent tests (Roediger
and Karpicke 2006).
Two theories attempt to explain the direct benefits
of the testing effect. The ▶ transfer-appropriate
processing theory suggests that initial tests improve
performance on final tests because they stimulate
learners to use the same retrieval processes that are
required on the final tests. This theory cannot accom-
modate all findings, however. For instance, matched
formats on initial and final tests (e.g., recognition vs
recall) do not always produce higher final test scores
than mismatched formats (see Rohrer et al. 2010).
Another theory suggests that the ▶ effortful retrieval
demanded by tests is responsible for the testing effect.
Effortful retrieval may stimulate further strengthening
or variability of encoding of the target content, more so
than additional study (see Roediger et al. in press).
Support for this theory stems from the common find-
ing that recall quizzes (i.e., short answer, cued recall,
free recall) produce a greater testing effect than recog-
nition tests (i.e., multiple-choice), even when the final
test is a recognition test (Rohrer et al. 2010).
In addition, there are many indirect reasons why
testing might enhance learning. For example, frequent
quizzing may reduce anxiety on summative exams and
thus improve performance. Furthermore, quizzing
generally involves feedback, which increases exposure
and review opportunities. Quizzes also serve
a metacognitive function: students are more attuned
to what they know and what they do not know, which
can help them target their studying. These benefits are
especially pertinent to authentic classroom settings and
provide further justification to incorporate low-stakes
quizzing in schools.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Test-Enhanced Learning in the
Laboratory
When studying the testing effect in the laboratory, the
experimenter generally presents materials for partici-
pants to study (often a word list or a list of paired-
associates). One group of participants is then given one
or more initial tests prior to the final test. Final test
performance is then compared to control conditions.
In one type of control, participants only study the
material once. In a more rigorous control, participants
have the opportunity to study the material the same

number of times that the experimental group is tested.
Generally, the results show the testing group
outperforming both the single study and restudy con-
ditions (Roediger and Karpicke 2006).
Furthermore, research indicates that the testing
effect is augmented as the delay increases between the
initial test (or study) and final testing. Several study
sessions tend to result in high performance on a test
administered immediately after studying. This may
explain why many students choose to “cram” immedi-
ately before an important test. It is virtually
undisputed, however, that cramming does not lead to
long-term retention of studied material. When reten-
tion is measured after a delay, participants who took
multiple initial tests perform better than participants
who engaged in the same number of study sessions.
This effect becomes more pronounced as the number of
initial tests increases (Roediger and Karpicke 2006).
An issue that follows from the above finding
concerns the optimal spacing of multiple initial tests.
With an expanding schedule, the interval between
successive initial tests gradually increases. For exam-
ple, if 3 min elapse between the first and second initial
tests, 5 min would elapse between the second and third
initial tests, and so on. In contrast, an equally spaced
schedule results when the same amount of time elapses
between each initial test. Some researchers argue that
an expanding schedule is optimal because the spacing
gradually increases the difficulty of retrieval, thus
promoting later retention. Findings have not consis-
tently supported this theory, however. While some
research suggests that an expanding schedule is pref-
erable, other studies indicate that an equal schedule is
more beneficial; many find no difference in final per-
formance after an expanding schedule relative to an
equal schedule. Regardless, both spaced schedules have
consistently been shown to result in superior final test
performance than massed quizzing (Roediger and
Karpicke 2006).
Researchers have also examined the most beneficial
format of the initial tests. Many studies have found that
short answer initial tests result in superior final test
performance in comparison to multiple-choice initial
tests. These findings support the effortful retrieval the-
ory, as multiple-choice questions require significantly
less effortful retrieval than short answer questions.
Furthermore, learners tend to perform better on final
Test-Enhanced Learning T 3305
tests when initial tests require more effortful retrieval,
regardless of initial test format. Researchers measured
learners’ response times on initial test questions and
found that learners exhibited superior retention for
items that took them longer to respond to, in compar-
ison to questions that were answered quickly on the
initial tests (thereby indicating that the item demanded
little effortful retrieval; see Rohrer et al. 2010, for
review).
Test-Enhanced Learning in the
Classroom
Some studies have sought to generalize these findings
to educationally relevant materials. For instance,
Roediger and Karpicke (2006) had participants study
prose passages instead of word lists. Participants then
took one or three initial free recall tests or restudied the
material one or three times. Participants in the study
conditions outperformed those in the testing condi-
tions when the final test was given only 5 min later.
After 1 week, though, participants in the testing con-
ditions demonstrated superior retention.
Very few studies have investigated the testing effect
in an authentic educational setting, but those that have
reproduce laboratory findings. College students
enrolled in a web-based course performed better on
the final test when concepts had been quizzed previ-
ously than when they had been presented for further
study. Furthermore, there were no significant differ-
ences between facts that had been presented for partic-
ipants to reread and facts that had not been presented
for additional study (but were covered in class assign-
ments). These results provide support for the idea that
initial testing may be a more beneficial study technique
than re-reading (restudy). In middle school class-
rooms, students exhibited superior unit exam and T
semester exam performance for quizzed items in com-
parison to non-quizzed items and items that were
presented to the students for restudy (McDaniel et al.
2011; Roediger et al. in press).
Test-Enhanced Learning and Transfer
Most studies on the testing effect have simply repeated
questions from initial tests on final tests. Thus, the
findings are limited to situations where participants
have already seen the question. From an educational
perspective, this might significantly limit the
3306 T Test-Enhanced Learning
applicability of using tests to promote learning, because
most teachers are presumably reluctant to use identical
questions for quizzes and tests. Furthermore, while
there are content areas that require a great deal of fact
memorization, often the ultimate learning goal is the
ability to apply one’s knowledge to other scenarios.
Clearly, the testing effect would be most valuable if it
enabled students to transfer and apply the target
knowledge. A growing literature suggests that initial
testing is capable of promoting transfer to final crite-
rion tests (Chan 2010; Rohrer et al. 2010).
One type of transfer that testing has been shown to
improve is associative transfer of knowledge. That is,
quizzing one component of an association will result in
better performance on a final test that requires learners
to provide another component of the association as the
answer. For example, the initial test question might
read “All preganglionic axons, whether sympathetic or
parasympathetic, release ____________ as
a neurotransmitter,” while the final question would
read “All ______________ axons, whether sympathetic
or parasympathetic, release acetylcholine as
a neurotransmitter.” Using such materials, researchers
found that testing improved ▶ associative learning rel-
ative to a restudy condition, implying that the testing
effect does not merely result from the opportunity to
practice specific responses (Rohrer et al. 2010).
In addition, recent experiments indicate that testing
can also facilitate overall deeper understanding of the
material. Chan (2010) found that testing some material
can enhance retention of related, non-tested material.
Chan had participants read two passages and take an
initial quiz on one of them. On the final test, partici-
pants performed better on related, non-tested material
(items that were not on the initial quiz but that covered
material from the initially quizzed passage) in compar-
ison to non-related items (questions that covered
material from the non-quizzed passage). Perhaps test-
ing helps learners create a more organized and detailed
framework of the targeted concepts, which results in
deeper learning.
Practical Implications and Open
Questions
The findings on the testing effect indicate that testing
can be a powerful learning tool in a wide variety of
content areas and grade levels. Furthermore, the effect
has been shown to enhance learning not only on tested
facts but on non-tested related material as well (Chan
2010). Implementing quizzing in the classroom does
not require a significant change in course content or in
teaching style. While some teachers may be hesitant to
sacrifice class time in order to give more frequent
quizzes, research has shown that the testing effect
results even from brief quizzes and from web-based
quizzes taken outside of class (McDaniel et al. 2011).
Even if teachers choose not to implement test-
enhanced learning in their classrooms, students can
use self-testing to improve individual performance.
The Read-Recite-Review (3R) study strategy functions
as a type of self-testing in which students read material,
recite what they remember, and then review what they
could not remember. A recent experiment found that
students who used the 3R strategy exhibited higher
final test performance, including problem solving
items, in comparison to students who reread the mate-
rial. Performance between the 3R condition and a note-
taking condition was equivalent, but participants in the
3R condition spent significantly less time studying.
Thus, while note taking is a much more common
study strategy than self-testing (99% of college students
report taking notes), incorporating recitation
(retrieval) into study strategies appears to be more
efficient and equally effective (McDaniel et al. 2009).
A host of questions remain regarding the parame-
ters that are important with regard to implementing
the testing effect in educational settings. These issues
include the frequency and spacing of testing, the nature
of feedback provided, and the format of initial tests
(multiple-choice, short answer, essay). The present lit-
erature demonstrates the potential of using tests to
augment learning, and future research will hopefully
begin to identify the most effective means of incorpo-
rating test-enhanced learning in authentic educational
contexts.
Cross-References
▶ Effects of Testing on Learning
▶ Metacognition and Learning
▶ Metacognitive Strategies
▶ Paired-Associate Learning
▶ Transfer of Learning
References
Chan, J. C. K. (2010). Long-term effects of testing on the recall of
nontested materials. Memory, 18, 49–57.
 Text Relevance T 3307

McDaniel, M. A., Howard, D. C., & Einstein, G. O. (2009). The read-

recite-review study strategy: Effective and portable. Psychological Text Learning
Science, 20(4), 516–522.
McDaniel, M. A., Agarwal, P. K., Huelser, B. J., McDermott, K. B., & ▶ Learning from Text
Roediger, III H. L. (2011). Test-enhanced learning in a middle
school science classroom: The effects of quiz frequency and
placement. Journal of Educational Psychology. Advance online
Publication. doi:10.1037/a0021782.
Roediger, H. L., III, Agarwal, P. K., McDaniel, M. A., & McDermott,
K. B., (in press). Test-enhanced learning in the classroom: Long-
Text Relevance
term improvements from quizzing. Journal of Experimental Psy-
chology: Applied. MATTHEW T. MCCRUDDEN1, GREGORY SCHRAW2,
Roediger, H. L., III, & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). The power of testing BOBBY HOFFMAN3
memory: Basic research and implications for educational prac- 1
School of Educational Psychology and Pedagogy,
tice. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1, 181–210. Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
Rohrer, D., Taylor, K., & Sholar, B. (2010). Tests enhance the transfer 2
Department of Educational Psychology, University of
of learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Mem-
ory, and Cognition, 36(1), 233–239. Nevada-Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, USA
3
Department of Educational Studies, University of
Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

Testing Effect Synonyms

▶ Effects of Testing on Learning Focusing instructions; Reading purpose
▶ Test-Enhanced Learning
Definition
Reading is a goal-directed activity such that a reader
seeks to reach a particular outcome as a result of read-
ing. Text relevance refers to the match between
Testing-the-Limits
a reader’s goal and information germane to that goal.
▶ Dynamic Testing and Assessment Information that closely matches a reader’s goal is more
relevant, whereas information that does not match the
goal is less relevant, regardless of its importance. Rele-
vance differs from importance in that readers assign
Text relevance to information, whereas importance is
author defined and is cued by various characteristics
▶ Discourse and the Production of Knowledge internal to the text (e.g., first mention, text signals,
elaboration).
T
Theoretical Background
Text and Graphics Wilson and Sperber (2004) proposed a theory of rele-
vance based on two key principles. The first is the
Comprehension
cognitive principle of relevance, which states that infor-
▶ Representational Learning mation processors (e.g., readers) seek the most relevant
information to achieve optimal cognitive efficiency,
which involves meeting a goal with the least amount
of energy expenditure. Optimal cognitive efficiency is
Text Comprehension essential because people encounter massive amounts of
information, yet have extremely limited cognitive
▶ Language/Discourse Comprehension and resources to process and remember this information.
Understanding One adaptation is to grade information for its relevance
3308 T Text Relevance

Relevance instructions

Specific General

Targeted Elaborative Perspective Purpose

segments interrogation
Definition: Prompts that Prompts that Prompts that ask Prompts that ask
target discrete text promote explanatory readers to view a readers to read for a
segments inferences text from a general reason
designated point of
reference
Example: What is Why do waves break Read about living in Read for study vs.
wavelength? close to the beach? a city next to the entertainment
beach from the
perspective of a
surfer vs. a geologist

Text Relevance. Fig. 1 Taxonomy of relevance manipulations

and to prioritize high-relevance information. For
example, when studying for a test in science, knowing
precisely what information will be on the test should
help students allocate their resources more efficiently
by focusing on relevant concepts.
The second principle is the communicative principle
of relevance, which states that every ostensive stimulus
conveys a presumption of its own optimal relevance.
With respect to reading, information is ostensive when
it meets two conditions: (a) the observer selectively
attends to information that has been pointed out, and
(b) the observer perceives that the information has
been pointed out intentionally. To reach optimal rele-
vance, the reader must be aware that the information is
relevant and that it was made relevant for a particular
reason. For example, a teacher directs students to par-
ticular concepts that will appear on a test, and the
student understands that the teacher’s action is
a signal to allocate more effort and attention to that
information while studying.
Taxonomy of Relevance Instructions
In educational contexts, students often read to meet
a particular task demand, such as to prepare for a test.
Providing students with relevance instructions is one
way to help readers identify relevant information for
study. Relevance instructions are explicit cues that sig-
nal information’s relevance. McCrudden and Schraw
(2007) identified two main categories of relevance
instructions that prompt readers to use either specific
or general criteria for determining relevance (see
Fig. 1). Specific relevance instructions highlight a nar-
row range of information, whereas general relevance
instructions highlight broad themes or purposes.
Specific relevance instructions consist of targeted
segment and elaborative interrogation instructions.
Targeted segment instructions, such as pre-reading
questions, prompt readers to identify discrete catego-
ries or pieces of information (e.g., What is wave-
length?), whereas elaborative interrogation
instructions are “why” questions that prompt readers
to draw explanatory inferences (e.g., Why do waves
break close to the beach?).
General relevance instructions include perspective
and purpose instructions. Perspective instructions
prompt readers to examine a text from a designated
reference point (e.g., imagine you will be moving to
a city next to a beach, determine the good and bad sides
of your new home city from the perspective of a surfer
vs a geologist), whereas purpose instructions prompt
individuals to read for a general reason (e.g., read for
study vs. read for entertainment). These categories
represent a general taxonomy.
There is evidence that readers use different strate-
gies to process relevant and irrelevant information, and
remember each differently (e.g., Cerdán and Vidal-
Abarca 2008; Kaakinen et al. 2002; Rouet et al. 2001;
van den Broek et al. 2001). Typically, readers take
longer to read relevant information and remember it
better than less relevant information.

Goal-Focusing Model of Relevance
McCrudden and Schraw (2007) proposed a four-stage
model, called the goal-focusing model, to explain how
relevance cues affect goal-focusing, resource alloca-
tion, and learning (see Fig. 2). This model is supported
by a substantial body of empirical research. Stage 1 of
the model is relevance cues, or cues that signal infor-
mation’s relevance, such as pre-reading instructions.
For example, an instructor could provide readers with
either targeted segment or elaborative interrogation
instructions before reading an expository text about
ocean waves. Stage 2 is goal-focusing, which is the
process by which students set goals, enact strategies
to meet those goals, and monitor progress. For exam-
ple, a reader who receives “what” questions about
ocean waves adopts a goal to answer those questions,
whereas a reader who receives “why” questions adopts
a goal to answer these questions. Each student will use
strategies to meet their respective goals and monitor
whether they are meeting their goals. Stage 3 is
resource allocation, which involves focusing attention
on and processing goal-relevant information. Readers
focus attention on information based on its relevance
to the reading goal. This means that readers must
make evaluations as they read regarding whether
information is relevant to their goals. For example,
students may direct attention to information that per-
tains to “what” or “why” questions. Stage 4 is learning.
Successful readers understand what they read. The
nature of the reading goal and the attention-focusing
strategies used to accomplish that goal affect text
learning.
An assumption of the goal-focusing model is that
successful readers are metacognitive. They have knowl-
edge of different strategies, they know how to use those
strategies, and they have knowledge about when and
why to use various strategies to meet a reading goal. For
instance, a successful reader knows what elaboration is,
even if he or she does not know the actual term, knows
how to use elaboration to build relationships between
new information and ideas already known, knows to
use this type of strategy when trying to integrate an idea
Relevance Goal- Resource
Learning
instructions focusing allocation
Text Relevance. Fig. 2 Goal-focusing model
Text Relevance T 3309
with prior knowledge, and knows that using elabora-
tion will make the information more meaningful and
memorable.
Functions of Relevance Instructions
Research has shown that relevance instructions serve at
least three functions. First, relevance instructions affect
goal-focusing. Readers adjust their goals in response
to relevance instructions. They enact strategies to meet
these goals and they monitor their progress toward
accomplishing their goals. Second, relevance instruc-
tions affect resource allocation. Readers allocate their
attention differently to information that is more or less
relevant to their reading goals. Research has shown that
readers spend more or less time reading information,
and engage in different types of strategic inferences as
a function of information’s relevance. Third, relevance
instructions affect text learning. Readers learn relevant
information better than irrelevant information.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
There are an important number of directions to pursue
in future research. First, there is limited research exam-
ining the relationship between different types of rele-
vance instructions and learning outcomes. Most
studies have examined how relevance instructions
affect comprehension and memory, whereas few have
examined how relevance instructions affect deeper
learning. Understanding how relevance instructions
influence different levels of learning can enable educa-
tors to match relevance instructions with intended
learning outcomes. A second direction is to examine
the alignment between educators’ intent for assigning
readings and students’ interpretations of the educators’
intents. A teacher may assume readers have a clear T
understanding of their purpose for reading; however,
students may hold different interpretations than the
teacher intended, which may impact how the student
interacts with the text. A third direction is to examine
the influence of reader characteristics on the effects of
relevance instructions. It may be that different types of
relevance instructions are more or less effective in help-
ing readers with differences in prior knowledge, verbal
ability, epistemic beliefs, and age-related differences.
The research on relevance instructions has at least
two implications for educators. First, relevance instruc-
tions help readers develop more focused reading goals,
3310 T Textual Schema

which helps them to focus on and remember task-

relevant information. Providing students with explicit The Classification of
relevance instructions helps them become more aware Educational Objectives
of the general purpose for reading an assigned text and
▶ Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Objectives
promotes learning. Second, teachers need to be mind-
ful of the impact of the instructions they provide stu-
dents. Readers may adopt reading goals that are not
aligned with instructional objectives or with the
teachers’ intent for having students read an assigned
text. Educators should consider asking students to
The Experiential Learning Cycle
explain why they are reading assigned texts. ▶ Learning Cycles

Cross-References
▶ Learning from Text
▶ Learning Strategies
▶ Mental Activities of Learning The Harvard Project Zero
▶ Metacognition and Learning
Project Zero is essentially a group of educational
▶ Reading and Learning
researchers at the Graduate School of Education at
Harvard University. Its mission is to understand and
References enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts as
Cerdán, R., & Vidal-Abarca, E. (2008). The effects of tasks on inte- well as in humanistic and scientific disciplines, at both
grating information from multiple documents. Journal of Edu-
the individual and institutional levels. For more infor-
cational Psychology, 100, 209–222.
Kaakinen, J. K., Hyönä, J., & Keenan, J. M. (2002). Perspective effects mation, see: http://pzweb.harvard.edu
on online text processing. Discourse Processes, 33, 159–173.
McCrudden, M. T., & Schraw, G. (2007). Relevance and goal-focusing
in text processing. Educational Psychology Review, 19, 113–139.
Rouet, J.-F., Vidal-Abarca, E., Bert-Erboul, A., & Millogo, V. (2001).
Effects of information search tasks on the comprehension of
instructional text. Discourse Processes, 31, 163–186.
The International Society of the
van den Broek, P., Lorch, R. F., Jr., Linderholm, T., & Gustafson, M. Learning Sciences
(2001). The effects of readers’ goals on inference generation and
memory for texts. Memory & Cognition, 29(8), 1081–1087. The International Society of the Learning Sciences is
Wilson, D., & Sperber, D. (2004). Relevance theory. In L. Horn & G. a professional society dedicated to the interdisciplinary
Ward (Eds.), Handbook of pragmatics (pp. 607–632). Oxford: empirical investigation of learning as it exists in real-
Blackwell. world settings and of how learning may be facilitated
both with and without technology. The society is
widely interdisciplinary and includes members from
cognitive science, educational psychology, computer
science, anthropology, sociology, information science,
Textual Schema neuroscience, education, design studies, instructional
▶ Learning from Text design, and other fields.

The Approximate Number The Knowledge Creation

System Approach
▶ Numerical Skill in Animals ▶ Knowledge Creation Metaphor, The
 Theory Construction T 3311

References
The Knowledge Creation Davydov, V. V. (1999). What is real learning activity? In M. Hedegaard &
Metaphor of Learning J. Lompscher (Eds.), Learning activity and development. Aarhus:
University Press.
▶ Knowledge Creation Metaphor, The

Theory Construction
The Learning Cycle
JEAN SALLANTIN, STEFANO A. CERRI
▶ Learning Cycles
LIRMM: Laboratory of Informatics, Robotics and
Microelectronics, University Montpellier & CNRS,
Montpellier Cedex 5, France

The Milgram Experiment

Synonyms
▶ Learning of Obedience to Authority
Scientific discovery

The Role of Discipline Problems
in Teacher Burnout
▶ Burnout in Teaching and Learning
The Taxonomy of Educational
Objectives
▶ Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Objectives
The Worked Example Effect
▶ Worked Example Effect
Theoretical Knowledge
In the theories of learning activity and developmental
teaching, theoretical knowledge represents interrela-
tions between internal and external, between original
and derived in the learned material (Davydov 1999).
Definition
Theory construction is a process, i.e., a set of state
changes by an autonomous agent, or by an organism
composed of several autonomous agents. In the first
case, we may recall the approach of Peirce (1931) that
considers three logical operations (inference rules) on
a knowledge base, i.e., a set of propositions asserted to
be valid: abduction, deduction, and induction. Abduc-
tion generates new hypotheses from which deduction
derives predictions to be confirmed by experience. The
confirmed hypotheses are structured by induction into
laws of general validity. A similar way to describe the
life cycle of theory construction within a single agent is
to say that the real world asks the agent for a concrete
solution in a single instance case, then the solution is
abstracted in order to identify laws that are more gen-
eral; finally the abstracted solution is applied to other T
classes of instances of the abstract problem, i.e., it is
generalized. The interplay of these operations in one
single autonomous (artificial) agent is widely modeled
in the work on machine learning.
The second social scenario – communicating agents
learning by exchanging messages – is less easily formal-
ized but probably more realistic when describing
human learning. In this article we give support to the
conjecture that the process of construction of knowl-
edge in science (theory construction or scientific dis-
covery) and human learning are interactive human
processes of a social nature that present profound
3312 T Theory Construction
similarities and relations with each other so that we
may profit from advances in one domain to infer prop-
erties of the other one and the reverse. In this approach
we are strongly influenced by constructivism (Piaget
1970) and social constructivism.
Theoretical Background
The previous century has been characterized by
a constructivist approach to science (Zalta 2011). Knowl-
edge construction in any science was strictly associated
to proof and validation (Popper 1959). Obviously,
proof and validation in history, for instance, is not
the same as in mathematics and, in turn, not the same
as in physics or biology. Nevertheless, all these proof-
and-validation processes require to possess a critical
mind as well as to exercise a critical approach knowing
that proofs and validations have to be accepted by
others. Theory construction is then the result of
a social game that enables the historical development
of newborn theories that progressively focus their own
validation domain. In more general terms, the scientific
activity is considered as a social activity influenced, as
all the other ones, by pressures of the contemporaneous
leading powers (Kuhn 1962; Latour 1987).
The end of the previous century is marked by an
evolution of reductionism. Reductionism can either
mean (a) an approach to understanding the nature of
complex things by reducing them to the interactions of
their parts or to simpler things or (b) a philosophical
position that a complex system is nothing but the sum
of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to
accounts of individual constituents. Problem solving is
not considered anymore just as consisting of
decomposing each problem into a finite set of sub-
problems and composing the solutions. Rather, the
holistic, situated approach to problem solving requires
one to integrate (or make interoperable) the partial
results validated by different scientific disciplines.
Reductionism and holism seem today complementary
approaches. For instance, understanding and forecasting
phenomena related to the global warming problem
requires to consider the planet and model simulta-
neously, for example, their physical, chemical, biologi-
cal, and social properties. A regulation rule influences
human behavior, acts modifying the actors thus the
observed system. According to the pioneer ecologist
Francesco Di Castri, for instance (Di Castri and Hadley
1988), one of the major scientific bottlenecks to natural
resource management was the lack of a holistic
approach bridging ecology (in fact, according to his
views, social ecology with a strong emphasis on
human impact) and the natural sciences. We are facing
what people call a complex system with feedback. From
a practical viewpoint, reductionism supports human
learning by disciplinary subjects and toy problems,
while a holistic view supports learning by solving real-
istic inter-, trans-, and multidisciplinary problems.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Scientific knowledge is built and communicated by
means of interactions among scientists and between
scientists and all other human beings. Several interac-
tion communities are formed and dissolved each hav-
ing properties that are different one from another.
A scientist does not process his/her theories alone, but
rather he/she is guided by critics of his/her pairs on
a scientific production offered as a contribution to the
solution of problems identified within a scientific con-
text where publications already exist. A well-trained
researcher should be able to enact successfully
a problem-solving process on old and new problems
within a scope limited by the discipline of expertise.
The training requires exercise but training and practice
are intertwined all life long, not separated in temporal
phases, so that we may treat scientists as lifelong stu-
dents and teachers at the same time.
The interactive view does not assume that each of
the interacting partners have the same knowledge, lan-
guage, goals, plans, strategies, tactics, intentions, pre-
conceptions, assumptions, misconceptions, etc. In
order to hopefully converge to an agreement, argu-
ments and counterarguments are discussed and exem-
plified in a social, interactive negotiation. Communities
exchange messages according to patterns and rules that
historically have been studied in sociolinguistics: prag-
matics, which is the science of understanding the rela-
tions between messages and the state of the actors
producing and receiving those messages, and rhetoric,
which is the art of convincing a partner about an
argument or evoking emotions into a partner, are the
disciplines that deal best with human interaction. In
the most interesting case, the rhetoric game of
interacting for negotiating meaning occurs between
and among actors belonging to different viewpoints/
disciplines, thus offering inter-, multi-, and

transdisciplinary scenarios of collective intelligence.
Recently, emotions and personality traits have entered
the scene as a mean to understand individual intelli-
gence; thus we expect them also to be at the core of
phenomena of collective intelligence.
Formal theories of interactive learning study differ-
ent approaches of knowledge construction and their
effectiveness. It is usually hard to say that one approach
is correct and the other ones are wrong; often it is the
case that they are complementary. Let us consider for-
eign language learning by practice: after a while, the
learner’s performance improves and his/her mistakes
diminish. This learning is accelerated if the instructor
confirms (or not) the correctness of his/her sentence, or
either when the instructor shows the apprentice the
incorrectness of a grammatical form by showing
a counter example. Such training by practice is also
common in learning of sports or in learning of artistic
skills when the trainee is required to adopt complex
practices without necessarily justifying them as theo-
ries. Any learning needs practice: the trainer should
define the exercises adequate for the learner to untie
the body and the mind. Similarly, the researcher’s work
requires a practice to learn how to be creative. But
practice and supervised learning without creativity
and autonomous rational thinking seem to concern
only a minor part of the complex knowledge and skills
required for coping with realistic problems.
Where does creativity come from? Sometimes it
emerges from a coincidence; often it is the fruit of
a surprise (unexpected event) assuming the mind is
well prepared to that event. The history of sciences is
full of discoveries emerging from chance, manipulation
errors, even from the innocent viewpoint expressed by
a novice. Such serendipitous events look quite similar to
learning as a side effect of interaction: something that
happens even if we can neither forecast its occurrence
nor explain its origins.
We will reinterpret multi-, inter-, and transdisci-
plinarity as modalities of collective behavior of the
social game of theory construction that we claim to
be similar to human learning. Assume a “service-
oriented view” of such a social interaction: the one
actor produces a statement and the other one consumes
it, either for progressing in his/her own scientific con-
struction, or for demonstrating/refuting the validity
of the proposed statement. Under the hypothesis
that the two actors come from different disciplines
Theory Construction T 3313
(or sub-domains of knowledge) one may have several
composite situations – interaction patterns – that
explain the nature and complexity of the holistic view
previously identified to be a foundation of current
scientific progress as well as modern learning processes.
At the basis of each of those situations there is the
fact that “Real-world problems may not respect disci-
pline boundaries” (Popper 1959) while scientific com-
munities are made of actors that mainly master a single
discipline, including the lexicon and the methods. Here
is the crucial challenge for the future of science as well
as innovation and, simultaneously, human learning:
How to exploit disciplinary convictions, viewpoints,
rules, and jargon when many of them should interact
synergically. Hereafter is a simple, though significant
preliminary classification that adopts the above identi-
fied classification criteria.
Multidisciplinarity: each actor uses statements
proved by his/her (multidisciplinary) community in
his/her own problem’s statement and argumentation.
Interdisciplinarity: each actor exploits in her/his
proof statements proved by another community. The
principle of interdisciplinarity is to admit as axioms
some results proved by other communities that one
cannot prove by himself. An interdisciplinary approach
is required when there is no discipline omniscient and
omnipotent able to solve the problem without inter-
vention from others.
Transdisciplinarity: actors propose some hypothet-
ical statements to other communities that trigger inter-
or multidisciplinary work (Piaget 1970).
Each of these interaction scenarios may be mapped
to many concrete situations (called also business pro-
cesses) of theory construction and scientific discovery,
but also of technological innovation. In human learn-
ing, similarly, the game of collective construction of T
knowledge is very clearly influenced by synergies
between and among actors each representing different
disciplines, viewpoints, and interests.
Finally, the interactive construction of scientific
theories can be viewed as an activity intertwined with
two kinds of learning: one is supervised by the teacher
or master and implies the acquisition of practical skills;
the other is unsupervised as it is concerned with the
communication of knowledge in the form of docu-
ments that have to be evaluated by pairs.
Since both the process of creative discovery in sci-
ence and learning in all its facets present those quite
3314 T Theory of Conformist Social Learning

similar properties, we may assume that they are related as an idea, a behavior, or a tool, by observing (or
to each other, so that advances in understanding each otherwise learning from) another individual (rather
of the two may be profitable for the other one and the than by their own invention of the element, which in
reverse. the same terminology is called individual learning). The
individual that is observed is often called the cultural
Cross References parent. If social learners choose cultural parents at
▶ Abductive Reasoning random, the frequencies of cultural variants among
▶ Advanced Learning Technologies social learners will not change in any systematic way.
▶ Learning as a Side Effect Theories of conformist social learning investigate the
▶ Network Communities possibility that the choice of cultural parent may be
biased toward the most common cultural variant, in
References which case cultural evolution will become directed
di Castri, F., & Hadley, M. (1988). Enhancing the credibility of
toward cultural homogeneity among social learners.
ecology: Interacting along and across hierarchical scales. For any specific case, a bias for socially learning the
GeoJournal, 17(1), 5–35. most common variant may arise in several ways – for
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: example, if the common variant is more attractive in
University of Chicago Press. itself, or if it is favored by the current norms, that is,
Latour, B. (1987). Science in action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press.
through mechanisms that could just as well bias the
Peirce, C. S. (1931). Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839– choice toward some other variant than the currently
1914). Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press/Harvard University most common one. Theories of conformist social
Press. learning make a much stronger claim: that biological
Piaget, J. (1970). L’épistémologie génétique. Paris: Presses evolution has favored an innate psychological bias to
universitaires de France.
prefer cultural parents that exhibit common behaviors.
Popper, K. (1959). The logic of scientific discovery. London:
Hutchinson.
This proposed innate bias is called a conformist bias.
Zalta, E. N. (2011). (Principal Editor) Stanford encyclopedia of
philosophy. Vienna Circle. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ Theoretical Background
vienna-circle/ Imitation of the most common behavior or conformity
has long been the focus for social psychologists, for
example, Floyd Allport’s (1934) j-curve hypothesis of
conforming behavior. However, more recently, there has
been an interdisciplinary surge of interest in conformity
Theory of Conformist Social and the conformist bias with papers in economics, phi-
Learning losophy, evolutionary computation, anthropology, and
biology journals. There has been an accompanying
KIMMO ERIKSSON1, JULIE C. COULTAS2 decrease of interest in conformity within the social psy-
1
School of Education, Culture and Communication, chology literature where conformity is often subsumed
Mälardalen University, Västerås, Sweden under the title of social influence. It should be noted that
2
Department of Psychology, University of Sussex, the term social learning in the psychological literature
Brighton, Sussex, UK generally refers to Bandura’s (1977) theory which sug-
gests that observational learning plays a primary role in
child development.
Synonyms Following previous suggestions about the role of
Conformist bias; Conformist transmission various forms of frequency-dependent transmission
in cultural evolution, the specific theory of conformist
Definition social learning was proposed by Boyd and Richerson
Within theories of animal behavior and cultural evolu- (1985) as part of their general paradigm that coevolu-
tion, social learning or social transmission is the act tion of genes and culture can be studied through math-
when an individual acquires a cultural element such ematical models inspired by population genetics.

This theory has since been developed further, with Joe
Henrich as main contributor. It is helpful to view the
theory of conformist social learning as consisting of
two main parts: first, the reasons why conformist social
learning might have evolved, and second, its
consequences.
The main idea of the evolutionary story is simple to
describe. Assuming that individuals’ biological fitness
depend on which behaviors they learn (e.g., which food
to eat), evolutionary processes would favor adaptations
that guide individuals’ learning toward those behaviors
that confer the highest fitness. A bias for conformist
social learning would be such an adaptation if, over
evolutionary history, the fact that a behavior is com-
mon has been a sufficiently reliable cue of high fitness.
It is difficult to know whether this has been the case in
human evolution. In the absence of data, a couple of
processes have been suggested that could create such
a correlation between commonness and fitness. First,
assuming that children have learnt their behaviors
mainly from their parents, natural selection would
have favored those behaviors that confer high fitness
(Boyd and Richerson 1985). Second, assuming that
individuals tend to evaluate behaviors and generally
prefer those that confer high fitness, then those behav-
iors will become common (Henrich and Boyd 1998).
Observe that both assumptions necessarily limit the
role of conformist social learning, as it cannot be such
conformism that makes a cultural element common in
the first place. For instance, in the first case learning is
assumed to be mainly from biological parents, whereas
conformist social learning applies to situations where
you learn from others, which by the same assumption
are rare. It has also been shown to be difficult to
reconcile these models with the cumulative nature of
human culture (Eriksson et al. 2007).
The second part of the theory deals with the within-
group cultural homogeneity that conformist social
learning would tend to lead to over time, and its pos-
sible implications for cooperation and group selection
(e.g., Henrich 2004).
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Although the theory of conformist social learning was
developed by cultural evolutionists, the notion of a bias
for learning from a member of the majority clearly falls
within the realm of social psychology, where
Theory of Conformist Social Learning T 3315
conformity has been studied since the famous 1950s
experiments of Solomon Asch. Experiments in this
tradition found that a subject is much more likely to
agree with an erroneous judgment if it is expressed by
a unanimous group rather than just a majority. This
and other findings from experiments on the social
influence of groups were incorporated in the social
impact theory of Latané (1981). On the topic of the
size of the group, this theory states that the marginal
social impact is decreasing, meaning that minority
groups have stronger impact relative to their size.
From the point of view of the social learner, this
would in effect mean a bias against learning from
a member of the majority. Thus, evidence from social
psychology does not support a general bias for con-
formist social learning. Without a general bias, the
second part of the theory that deals with the implica-
tions of conformist social learning is applicable only in
contexts in which social learning tends to be conformist
for context-specific reasons. Which these contexts may
be is a completely open empirical question. However,
suggestions include so-called coordination games
where everyone gains from choosing the same behavior
as others, situations where an individual has reasons to
believe that others have better information (e.g., when
the individual is a newcomer), and when a group has
established norms about certain behavior such that
deviations are discouraged (Eriksson et al. 2007;
Eriksson and Coultas 2009). These suggestions relate
to earlier work on social influence by Deutsch and
Gerard (1955) where influence can be either normative
(individuals change their behavior to avoid social
exclusion) or informational (individuals believe that
others are more knowledgeable).
Cross-References T
▶ Biological and Evolutionary Constraints of Learning
▶ Conditions of Learning
▶ Cultural Learning
▶ Cumulative Learning
▶ Evolution of Learning
▶ Imitation: Definitions, Evidence and Mechanisms
▶ Learning and Evolution of Social Norms
▶ Social Learning
References
Allport, F. H. (1934). The j-curve hypothesis of conforming behavior.
The Journal of Social Psychology, 5, 141–183.
3316 T Theory of Games
Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice
Hall.
Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (1985). Culture and the evolutionary
process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Deutsch, M., & Gerard, M. B. (1955). A study of normative and social
influence upon individual judgement. Journal of Abnormal and
Social Psychology, 53, 100–107.
Eriksson, K., & Coultas, J. (2009). Are people really conformist-
biased? An empirical test and a new mathematical model. Journal
of Evolutionary Psychology, 7, 5–21.
Eriksson, K., Enquist, M., & Ghirlanda, S. (2007). Critical points in
current theory of conformist social learning. Journal of Evolu-
tionary Psychology, 5, 67–87.
Henrich, J. (2004). Cultural group selection, coevolutionary pro-
cesses and large-scale cooperation. Journal of Economic Behavior
and Organization, 53, 3–35.
Henrich, J., & Boyd, R. (1998). The evolution of conformist trans-
mission and between-group differences. Evolution and Human
Behavior, 19, 215–242.
Latané, B. (1981). The psychology of social impact. The American
Psychologist, 36, 343–356.
Theory of Games
▶ Learning and Evolutionary Game Theory
Theory of Mind in Animals
JOSEP CALL
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology,
Leipzig, Germany
Synonyms
Mental state attribution; Mindreading
Definition
Premack and Woodruff (1978) defined possessing
a theory of mind as the ability to attribute mental states
to oneself and others. Three main categories of mental
states have been distinguished: perceptual, epistemic,
and volitional. Perceptual mental states include things
like seeing and attending. Epistemic states include
things like thoughts, knowledge, and beliefs. Volitional
states include intentions, goals, and desires.
Theoretical Background
When humans observe another individual witnessing
an event, they encode information about the individ-
ual’s body and face orientation, the presence and nature
of objects, and the spatial relation between the observer
and the objects. Additionally, they also infer that
observers are capable (or incapable) of seeing some-
thing. Whereas it is undisputed that nonhumans pro-
cess information of the first kind, researchers disagree
on whether they also infer mental states and if they do,
what kind of attributions they make (see Call and
Santos in press, for a brief description of the various
theories proposed).
Comparative research has devoted an uneven atten-
tion to each of these families of mental states (see Call
and Santos in press; Call and Tomasello 2008, for
reviews). Most studies have concentrated on perceptual
and volitional states but there has also been some work
devoted to investigate epistemic states, which are con-
sidered as the most opaque since they are more
detached from perceived actions.
Perceptual States
Behavioral and neurophysiological data show that
numerous species are sensitive to someone else looking
at them (see Emery 2000, for reviews). Great apes use
visual gestures preferentially when others can poten-
tially see them and chimpanzees even place themselves
in locations where others can see them before they
gesture. Conversely, when they want to avoid detection,
primates and corvids move behind barriers to take or
cache food, respectively. Additionally, these species also
avoid producing noise when they are trying to steal
a piece of food.
Individuals can also follow the gaze direction of
others to external entities. Numerous studies have
shown that several mammal and bird species follow
the gaze of others to distant locations behind them-
selves and around barriers to locate otherwise hidden
targets. In doing so, great apes take into account the
location and opacity of the barriers involved. If upon
following the gaze to a particular location they find
nothing, apes and monkeys check back at the infor-
mant and back at the location, which suggests that they
are expecting to find something at the target location.
There is some evidence, although this is much more
controversial, that subjects can use the head direction
to locate hidden rewards in object-choice situations.

Most studies have shown no effect or just a weak effect
with the use of gaze direction but some studies have
shown that even glancing is possible after some train-
ing. Pointing provides a stronger cue than head or eye
direction, but it is still not completely reliable in all
conditions. However, increasing cue saliency and con-
trolling for the likelihood of subjects looking at the
informant’s face can affect performance substantially.
Some species have also shown that they can judge
what another individual can or cannot see. Individuals
of various species can distinguish between one piece of
food that is hidden to a competitor and one that is
visible, even though both are visible to them. Subordi-
nate individuals competing for food with dominant
ones preferentially take the piece that is hidden from
the dominant animal.
Epistemic States
If knowledge is understood as remembering what
another individual has witnessed a few minutes before,
and not just what he/she can see at the present time,
then there is evidence that chimpanzees, macaques, and
corvids attribute knowledge to others. Thus, when
a dominant chimpanzee witnessed the placement of
one piece of food in one location but had not seen the
placement of a second piece of food, subordinates
preferentially targeted the piece that the dominant
had not seen. Moreover, chimpanzees associate partic-
ular knowledge to particular individuals. Thus, when
dominant A has seen the food deposited in a location
and the subordinates got to compete with dominant
B (who was ignorant about the food location), they
were more likely to attempt to retrieve the food than if
they were competing against A.
This setup has also been used to present subjects
with a change of location task, one of the tasks of false
belief attribution most widely used in developmental
psychology. Subordinate animals witness a dominant
animal seeing the food being placed in a particular
location. Then while the dominant’s visual access is
blocked, the food is moved to another location while
the subordinate witnesses both the food’s movement
and the dominant’s lack of visual access to it. Subor-
dinate chimpanzees are more likely to attempt to get
the food when the dominant did not witness the
change in the food’s location compared to when the
dominant saw the change. This result is virtually iden-
tical to the one reported above that did not involve
Theory of Mind in Animals T 3317
a location change, simply a state of ignorance. This
may not attribute false beliefs to their competitors
because, otherwise, they should have performed better
in the change of location task than in the ignorance
task. Other studies have also failed to produce conclu-
sive evidence of false belief attribution in both com-
petitive and cooperative situations, thus suggesting
that false beliefs may be beyond the grasp of
nonhuman animals.
Much of the research on theory of mind in
nonhuman animals have been devoted to investigate
whether individuals attribute mental states to others.
In contrast, very little is known about whether they also
attribute mental states to themselves. Do they know, for
instance, that their current perceptual states may not
reflect reality accurately? This question has been inves-
tigated extensively in children by confronting them
with appearance-reality tests in which an object
appears to be something when in reality it is not.
Recently, researchers have investigated chimpanzees’
reactions to magnifying glasses and the effect that
they have on food of different sizes. Chimpanzees
refrained from selecting a grape placed behind
a magnifying glass, which made it appear larger than
another grape placed behind a minimizing glass. They
were able to select the larger grape because they had
seen the grapes’ real sizes before they were deposited
behind the glasses. Control tests ruled out that subjects
had simply tracked the large grape’s position without
paying attention to its current visual appearance and
also showed that subjects had not simply learned to
pick the apparently smaller grape to net the larger one.
Another area of metacognition that has evidenced
some progress in recent years is that of metamemory
(see Smith 2009). Are individuals capable of monitor-
ing their own memories and take action when they find T
them to have deteriorated? To what extent do individ-
uals know that they do not know? Creating uncertainty
and allowing subjects to either escape the situation or
seek additional information have been the two main
approaches to this question. Several studies have shown
that apes and macaques are more likely to skip trials
after increasing the delay between presentation of the
stimuli and response. Other studies have shown that
apes and monkeys are more likely to search for addi-
tional information after long delays and when rewards
of a higher quality are at stake, but they search less
when they are offered an alternative source of
3318 T Theory of Mind in Animals
information about the location of the reward. It has
been hypothesized that escaping trials and seeking
additional information are a reflection that individuals
are capable (at least to some extent) of monitoring the
state of their own mental states.
Volitional States
Several studies have shown that chimpanzees can react
appropriately to an individual’s incomplete actions.
Thus, they can use the human’s reaching behavior to
assess the object that someone wants to get and even to
infer the location of a hidden piece of food. Upon
observing actions that did not produce their intended
outcome (i.e., unfulfilled attempts) chimpanzees can
produce the intended outcome. That is, they do not
slavishly copy what they see an experimenter doing but
they see beyond the body movements to infer the goal
that is being pursued. Chimpanzees can also distin-
guish between a human experimenter who is unwilling
from one who is unable to give them food even though
they do not receive food from any of them. Chimpan-
zees and orangutans can also distinguish intentional
from accidental actions to locate hidden food. In par-
ticular, apes are more likely to use a marker that indi-
cates food that the experimenter has placed there
intentionally from a marker that the experimenter has
dropped in the same location but accidentally. Other
studies have shown that they are more likely to copy
actions that are done intentionally than those that are
accidental.
One could argue that all that those studies show is
that individuals can distinguish intentional action
from incomplete or accidental actions based purely
on the action kinematics and/or the direction of gaze
when executing the actions, not their underlying
motives. However, there are other studies in which
those differential cues are absent and subjects still
respond appropriately. Both chimpanzees and orangu-
tans copy the actions of an experimenter selectively
based on the situational constraints. In particular, in
the so-called rational imitation studies, subjects who
witness a human perform an action in an unusual way
copy it if the usual way to do the action would also be
possible but they do not copy it if the usual way is
blocked in some way. This suggests that apes can dis-
criminate between a human choosing to use some
action as opposed to being forced (by the situational
constraints) to use that action. The imitation paradigm
used to investigate goal attribution is particularly
revealing because individuals actually produce with
their own actions what they perceive to be the demon-
strator’s goal – what the other is attempting to do
regardless of what they actually did.
Chimpanzees also react differently to identical out-
comes depending on how those outcomes are reached,
more specifically depending on who is responsible for
the outcome. In particular, chimpanzees are more
likely to punish those chimpanzees responsible for
stealing and eating their food compared to those who
simply ate their food but were not involved in stealing
it. This means that identical outcomes, just like identi-
cal actions, can lead to chimpanzees producing differ-
ent responses depending on the context in which they
occur and suggests that “responsibility” attribution
may play an important role in regulating chimpanzees’
social interactions.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Many animals are sensitive to the gaze directed at
themselves and can exploit the gaze directed at external
entities. Additionally, some primates and corvids
deploy their competitive tactics and communicative
strategies in a way that suggests that they are sensitive
to what others can or cannot currently see and even
what others have seen a few minutes before. In contrast,
there is no evidence supporting the idea that
nonhuman animals are sensitive to the false beliefs of
others and instead they appear to operate on the basis
of a knowledge–ignorance psychology. Chimpanzees
distinguish between appearance and reality, and
macaques and apes can monitor to some extent their
own memories. Chimpanzees can use incomplete
actions to gauge motives and to learn about the loca-
tion of hidden rewards and procedures to obtain those
rewards. Additionally, they can distinguish intentional
from accidental actions and in doing so they can learn
from others how to manipulate objects or locate hid-
den food. Finally, they distinguish identical actions and
identical outcomes by their context, suggesting that
chimpanzees, like humans, understand the actions of
others not just in terms of surface behaviors but also in
terms of the underlying goals.
Despite the unprecedented progress that has
occurred in the last decade, there are two aspects that
require further research. First, future research should
 Thinking Aloud T 3319

explore the nature of social representations in

nonhuman animals with regard to their level of Theory of Signal Detectability
abstraction and their accessibility to other cognitive ▶ Signal Detection Models
systems. Some authors had argued that nonhuman
mindreading abilities are restricted to competitive sit-
uations. This view, however, is too narrow because
chimpanzees, at least, can also engage those abilities
in communicative situations that require the collabo-
ration of their partner. Despite the current interest in Theory of Signal Detection
the cognitive mechanisms underlying cooperative
▶ Signal Detection Models
interactions in which two (or more) individuals pursue
a common goal, there is no research devoted to inves-
tigate theory of mind in this setting. Second, much of
the work on theory of mind has concentrated on indi-
viduals attributing mental states to others whereas
attributing mental states to oneself has remained Therapeutic Metaphors
largely understudied. Obtaining more information
▶ Stories in Psychotherapy
about self-attributions is important for several reasons.
It could answer questions about the extent of mental
awareness in nonhuman animals. Additionally, it may
help to establish a connection between self and other
mental state attribution – a connection that is crucial
for some simulation accounts of mental state Therapeutic Stories
attribution. ▶ Stories in Psychotherapy

Cross-References
▶ Animal Intelligence
▶ Causal Learning in Animals
▶ Deception and Intelligence in Animals Think-Aloud Protocols
▶ Joint Attention in Humans and Animals
▶ Metacognition and Learning ▶ Self-explanation, Feedback and the Development of
▶ Social Cognition in Animals Analogical Reasoning Skills
▶ Social Learning in Animals
▶ Tool Use and Problem Solving in Animals

References T
Call, J., & Santos, L. (in press). Understanding other minds. In J.
Thinking
Mitani, J. Call, P. Kappeler, R. Palombit, & J. Silk (Eds.), The
▶ Communication and Learning in the Context of
evolution of primate societies. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press. Instructional Design
Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2008). Does the chimpanzee have a theory ▶ Tool Use and Problem Solving in Animals
of mind? 30 years later. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12, 187–192.
Emery, N. J. (2000). The eyes have it: The neuroethology, function
and evolution of social gaze. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral
Reviews, 24, 581–604.
Premack, D., & Woodruff, G. (1978). Does the chimpanzee have
a theory of mind? The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1, 515–526. Thinking Aloud
Smith, J. D. (2009). The study of animal metacognition. Trends in
Cognitive Sciences, 13, 389–396. ▶ Historical Thinking
3320 T Thorndike, Edward L. (1874–1949)
Thorndike, Edward L.
(1874–1949)
SARA J. JONES, DANIEL H. ROBINSON
Department of Educational Psychology, The University
of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA
Life Dates
Edward Lee Thorndike was born in Williamsburg,
Massachusetts, on August 31, 1874, to Edward Robert
Thorndike and Abbie Ladd Thorndike. His father had
begun his career as a lawyer, but was a practicing
Methodist minister by the time Thorndike was born.
During his childhood, the Thorndike family moved
several times to serve various congregations in the
New England area. Thorndike was the second of four
children who all went on to successful careers in edu-
cation. His older brother, Ashley Horace, and his
younger brother, Lynn, both became faculty members
at Columbia University. Ashley taught English and
Lynn history. Mildred, his sister, was a high school
teacher.
Thorndike studied English at Wesleyan and entered
Harvard with English and French as his focus. His
interest in psychology was piqued after reading selec-
tions from William Jame’s Principles of Psychology. At
Harvard, Thorndike was able to attend lectures with
James and switched his degree to psychology in his
second semester. He felt that experimental scientific
methods could be used to gain more insight into ani-
mal learning than the traditional methods of observa-
tion and began working with chickens to prove his
point. In 1897, he moved to Columbia University
to finish his Ph.D. with James M. Cattell. At Columbia,
he was able to expand his studies to include cats and
dogs. He completed his dissertation, Animal Intelli-
gence in 1898.
At age 26, in 1990, Thorndike married Elizabeth
Moulton. They had four children. The three oldest
became professors: Elizabeth Frances in mathematics at
Vassar, Edward Moulton, in physics at Queens College,
and Robert Ladd in educational psychology at Teachers’
College, Columbia University. Their youngest child,
Alan worked for the federal government as a research
physicist.
Thorndike died in early August of 1949 in Mon-
trose, New York.
Education
1895 Wesleyan University (B.S. in English)
1897 Harvard University (B.S., M.A. in psychology)
advisor ▶ William James
1898 Columbia University (Ph.D. in psychology)
advisor James M. Cattell
Career
1898 Western Reserve University – Assistant
Professor of Pedagogy
1899– Columbia University – Faculty at Teachers
1940 College
1942– Harvard University – William James Lecturer
1943
Associations
1912 President of American Psychological
Association
Second President of Psychometric Society
1934 President of American Association for the
Advancement of Science
Contribution(s) to the Field of
Learning
Edward L. Thorndike, with little formal training in
psychology or mathematics, pushed educational stud-
ies toward empirical research on measurable outcomes
and founded the field of Educational Psychology. Dur-
ing his career, he published over 500 books and articles
covering topics from ▶ animal learning to intelligence
testing. These included multiple textbooks in psychol-
ogy, educational psychology, and measurement. In
addition to textbooks, Thorndike published the first
student dictionary and various course materials for
language arts and mathematics education based on
his theories about learning. As he was such a prolific
author, this biography will only touch on a select few of
his most influential contributions.
Animal Learning and the Law of Effect
Thorndike began his career in psychology with animal
learning studies. His dissertation, Animal Intelligence
(1898), was later expanded to a book (1911) that chal-
lenged the beliefs and study of learning in animals.
With his experiments on chickens, cats, and dogs,

Thorndike countered traditional observation and spec-
ulation of naturalistic behaviors with quantitative exper-
iments of animal behavior. In his most famous animal
experiment, he put cats into puzzle boxes and recorded
the amount of time it took them to escape. By charting
the cats’ behaviors and the time length for repeated trials,
Thorndike found that over time, the cats were able to
escape the box more quickly and performed fewer extra-
neous behaviors. This, along with his other animal stud-
ies, led him to the ▶ Law of Effect:
" Of several responses made to the same situation, those
which are accompanied by or followed by satisfaction
to the animal will, other things being equal, be more
firmly connected with the situation, so that when it
recurs, they will be more likely to recur; those which
are accompanied or closely followed by discomfort to
the animal will, other things being equal, have their
connections with that situation weakened, so that,
when it recurs, that will be less likely to recur. The
greater that satisfaction or discomfort, the greater the
strengthening or weakening of the bond. (Thorndike
1911, pp. 244–245)
Thorndike later revised the Law of Effect with
reward as the most important shaper of behavior. In
the revised law, behaviors which are accompanied or
followed by positive rewards are said to be strength-
ened, but negative consequences after a behavior do
little to weaken the bond. Instead those actions are
discontinued simply because other strengthened
behaviors replace them. Thorndike’s theory of learning,
both in animals and in humans, based on the Law of
Effect, was called Connectionism. In Connectionism,
learning occurred by creating multiple positive stimu-
lus–response (S-R) connections to a behavior.
Newer paradigms on learning have expanded and
amended Thorndike’s beliefs about learning, but his
theories set the stage for a quantitative approach to
studying learning.
Transfer of Learning
Immediately after completing his Ph.D., Thorndike
turned his attention to practical issues and beliefs
about human learning. Classical education was widely
practiced at the time based on the belief that learning
subjects such as Latin would discipline the mind and
make learning future subjects easier. Through empiri-
cal studies, Thorndike was able to demonstrate that
Thorndike, Edward L. (1874–1949) T 3321
prior learning only aided in future learning when the
learning tasks overlapped. The more significant
the overlap in the subjects, the more influence that
the first learning experience had over the ease of the
second task. This idea of transfer of knowledge chal-
lenged the notion of classical education. His findings
were later critiqued for being too narrow in their
definition of transfer. Counter to Thorndike’s narrow
definition, recent research has shown that transfer of
knowledge to new contexts can and does occur.
Intelligence and Testing
Thorndike believed that all constructs could be measured,
and intelligence was no exception. However, his views on
intelligence differed from Spearman’s one general intelli-
gence factor. Based on Connectionism, Thorndike
believed that people differed in their readiness and ability
to make the S-R connections. This readiness, however,
was not based on a general intelligence, but on one’s prior
S-R connections or prior knowledge. To Thorndike, intel-
ligence was an ability to learn, which differed not only
from individual to individual, but also based on the
information that the person was trying to learn.
With this understanding of learning and intelli-
gence, Thorndike constructed numerous instruments
to test ability and achievement in reading, handwriting,
composition, and mathematics. He also created the
Thorndike Intelligence Examination for High School
Graduates and the IER Intelligence Scale CAVD, mea-
suring sentence completion, arithmetic reasoning,
vocabulary, and the ability to follow directions, which
were used as college entrance exams. These exams were
unique because they included content items to test the
potential students’ knowledge as well as content-free
items to test their intellectual ability. During World
War I, the US government tasked a group of scientists, T
including Thorndike, to create tests for the selection
and classification of incoming army personnel.
The Alpha and Army Beta tests were part of the psy-
chological tests authored by this group.
Thorndike felt that it was a responsibility of formal
education to test student knowledge and learning of con-
tent. His dedication to creating instruments to measure
student learning is still a tenet of educational psychology.
Lasting Principles
Thorndike’s emphasis on scientific rigor and devotion
to applying research findings to practical situations
3322 T Thought Experiments

formed the basis of educational psychology. With his

studies, Thorndike continually contradicted accepted Thought-Experiment
beliefs about learning and educational practices with ▶ Intuition Pumps and Augmentation of Learning
strong empirical support for his conclusions. His goal
was to show that through scientific methods, social
phenomena could be quantified, measured, and under-
stood. He believed that through this process, real-life
issues could be solved. He repeatedly proved his point
by researching controversial issues in education and Thriving
applying research-based principles to educational
▶ Posttraumatic Growth
resources, textbooks, and assessments. His work
showed that quantitative analysis of learning was not
only possible, but essential to improving education.

Cross-References
▶ Abstract Concept Learning in Animals
Through Apprenticeship
▶ Adult Learning Theory ▶ Imitation Learning in Robots
▶ Adult Learning/Andragogy
▶ Analogical Reasoning in Animals
▶ Animal Intelligence
▶ James, William (1842–1910)
▶ Law of Effect
▶ Learning from Animals
Time on Task
▶ Theory of Mind in Animals ▶ Engagement in Learning

References
Bruce, D. (2000). Introduction to the transaction edition. In E. L.
Thorndike (Ed.), Animal intelligence (pp. vii–xvii). New
Branswick: Transaction Publishers.
Goodenough, F. L. (1950). Edward Lee Thorndike: 1874–1949. The Time-Dependent Processes
American Journal of Psychology, 63(2), 291–301.
Mayer, R. E. (2003). E. L. Thorndike’s enduring contributions to ▶ Memory Consolidation and Reconsolidation
educational psychology. In B. J. Zimmerman & D. H. Schunk
(Eds.), Educational psychology: A century of contributions
(pp. 113–154). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Thorndike, E. L. (1898). Animal intelligence: An experimental study
of the associative process in animals. Psychological Monographs, 2
(Whole No. 8). Timescale Invariance
Thorndike, E. L. (1911). Animal intelligence: Experimental studies.
New York: Macmillan. In classical conditioning, the finding that increasing the
Woodworth, R. S. (1952). Edward Lee Thorndike, 1874–1949. In amount of time in the intertrial interval does not facil-
National Academy of Sciences. Washington, DC: National Acad- itate the rate of learning if a proportional amount of
emy of Sciences.
time is added to the duration of the CS.

Thought Experiments
Timing
▶ Simulation and Learning: The Role of Mental
Models ▶ Temporal Learning in Humans and Other Animals

Tinbergen, Nikolaas (1907–
1988)
DONALD A. DEWSBURY
Department of Psychology, University of Florida,
Gainesville, FL, USA
Life Dates
Niko Tinbergen was born on April 15, 1907, in the
Hague, Netherlands, the third child of Dirk and
Jeannette (Van Eek) Tinbergen. He studied biology at
Leiden University, receiving his Ph.D. in 1932. Later he
joined the faculty at Leiden, where he remained until
1949 except for a period when he was imprisoned by
the Nazis occupying the Netherlands. In 1949 he moved
to Oxford University partially in an effort to spread his
ethological approach to the English-speaking world.
He retired in 1977 and died at his Oxford home on
December 21, 1988. Tinbergen shared the 1973 Nobel
Prize for Medicine and Physiology with Konrad Lorenz
and Karl von Frisch; his brother Jan had shared the first
Nobel Prize in Economics 4 years earlier (Kruuk 2003;
Tinbergen 1985).
Theoretical Background
Tinbergen viewed himself as a “curious naturalist” and
dealt with theory only as a supplement to his research on
the behavior of animals in the natural environment. It was
always grounded in an evolutionary and ecological con-
text. His real genius was in conducting simple, but signif-
icant, experiments in nature that were groundbreaking
for his time (Tinbergen 1972).That noted, he also was
important in systematizing the work in the field of
ethology, the study of animal behavior in a biological
context.
Tinbergen emphasized the importance of begin-
ning the study of behavior with careful description of
the behavioral patterns under natural conditions. He is
noted and widely cited for his next step. Paraphrased,
he believed that a complete explanation of behavior
required answers to four sets of questions: immediate
causation, development, evolutionary history, and
adaptive significance. Questions of immediate causa-
tion concern events within and outside of the animal at
about the time of the behavior. Developmental ques-
tions concern longer-term influences on the ontogeny
Tinbergen, Nikolaas (1907–1988) T 3323
of behavior. These two sets of questions are often
grouped together as questions of proximate causation,
as contrasted with so-called ultimate questions. The
latter includes the evolutionary history of the behav-
ioral pattern and the adaptive significance, or biologi-
cal function, of the behavior. One of the lasting
influences of Tinbergen was in showing that adaptive
significance could be studied empirically in nature.
Along with Konrad Lorenz, Tinbergen developed
some fundamental concepts of ethology (Burkhardt
2005). At its core was the Fixed Action Pattern (FAP),
a relatively complex, but stereotyped, behavioral pat-
tern believed to be largely innate. These FAPs were
triggered by the appearance of highly specific stimuli
in the environment – sign stimuli or releasers. A whole
schema was developed to try to explain the immediate
causation of these FAPs and changes in the ease of their
elicitation. The Innate Releasing Mechanism (IRM) was
a hypothetical location within the animal at which the
releaser acted to trigger the FAP. Tinbergen (1951)
developed this into a hierarchical conceptual model of
the nervous system with seven levels ranging from major
instincts at the top down to motor units at the base.
Ethologists believed that the FAPs were innate as the
result of natural selection acting on differential repro-
ductive success of ancestral species and individuals and
served some function in facilitating that success. Their
ontogeny was believed to be relatively independent of
the environment – largely genetic.
Although all of these concepts have been modified
in various ways, they provided the foundation for
much work in animal behavior studies. As Tinbergen
interacted with English-speaking psychologists and
biologists he took the lead in modifying these concepts,
and in influencing the psychologists, and he came to
understand the complex ontogenetic pathways along
T
which these behavioral patterns develop.
Late in his career, Tinbergen turned to the study of
human behavior and such topics as war and peace and
autism. When others were generalizing the results of
animal research to humans, sometimes rather loosely,
Tinbergen tried to apply ethology’s methods to the
conduct of research with humans that was comparable
to that in nonhuman animals.
Contributions to the Field of Learning
Although focusing on behavior that they regarded as
essentially innate, the ethologists in general, and
3324 T Tinbergen, Nikolaas (1907–1988)
Tinbergen in particular, had important influences on the
study of learning as well. They placed it in an ecological
context, perhaps beginning with the studies of imprint-
ing by Oskar Heinroth and Lorenz following up on even
earlier work. But it was Tinbergen who laid the founda-
tion for what we now regard as the ecological study of
learning. It was his insistence on studying learning in the
natural context that led to many of his insights.
Tinbergen noted that “many animals inherit predis-
positions to learn special things, and these dispositions
to learn therefore belong to the innate equipment”
(Tinbergen 1951, p. 128). He called this “localized
learning” or “localized ‘dispositions’ to learn” (p. 145)
and believed that the different predispositions in
different species have adaptive significance. Recent
authors have termed these phenomena preparedness,
and contra-preparedness. Some examples will help to
cement the concept.
Digger wasps of the genus Philanthus paralyze,
rather than kill, their prey immediately; they simply
paralyze it so that their larvae get a chance to devour it.
The wasp leaves the nest, kills a bee, and then returns to
the nest with the prey to feed the larvae. During the
1930s Tinbergen and W. Kruyt (see Tinbergen 1972)
showed that as she leaves the nest the wasp flies about
in a brief “locality study” (about 6 s) during which she
appears to attend to the landmarks around the nest. In
a series of studies they manipulated the landmarks
(mainly pine cones surrounding the nest) and could
direct or misdirect the bee when she later returned.
Remarkably, the wasps demonstrated one-trial
Pavlovian learning after exposures of only about 6 s
or less. The wasps were predisposed to attend to these
landmarks visually and to use them to find the nest on
their return. In a series of studies they showed, for
example, that the relevant stimuli were, indeed, visual.
Some stimuli were learned more easily than others.
Relevant factors included three-dimensionality, pat-
tern, size, proximity to the burrow, contrast with the
background. Large, three dimensional objects are more
likely to persist around the nest than are such items as
leaves or pine needles. Thus, the wasps appear adapted
to learn to navigate using stimuli likely to be reliable
guides to the nest. Although increased familiarity
improved retention, orientation was successful after
just these brief exposures. By contrast, hunting behav-
ior and food seeking patterns showed little evidence of
conditioning.
Herring gulls feed the young in their nests. For the
first few days after hatching the young from different
nests can be interchanged and they will be accepted and
fed by the parents. After a period of about 5 days,
however, they will be rejected. During this period the
parents have become conditioned to the particular
individuals in their nests; humans have difficulty mak-
ing these discriminations. Thus, once they have been
with them for a few days, the gulls will feed only their
own chicks. By contrast, the gulls seem utterly inept at
learning to recognize their own eggs. This shows the
contrast between preparedness and contra-prepared-
ness. Like many other birds, gulls also learn to recog-
nize their mate quite quickly; a feat for which humans
generally need to place colored bands on the gull’s legs.
Years later, students of learning have found many
examples of such preparedness and contra-
preparedness.
It was the emphasis on studying learning in relation
to the natural habitat and its adaptive significance
therein and the unraveling of predispositions to learn
that made the work of this “curious naturalist” so
important for the study of animal learning.
Cross-References
▶ Adaptability and Learning
▶ Adaptive Game-Based Learning
▶ Adaptive Memory and Learning
▶ Affordance and Second Language Learning
▶ Animal Perceptual Learning
▶ Behavior Systems and Learning
▶ Biological or Evolutionary Constraints on Learning
▶ Comparative Psychology and Ethology
▶ Ecology of Learning
▶ Evolution of Learning
▶ Exemplar Learning and Schematisation in Language
Development
▶ Field Research on Learning
▶ Learning Spatial Orientation
▶ Lorenz, Konrad (1903–1989)
▶ Selective Learning
References
Burkhardt, R. W., Jr. (2005). Patterns of behavior: Konrad Lorenz, Niko
Tinbergen, and the founding of ethology. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Kruuk, H. (2003). Niko’s nature: A life of Niko Tinbergen and his
science of animal behaviour. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Tinbergen, N. (1951). The study of instinct. Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press.
Tinbergen, N. (1972). The animal in its world (Vol. 2). London:
George Allen & Unwin.
Tinbergen, N. (1985). Watching and wondering. In D. A. Dewsbury
(Ed.), Leaders in the study of animal behavior: Autobiographical
perspectives. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press.
Tolman, Edward C. (1886–1959)
NORBERT M. SEEL
Faculty of Economics and Behavioral Sciences,
Department of Education, University of Freiburg,
Freiburg, Germany
Life Dates
Tolman was born on 14 April 1886 in Newton, Massachu-
setts. After graduation from high school in 1907 and
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
1911, he studied psychology at Harvard until 1915.
At this time, he became familiar with two emerging
approaches of experimental psychology: Gestalt psy-
chology and behaviorism. These two approaches
would inform his entire work as psychologist. In
1915, Tolman received his Ph.D. He spent 3 years at
Northwestern University before accepting a position at
the University of California at Berkeley in 1918, where
he spent the rest of his life.
Tolman’s research focused particularly on animal
learning, but in 1942 he published the book Drives
Toward War, in which he tried to explain the motives
that drive men to go to war as well as the associated
social constraints and made suggestions on the social
controls necessary to constitute a society without war.
Tolman was a man with principles, which also became
evident in the leadership role he assumed in the Berkeley
faculty’s resistance to the imposition of an oath of loy-
alty to the United States as requested by the regents of
the University of California in 1949. The non-signers –
led by Tolman – considered the request an attack upon
academic freedom. It took 10 years for the courts to
declare the special oath of loyalty unconstitutional, and
the non-signers were reinstated completely. Tolman
died in Berkeley on 19 November 1959.
Tolman, Edward C. (1886–1959) T 3325
Contributions to the Field of Learning
In his early experiments and papers, Tolman focused on
rats’ behavior in mazes, observing the animal’s solution
to problems in space. In contrast to the behaviorist view,
Tolman believed that the animal’s behavior reflects
a purpose (i.e., moving toward the goal in order to get
something) and knowledge about the spatial layout.
Tolman’s basic assumption was that the subject
acquired a cognitive map that allowed it to use orga-
nized information in order to reach the goal. Another
line of this early research was concerned with the prob-
lem of whether the subjects could use knowledge of the
maze to make inferences about what to do in new
situations. The results of numerous experiments
showed that the animal was able to use its knowledge
about the space to make appropriate inferences in new
situations. Finally, Tolman’s research with animals also
aimed at investigating control processes, such as selec-
tive testing of possible solutions. This was named
“vicarious trial and error.”
Tolman also worked on the phenomenon of latent
learning, defined as learning which is not apparent in
the learner’s behavior at the time of learning, but which
manifests later when a suitable motivation and circum-
stances appear. Tolman’s latent learning experiments
with rats showed that they learned the layout of com-
plex mazes even though they showed little or no evi-
dence of such learning. However, after some trials in
which the rats were first rewarded in the goal box, they
showed almost error-free behavior on the next trial.
From the latent learning experiments Tolman con-
cluded that learning is different from performance
and occurs even when there is no clear evidence for it.
Furthermore, the experiments showed that subjects
acquire organized knowledge of the maze before learn-
ing about rewards. The final conclusion, especially, was T
inconsistent with the dominant behavioristic view that
rewards determine which behaviors are learned.
At a time when learning theorists were still trying to
establish the theory of learning, Tolman (1949)
published an article entitled There Is More than One
Kind of Learning. His major argument was that “the
theory and laws appropriate to one kind may well be
different from those appropriate to other kinds”
(p. 144). Based on this assumption, Tolman distinguished
the following types of learning that are still under
investigation: (1) approach learning, (2) escape learning,
(3) avoidance learning, (4) choice-point learning, and
3326 T Tolman, Edward C. (1886–1959)
(5) latent learning. These various types of learning
depend on goal-oriented behavior that is mediated by
expectations, perceptions, representations as well as
environmental variables. And for all forms of learning
Tolman presupposed the same principles, namely,
(1) learning is always purposive and goal-directed;
(2) learning involves the use of environmental factors to
achieve a goal; and (3) organisms always select the
shortest or easiest path to achieve a goal (Tolman 1932).
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Although Tolman is often considered as a forerunner of
modern cognitive psychology, he started as
a behaviorist with a focus on animal learning. He
termed his research approach “purposive behavior-
ism,” according to which the organism produces behav-
ior for some adaptive purpose. Later he adapted several
Gestalt principles from Kurt Koffka and opposed
Watson’s behaviorism due to its mechanistic and
reductionistic perspective. In Tolman’s view, learners
do more than merely respond to external stimuli but
rather act intentionally in accordance with beliefs, atti-
tudes, and changing environmental conditions.
Tolman is perhaps the only behaviorist who did not
accept the stimulus–response theory, arguing instead
that behavior is cognitive coping with patterns of stim-
uli. He considered human behavior as cognitive, holis-
tic, and purposive, but did not regard reinforcement as
necessary for learning to occur. Therefore, Tolman
wanted to disprove Thorndike’s law of effect and
replaced it with his own three laws:
1. The law of motivation, according to which learning
always aims at gaining final success or avoiding final
failure. Motivation provides the purpose for any
learning activity. Interestingly, Tolman’s theory of
motivation was influenced greatly by Sigmund
Freud.
2. The law of emphasis. Learning consists of building
up gestalts (patterns) and then emphasizing and
selecting particular responses. These responses
tend to strive toward final success. Accordingly,
the organism emphasizes and prefers certain behav-
iors over others because they lead to success or
pleasure in learning.
3. The law of disruption, according to which punish-
ment – either physical or emotional – as
a consequence of correct or incorrect responses
will tend to disrupt learning.
In his Sign Gestalt Theory, Tolman emphasized the
notion that there are three components of learning that
operate together as a gestalt. First, there is the “signif-
icant” (or goal) of behavior. The second component is
called the “sign” (or signal) for any action, and the third
component captures the “means-end relations” consid-
ered as internal processes. Learning is discussed in
terms of the accumulation of these sign gestalts,
which constitute cognitive maps. Of course, input
information also affects behavior because it causes cer-
tain gestalts to be activated (or not) in relation to the
individual’s purposes or goals. Tolman adopted from
Gestalt psychology the idea that learning is primarily
a function of the central nervous system, as opposed to
the behaviorist conception of trial-and-error learning.
In consequence, in Tolman’s theory the concept of
cognitive maps plays an important role. A cognitive
map is a perceptual mental representation of features
and landmarks of the external environment. As indi-
viduals process a multitude of cues from their environ-
ments they create expectancies about the permanence
of these cues and possible changes in characteristics. By
using a cognitive map as a mental representation of
a given physical space, individuals can reach to the goal
by locating it in a complex of environmental features.
Short cuts and variable routes are possible within a
cognitive map. However, training may lead to a
tendency to move to a certain place, meaning that the
individual will learn where to go (but not how to go).
Another important aspect of Tolman’s theory is the
introduction of intervening variables into psychology of
learning. The theory includes three general categories
of variables: (1) independent variables (e.g., environ-
mental and individual variation), (2) dependent vari-
ables (i.e., behaviors being observed or measured), and
(3) intervening variables as hypothetical constructs.
Intervening variables capture internal cognitive pro-
cesses which are not observable but can be defined
and measured by means of testing. As the name says,
intervening variables have functional (causal) relation-
ships with both independent and dependent variables.
Cross-References
▶ Gestalt Psychology of Learning
▶ History of the Sciences of Learning

References
Crutchfield, R. S., Krech, D., & Tryon, R. C. (1960). Edward Chace
Tolman: A life of scientific and social purpose. Science, 131, 714–
716.
Tolman, E. C. (1920). Instinct and purpose. Psychological Review, 27,
217–233.
Tolman, E. C. (1932). Purposive behavior in animals and men.
New York: Century.
Tolman, E. C. (1942). Drives towards war. New York: Appleton.
Tolman, E. C. (1949). There is more than one kind of learning.
Psychological Review, 27, 217–233.
Tool Behavior
▶ Tool Use and Problem Solving in Animals
Tool Mediation
▶ Learning Through Artifacts in Engineering
Education
Tool Use and Learning in
Robots
SOLLY BROWN, CLAUDE SAMMUT
School of Computer Science and Engineering,
The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Definition
Beck (1980) defines tool use in animals as
" . . . the external employment of an unattached environ-
mental object to alter more efficiently the form, posi-
tion, or condition of another object, another organism,
or the user itself when the user holds or carries the tool
during or just prior to use and is responsible for the
proper and effective orientation of the tool.
For a robot, we are interested in what a tool can help
an agent achieve. Thus, we can define a tool as follows:
" An object is considered a tool if it is deliberately employed
by an agent to help it achieve a goal that would other-
wise be more difficult or impossible to accomplish.
Tool Use and Learning in Robots T 3327
In most cases, this coincides with Beck’s definition
but it emphasizes the fact that an object is a tool first
and foremost because it helps an agent achieve a goal.
A robot may learn to use a tool by observing another
agent using it. The robot may also learn to use the tool
through trial-and-error experimentation or by
a combination of observation and experimentation.
Theoretical Background
Given the ubiquity of tools in our man-made environ-
ment, we would like to have robots that can take
advantage of them. It would be useful, for example,
for a household robot to be able to learn to use new
tools. While one might expect that a household robot
would be pre-programmed from the factory with many
useful behaviors, there may remain many objects or
situations that the programmers could not anticipate –
for example, using a pot plant to prop open a door or
using a spoon to pry the lid off a jar.
The actions to do this must be learned.
A robot might observe someone using a spoon to
open the jar and notice that they have achieved a goal
that was not previously considered achievable. The
robot might then learn this useful action by attempting
to open a jar itself. This involves selecting a suitable
object to use as the tool and then trying repeatedly to
use it in the correct manner to remove the lid. If the
robot selects the wrong type of spoon (e.g., plastic, too
small, or too thick) for the given jar, it must experiment
to try to identify one that works.
There are four aspects to learning to use a tool:
1. Determining the effect the tool action achieves
2. Identifying the properties of an object that make it
a good tool
3. Finding the correct position in which the tool
should be placed T
4. Working out how the tool should be manipulated
after being positioned
The robot’s progress on learning to use a tool can be
measured by how successfully it can perform new ver-
sions of the same task. As the robot learns to better
identify tools that can be used successfully, by isolating
the important properties, it will require fewer attempts
to perform a given instance of the particular task.
Similarly, the robot’s success rate will increase when it
learns to generalize the correct positioning of the tool
across different situations.
3328 T Tool Use and Learning in Robots
Approaches to Learning Tools Use
A useful way of categorizing robot tool use learning
approaches is by the type of model used to represent
the tool. In general, we can identify three different types
of model used in current research:
● Geometric models involve an explicit (though per-
haps approximate) representation of physical
geometry of the tool.
● Functional approaches describe tools by the types
of action outcomes they can be used to achieve. For
example, a book and a cup can both serve as
a paperweight tool even though they have quite
unrelated geometric descriptions.
● Relational models explicitly describe the structure
and relationships between tool parts and/or the
tool, target object, and environment. A single rela-
tional model is able to describe a wide range of
instances of a tool (e.g., hammers) by explicitly
encoding the important relationships which make the
object a tool (e.g., in the case of a hammer: a flat, heavy
hitting surface attached to a handle at right angles).
Tool-learning approaches that use each of these tool
representations are described below.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Geometric Approaches
Bogoni (1995) describes the first example of a robot
learning with tools. In this work, the robot experiments
with a series of differently shaped tools to learn their
suitability for piercing and chopping tasks. The exper-
iments involved simple manipulations in which the
tool was lowered into contact with objects made from
different materials (styrofoam, sponge, pine, and balsa
wood). Observations from force sensors allowed the
construction of a time-varying force profile of the
interaction, while vision and position sensors were
used to determine the success or otherwise of the chop-
ping/piercing operation.
The visual data were also used to fit a simple geo-
metric model (with two parameters) to the edge/tip of
the tool and to thereby characterize the shape of the
object. This information was then integrated into
a multidimensional force-shape map for each tool-
object combination where different points in the
space represented variations on the object shape with
their corresponding force and depth of penetration
produced. By interpolating between the points sampled
by experiment, a surface relating the shape, force, and
depth of penetration of the material was constructed.
The best shapes for the tool were selected by analyzing
repeated experiments and selecting shape parameters
which led to the largest success rate for the task.
Another pioneering effort in building a tool-using
robot agent is described by Wood (2005). In this work,
a Sony Aibo uses a stick-tool to dislodge a ball that is
located on a platform out of direct reach. The agent
uses a simple geometric model consisting of four artic-
ulated line segments to represent its body, neck, head,
and (optionally) a stick-tool. An interesting feature of
this approach is that an MMC (Mean of Multiple
Computations) network (Cruse 2003) is used to
encode the geometric relationships between the seg-
ments and to calculate the angles necessary to achieve
a goal. This type of network, which is commonly used
for the control of multi-segmented manipulators, is
able to adapt to changes in the tool length segment
without requiring recalculation of the network.
Thus, the same network can be used for calculating
robot configurations whether the tool is present (i.e.,
tool segment length of zero) or not. In this way, the tool
is treated as a natural extension of the agent’s body.
Kemp and Edsinger (2006) study learning tool
manipulation from a human demonstration, focusing
on detection and control of the tip of an unknown tool.
The tip of the tool is automatically extracted from
image data by using a multi-scale spatio-temporal
interest point operator that selects fast-moving convex
shapes in the image. A demonstration of the desired
tool-using behavior is then provided by a human, and
the robot attempts to mimic the tracked trajectory by
using a form of feed-forward control on the arm and
wrist joints. Using this method, the humanoid robot is
able to learn how to clean a flexible hose with a brush
without any prior models of the object or tool.
This approach is an example of a crude (but effective)
geometric approximation of a tool, where all of the
relevant information is encoded in the location of the
tool-tip relative to the robot arm.
Functional Approaches
A primarily functional approach to learning to use
tools has been adopted by Stoytchev (2005, 2007).
A robot investigates the effects of performing

user-defined primitive behaviors (pushing, pulling, or
sideways arm movements) while applying different
stick tools to an orange puck. The displacements of
the puck that result from different combinations of
tools and behaviors are stored in a look-up table,
which can be used to solve simple manipulation tasks,
such as moving the puck into a goal zone.
By associating probabilities with the success of par-
ticular tool/behavior combinations the agent is able to
adapt when the tool is modified. That is, when one of
the branches of a T-shaped stick is broken, the agent is
able to learn that the tool affordance it is using is no
longer reliable. It is then able to adapt its tool behavior
by choosing an alternative affordance so that it can still
move the puck into the goal location.
Stoytchev’s robot does not possess a geometric
model of the tool. It has no idea of the shape or
structure of each object and simply labels each by its
color. The characteristics of a tool are then encoded
purely in the action outcomes that can be achieved by
using the tool. This is the essence of the functional
approach to tool use.
Sinapov and Stoytchev (2008) extend the approach
of Stoytchev (2007) to learn functional taxonomies of
tools. A simulated robot arm manipulates a puck using
a variety of differently shaped stick tools and observes
the different ways in which the puck moves.
A hierarchical clustering algorithm then finds clusters
of similar displacements that can be summarized by
a prototype displacement. The set of these puck dis-
placement prototypes for each tool is used to calculate
a similarity metric that allows comparison of one tool
to another. In this way, the agent is able to classify
different types of tools based upon the functional abil-
ities they possess. A large number of trials (1,200) were
needed to generate the clusters of outcomes, and these
experiments were conducted in simulation.
Relational Approaches
A disadvantage of the geometric and functional
approaches is that generalization across different
objects and situations is difficult. For example, in
a purely functional approach, such as Sinapov and
Stoytchev (2008), a robot must experiment and learn
with each object before it can determine what type of
tool it is. Kemp and Edsinger (2006) allow for general-
ization across different tools but only by abstracting
away details of the tool and reducing it to a point
Tool Use and Learning in Robots T 3329
representing the tool-tip. Bogoni (1995) learns the
object shape parameters that give the best performance
on a tool use task but this approach is only effective
when the important features can be represented by
a compact set of attributes and their values.
Tools are structured objects where the relationship
between the constituent parts – and between the user,
tool, and target object – is critical to the effective
functioning of the tool. A hammer, for example, should
have a flat head that lies at a right-angle to the handle.
The handle should be held near the base and the flat
surface of the hammer should be brought into contact
with the blunt end of the nail, which in turn is held at
right-angles to the piece of wood. Learning this sort of
information in attribute-value form is difficult. The
learner must represent every possible relationship
between each part of every object by an attribute,
leading to a combinatorial explosion of attributes
with no structure in the search space of the learning
algorithm. It is difficult to incorporate background
knowledge into attribute-value learning and many rela-
tional concepts such as “the object under the hammer”
cannot be properly expressed.
Brown (2009) uses a relational representation in
which tools and situations are described in a subset of
first-order logic. An Inductive Logic Programming sys-
tem (Muggleton and Feng 1992; Srinivasan 2001)
learns tool definitions and usage, such as in the ham-
mer and nail scenario. This makes it possible to gener-
alize across different objects and situations in a more
flexible manner than is possible with an attribute-value
based learner. When an agent encounters a new object,
it is able to determine whether it might be a useful tool
by considering the relationships that exist between its
constituent parts and the properties of these parts.
Likewise, the way in which the tool should be made to T
interact with novel objects, and the user, is captured by
the relational representation.
A benefit of a symbolic relational representation is
that it can be easily incorporated into planning and prob-
lem solving. Thus, the agent learns to use a tool so that it
can achieve a goal that it is otherwise unable to achieve.
When a new behavior is learnt, it expands the range of
planning operators that is available for problem solving.
Cross-References
▶ Robot Learning
▶ Tool Use and Problem Solving in Animals
3330 T Tool Use and Problem Solving in Animals
References
Beck, B. B. (1980). Animal tool behaviour: The use and manufacture of
tools by animals. New York: Taylor & Francis.
Bogoni, L. (1995). Identification of functional features through obser-
vations and interactions. PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia.
Brown, S. (2009). A relational approach to tool-use learning in robots.
Ph.D. thesis, School of Computer Science and Engineering, The
University of New South Wales, Sydeney.
Cruse, H. (2003). The evolution of cognition: A hypothesis. Cognitive
Science, 27, 135–155.
Kemp, C. C., & Edsinger, A. (2006). Robot manipulation of human
tools: Autonomous detection and control of task relevant fea-
tures. In Proceedings of the fifth international conference on devel-
opment and learning, special session on classifying activities in
manual tasks.
Muggleton, S., & Feng, C. (1992). Efficient induction of logic pro-
grams. In S. Muggleton (Ed.), Inductive logic programming
(pp. 281–298). New York: Academic.
Sinapov, J., & Stoytchev, A. (2008). Detecting the functional similar-
ities between tools using a hierarchical representation of out-
comes. In Proceedings of the IEEE conference on development and
learning (ICDL 2008), France.
Srinivasan, A. (2001). The Aleph manual. http://web.comlab.ox.ac.
uk/oucl/research/areas/machlearn/Aleph/aleph.html.
Stoytchev, A. (2005). Behaviour-grounded representation of tool
affordances. In Proceedings of IEEE international conference on
robotics and automation (ICRA).
Stoytchev, A. (2007). Robot tool behaviour: A developmental approach
to autonomous tool use. Ph.D. thesis, College of Computing,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta.
Wood, A. (2005). Effective tool use in a habile agent. Master’s thesis,
North Carolina State University, Raleigh.
Tool Use and Problem Solving
in Animals
BENJAMIN B. BECK1,2,3, KRISTINA WALKUP5,
ROBERT SHUMAKER4,5
1
Great Ape Trust, Des Moines, IA, USA
2
Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute,
Washington, DC, USA
3
Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA
4
Indianapolis Zoo, Indianapolis, IN, USA
5
Drake University, Des Moines, IA, USA
Synonyms
Associative learning; Insight; Instrumentation; Think-
ing; Tool behavior; Trial-and-error learning
Definition
Problem Solving: Acquisition of knowledge or behav-
ior to overcome an obstacle(s) to obtain some desired
state or commodity, or to overcome an obstacle(s) to
avoid or escape some aversive state or agent. Insightful
problem solving is the sudden appearance of a correct
solution to a complex problem, after a period of
nonproblem-directed activity, which in turn follows
a period of incorrect responding, and is often said to
involve cognitive reorganization and causal under-
standing of problem elements.
Tool Use: The external employment of an unat-
tached or manipulable attached environmental object
(the tool); to purposively alter the form, position, or
condition of another object, another organism, or the
user itself; when the user holds or directly manipulates
the tool during or prior to use; and when the user is
responsible for the proper and effective orientation of
the tool.
Theoretical Background
Animals solve problems by trial-and-error or insight,
or sometimes when peers are present, through social
learning. In trial-and-error, reward for correct
responses and lack of reward for incorrect responses
gradually increases the probability of a correct
response. For example, in an experimental paradigm
used to study problem solving and tool use, an ape or
monkey is presented with a peanut in a narrow trans-
parent tube, and a stick that fits into the tube. A naı̈ve
monkey may try to stick its fingers into the tube, detach
the tube and tilt it so the peanut would roll out, break
the tube open, hit the tube with the stick, and finally
will insert the stick and seemingly accidentally push the
peanut out the other end. This is problem solving by
trial-and-error, or associative learning. The monkey
will usually solve the problem with increasing speed
and efficiency, and will usually perfect the solution after
five or ten attempts. The successful monkey always
inserts the stick from the end that is best suited to its
hand preferences and current position with regard to
the tube. Its cognitive understanding of the task is
unknown, but he or she seems simply to be repeating
a previously rewarded response.
If the tube is altered so that a hole or “trap” is
inserted in the tube on one side of the peanut, such
that the peanut will drop down and be lost if the tool is
inserted into the end without the trap, the problem

solver must insert the stick from the end of the tube
with the trap and push the peanut out the other end
(Visalberghi and Limongelli 1994). Human children,
monkeys, and many great ape individuals make errors,
walk away, and then return and try again. Some apes
never solve the problem but about a third eventually
do. In such problems, successful solution often
appears suddenly after a period of nonproblem-
directed activity as contrasted with solution after
a period of trial-and-error, and the children and apes
are said to have solved the problem by insight, a term
first used in this context by Wolfgang Köhler (1925).
Most monkeys, in contrast to apes, continue to push
the stick into the tube from their preferred side (the
rewarded response), and thus lose the peanut in 50% of
their attempts.
It often seems as if an animal approaches a problem
with a bias toward certain attempts (sometimes called
“prepotent behaviors,” a “mental set,” or “functional
fixedness”) that is not effective in solving the problem
at hand; in the present example, the biases are to reach
into the tube and pull the peanut out, somehow detach
and tip the tube, and approach the problem from the
side that is most convenient given hand preferences. It
also seems that if and when the problem is solved,
solution follows a period during which the animal
suspends its solution attempts, during which mental
“incubation” is said to allow the animal to overcome its
bias and mentally reorganize the “problem space” or
“break frame,” and then suddenly try an innovative
solution. Such insight (often called an “aha!” moment)
may represent causal understanding of the problem but
this is difficult to confirm in animals. The inference of
causal understanding is strengthened when individuals
use different insightful solutions to solve the same
problem: some apes do not push the peanut out but
rather thrust the stick through the tube at high velocity,
causing the peanut to jump over the trap and come out
the other end.
Different animal species seem to differ in their abil-
ities to solve problems by insight. Apes, parrots, crows
and their relatives, and predators such as wolves excel.
But in an experiment requiring leaf-cutting ants to climb
over a barrier on their return to their nest, they cut and
carried smaller bits of leaf than when there was no
barrier. Further, despite the decrease in per capita leaf
returns, the amount of leaf returned to the nest as
a whole remained constant since the number of
Tool Use and Problem Solving in Animals T 3331
workers cutting and retrieving leaves doubled. The
authors termed this individual and collective intelligent
problem solving. For mammals and birds at least, being
raised in the wild, or in especially complex captive
environments, appears to confer an advantage in prob-
lem solving. Animal problem solving has to be studied
on a descriptive behavioral level, since introspective
verbal reporting is not available as it is in humans,
but the work on human problem solving shows striking
similarities with nonhuman problem solving, and
appears to confirm that insightful problem solving
involves cognitive understanding (Davidson and Stern-
berg 2003).
Humans, and many other animals, use tools to solve
problems (Beck 1980; Shumaker et al. 2011). For
example, many different types of birds, monkeys,
and apes use twigs and other elongate objects as
tools to probe for, pry out, stab, fish for, or chase
out prey items such as insects or small mammals
from tree holes and crevices. In many cases the user
actually modifies the tool before using it, for example
by breaking it off a larger branch, breaking off side
projections that would impede its use, and even mod-
ifying the tip. Thus, these tool users are also making
or manufacturing their tools. Chimpanzees use twigs
to clean their teeth, and elephants use them to lance
abscesses. One group of long-tailed macaque mon-
keys has even learned to pluck human hair and use it
as dental floss.
Many species of birds, sea otters, and some monkey
and ape species open hard-shelled food items such as
fruits, nuts, and shellfish by pounding them with stones
and sticks. Sometimes the food item is placed on an
anvil, and some chimpanzees have even used a third or
fourth stone as metatools to level the anvil. Many
“pounders” have been documented to selectively T
choose and reuse their stone hammers.
Elephants use a diversity of tools. They have been
seen to drop logs on electric containment fences to
short-circuit the wires. They scratch themselves with
tree branches held in their trunks, and wave leafy
boughs to disperse flies. One rogue elephant chased
three people who climbed a tree to escape. The elephant
then moved 36 logs from a nearby stack to a point
beneath the tree, and stood on the stacked logs to
reach his tormentors (they were able to climb higher
into the tree). If the elephant had been a beaver they
might not have escaped; a beaver was seen to readily
3332 T Tool Use and Problem Solving in Animals
climb on a stack of branches to get a piece of bread
suspended from a tree limb. The experimenter then
disassembled the stack of branches, expecting the bea-
ver, like the elephant, to restack the branches to get the
bread. Instead, the beaver simply cut down the tree!
Sometimes tool use is not the best way to solve
a problem, but these examples show how animals can
use tools in problem solving.
These examples also stimulate inferences that the
tool user or toolmaker is acting “intelligently”: the
behavior is purposive, and flexibly adaptable to
the nature of the problem and the resources available
to solve it. When a heron or a capuchin monkey
distributes bread or other food remains on water to
attract fish, and then seizes the fish that are attracted to
the “bait,” the behavior seems intelligent. But assassin
bugs dangle dead termite carcasses to attract and catch
other termites. The bugs are using bait tools and are
solving a problem, but are probably not behaving intel-
ligently. Many cases of tool use, especially among inver-
tebrates, appear to be genetically based.
Herring gulls and other bird species do not hammer
hard-shelled foods with stones, but drop them on hard
surfaces. This is functionally analogous to the
pounding and hammering described above, but the
birds are not actually manipulating the stones. This is
proto-tool use. If it were classified as tool use, trees
climbed by monkeys and even the ground on which
we walk would have to be called tools. There is
a definitional borderline area regarding the require-
ment that a tool be manipulated in its entirety during
use. This requirement eliminates nests as tools,
a conclusion with which some disagree.
Many animals use and make tools, but chimpanzees
and orangutans do so more frequently, in a greater
variety of ways, and for more purposes than other
nonhuman animals. Tool use by birds and mammals
for the most part appears to be intelligent, but is only
one way in which these animals intelligently solve social
and environmental problems in their lives. Some tool
use, especially among invertebrates appears to be
genetically based. Thus not all intelligent behavior
involves tool use, and not all tool use is intelligent.
Humans use tools more frequently and diversely
than any other animal. They cooperate in their tool
use to a degree not seen in nonhumans, and use tools in
spectacular combinations. Human- and all other
animal tool users power their tools with gravity and
metabolic energy, but only humans have learned addi-
tionally to use wind, water, and combustible fuels to
power tools.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
All animals solve problems and many use tools, but the
underlying cognitive processes may differ. Understand-
ing taxonomic differences and similarities in cognitive
aspects of problem solving and tool use, for example,
causal understanding, continues to be an important
research challenge, and may provide insight into treat-
ment of human cognitive disorders. Studies of corre-
lates of brain anatomy and physiology as they relate to
problem solving are equally important. Information
technology and robotics are being used to model prob-
lem solving and tool use, and are resulting in useful
inanimate innovative problem-solving and tool-using
surrogates.
Social influences in problem solving and tool use
are being studied intensively to determine how and
when individuals learn to solve problems and use
tools by watching others, and when intentional teach-
ing is involved. Chimpanzees and orangutans show
some distinctive group-specific tool-using behaviors
that appear to be socially learned from other group
members, most usually by younger from older individ-
uals. These are recognized as culturally acquired behav-
iors. In humans, apes, and perhaps a few other kinds of
animals, individuals use problem solving to improve
on the previous solutions of others, resulting in
sustained cultural advancement: a shelter made of ani-
mal hide led to a modern house. Such sustained linear
problem solving, known as cultural ratcheting
(Tomasello 1999), is thought to be another character-
istic that distinguishes humans from nonhumans.
Cross-References
▶ Animal Culture
▶ Animal Intelligence
▶ Complex Problem Solving
▶ Evolution of Learning
▶ Imitative Learning in Humans and Animals
▶ Insight Learning or Shaping
▶ Linguistic and Cognitive Capacities of Apes
 Trait-State-Error Models T 3333

▶ Planning in Birds
▶ Problem Solving Tracking
▶ Social Cognition in Animals ▶ Cooperative Learning Groups and Streaming
▶ Social Learning in Animals ▶ Effects of Tracking and Ability Grouping on
▶ Tool Use and Learning in Robots Learning

References
Beck, B. B. (1980). Animal tool behavior: The use and manufacture of
tools by animals. New York: Garland.
Davidson, J. E., & Sternberg, R. J. (2003). The psychology of problem Training
solving. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Köhler, W. (1925). The mentality of apes. London: Routledge and ▶ Deliberate Practice and Its Role in Expertise
Kegan Paul. Development
Tomasello, M. (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition. Cam- ▶ Vocational Learning
bridge: Harvard University Press.
Shumaker, R., Walkup, K., & Beck, B. (2011). Animal tool behavior;
The use and manufacture of tools by animals, (2nd ed.). Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Visalberghi, E., & Limongelli, L. (1994). Lack of comprehension of
cause-effect relations in tool-using capuchin monkeys (Cebus Trait
apella). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 108(1), 15–22.
The term trait refers to relatively stable personality
characteristics.

Top-Down Learning
▶ Bottom-Up Learning and Top-Down Learning Trait Anxiety
▶ Effects of Anxiety on Affective Learning

Topic Interest
Trait Theory
Topic interest refers to a person’s individual interest in
a specific subject area or knowledge domain. Topic ▶ Neuroticism as a Predictor of Mood Change
interest is conceptualized as having both a feeling-
related component (i.e., associating a topic-related
activity with enjoyment or other positive feelings) T
and a value-related component (i.e., assigning personal
significance to a topic). Topical categories guide inter-
Traits
est-based engagement and influence the course of ▶ Abilities to Learn: Cognitive Abilities
events in an activity. ▶ Personality Effects on Learning

Topological Psychology Trait-State-Error Models

▶ Field Theory of Learning ▶ Models of Measurement of Persons in Situations
3334 T Trajectories of Participation - Temporality and Learning
Trajectories of Participation -
Temporality and Learning
INGVILL RASMUSSEN
InterMedia, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Synonyms
Developments; Path; Process
Definition
In physics, a trajectory is the path followed by a planet
in its flight through space; in the sciences of learning,
a trajectory also refers to a path. However, when used to
designate learning, the term is often used in the plural,
i.e., trajectories, and is combined with participation to
describe the processes and results of having taken part
in activities over time.
Theoretical Background
Sudden insight – the “aha” moment – is often experi-
enced as separate from time and space. However, expe-
riences of sudden clarity are rare and most learning
does not happen suddenly; rather, the construction of
knowledge and understanding evolves over time. Any
interaction arises from, draws upon, and is responsive
to previous experiences, present situations, and future
anticipations. Furthermore, what is significant in rela-
tion to current interactions is not necessarily relevant
in the same way when we study learning in relation to
practice over several years. But how do we take into
account time and temporality when studying learning?
One theoretical solution to this methodological ques-
tion can be found in the concept of trajectories of
participation.
One of the first scholars to introduce trajectory as
a concept in the social sciences was Anselm Strauss. In
studies from hospitals in the 1960s, Strauss and his
colleagues developed the concept to understand and
analyze how patients and their families manage to live
as normal a life as possible in the face of a chronic
illness. In their study the trajectory can be seen as
a process of connected phases in which there are indi-
vidual differences as well as common features in expec-
tations (Strauss et al. 1985). In studies of illness and
death it is useful to apply a concept that includes a start
and an end point, and the trajectories described by
Strauss and his colleagues conveyed different but still
certain paths.
However, when studying learning it becomes prob-
lematic to retain the notion of a set pattern because
people are related and actively involved in different
communities and institutions, and these may provide
very distinct and diverse learning opportunities that are
not easily predictable. Still, it is common knowledge
that there are regularities in how people make sense and
construct knowledge. So to reflect both dynamic
changes and to account for the embeddedness of learn-
ing in and through various temporal and spatial
dimensions, participation is often combined with tra-
jectories to describe the processes and results of having
taken part in activities over time. As the seminal work
of Lave and Wenger (1991) demonstrates – through
case studies of midwives, tailors, quartermasters,
butchers, and ex-alcoholics – in spite of individual
differences there are paths that go from being
a peripheral participant to becoming a central actor
and a full member of the community (Lave and Wenger
1991).
Moreover, the concept of trajectories of participa-
tion has been used in different studies ranging in focus
from the personal to the societal. It has been used to
draw attention to the relationship between participa-
tion in different situations (e.g., home and school) to
paths that societies organize for their members, such as
that from nursery, via primary and secondary schools
to higher education, working life, and retirement. In
relation to learning practices, trajectories have been
used to investigate how learners become proficient in
a knowledge domain, stressing the need to be sensitive
not only toward students’ content-related talk, but also
to how institutional aspects are displayed in interac-
tions. In this way, studies of trajectories of participation
provide a deeper understanding of the nature of stu-
dents’ learning (Furberg and Ludvigsen 2008).
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
A short event may have long-term consequences. If we
think in terms of history, we can point out moments of
extreme importance, moments in which specific events
have had long-term consequences. The assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, which was cen-
tral in the acceleration of the international conflicts
leading to the First World War and all the ensuing

social change, is one example from modern history. On
the personal level, perhaps you once encountered
someone who changed “everything” in your life, or
perhaps you undertook a small job that turned into
a lifelong interest, career, or commitment. On the other
hand, events that seem significant at the time may not
turn out to matter in the long run.
Probably the most common impact of time occurs
when a long timescale process produces an effect
in a much shorter timescale. Lemke refers to the
latter as “the case of heterochrony” (2000: p. 280).
Heterochrony is a way of understanding our use of
artifacts – material and nonmaterial. For example,
computers, books, and hammers are material artifacts
that are the result of accumulated knowledge over time.
Furthermore, concepts and classification systems are
examples of nonmaterial, historically accumulated
knowledge which take account of history. In other
words, artifacts connect us to our past and to how
knowledge has been socially organized and accumu-
lated (Ludvigsen et al. 2010).
So far, three types of impacts of time and tempo-
rality in learning have been discussed. In the first
account, studies typically trace activities across time
and space: moment by moment and over time. In
these studies, taking temporality as a central analytical
regulator provides insights into how certain types of
activities or knowledge become relevant not only in the
moment, but also how and why they stay relevant
throughout the activity and how this relates to the
social practice, whether this practice is in a school,
a hospital, or a more informal social setting. Hence,
temporality situates the present and concrete in rela-
tion to the larger setting that the individual is somehow
concerned with, interested in, or committed to. This
category of time includes real and physical time.
However, as illustrated above, secondly there is the
case of short events that have a large impact, events (big
or small) with little impact, and thirdly, the case of how
accumulations of knowledge work in the present –
heterochrony. This latter category of time is not real
in the same way as physical time; rather it is more
subjective and mental. Whereas the first category of
real and physical time reflects Aristotle’s (384–322 BC)
definition of time, the second and third category of
time as experience hails from Augustine (354–430)
(Schatzki 2006). However, the question that philoso-
phers grapple with concerns what time is; learning
Trajectories of Participation - Temporality and Learning T 3335
scientists, on the other hand, are interested in under-
standing how humans make sense of their worlds.
Hence, in relation to learning both real physical time
and the more subjective and mental aspect of time as
experience are relevant.
The challenge for the learning scientist is therefore
not what time is, but how to dovetail different levels of
analysis and the scaling of observations. The challenge
for the researcher involves how to trace sequences of
activities and participation structures across time and
space and how to bring this together analytically. In his
article “Across the Scales of Time,” Lemke (2000) argues
that some form of reductionism is unavoidable. The
question we need to raise is what types of reductionism
are reasonable and how we can bring different levels
together. This important point will be illustrated below
through a case study dealing with the issue of computers
and the copying of content from the Internet (Rasmus-
sen 2005). Computers may represent the case of
heterochrony, as they are one of our times’ most impor-
tant material artifacts resulting from accumulated
knowledge. A central characteristic of computers is
their capacity to store information, which can then be
easily attained, reused, transformed, and transported.
Hence, the copy function is one characteristic feature of
computer technology with potentially big implications.
Copying in schools is a controversial issue and
generally teachers across countries discourage it. Copy-
ing content does not require much effort and is often
done to avoid the work that is needed to make sense of
new knowledge, and hence it hinders learning. How-
ever, this one-dimensional conclusion is still
problematized in a study following learners’ trajecto-
ries of participation during school projects (Rasmussen
2005). The pupils in this study were 11–12 years old
working together in groups to create a multimedia T
presentation. By following their activities as
a trajectory the following pattern emerged. The pupils
would start by dividing tasks within their group. Then
they would search for information on their topic on the
Internet. While they did so they supported each other’s
understanding of the texts by reading aloud and
commenting on the information rendered. The analysis
revealed that they were looking for content that resem-
bled information in textbooks and that they copied the
content they encountered. The tendency to split the
task meant that they later needed to meet as a group
to share their information. This division of labor
3336 T Trajectories of Participation - Temporality and Learning
created a situation in which some kind of artifact was
required in order to organize the “story” of their pre-
sentation. Some drew diagrams while others used orga-
nizing tools on the computer. The participants in the
group did not always share the same views or select and
include the same texts to copy. Typically groups
engaged in disputes about what to include and about
the ordering of the line of argument. Finally, as a result
of the pupils’ improvisations with the available soft-
ware, a new practice emerged: they recorded themselves
reading the copied texts aloud. The software also
afforded the pupils the opportunity to play their
recordings over and over.
In response to the criticism that the pupils do not
exert much effort in relation to copied texts, it appears
that this was not the case in this instance. The technol-
ogy and their peers prompted engagements and efforts
with the copied texts. Although it should be empha-
sized that the pupils were copying text as a shortcut to
get the results, the analysis shows that they were aware
that this practice was controversial. Even though the
technology allows corners to be cut, the important
point regarding new technologies in terms of learning
is not that the learning process becomes better or more
efficient; rather, it is to understand how technology
changes the manner in which information is organized,
stored, communicated, and interpreted.
The concept of trajectories of participation demon-
strated here gives a new perspective on the phenomena
investigated. The basic argument is that circumstances,
if analyzed as a trajectory, might have a different sig-
nificance in terms of learning.
The concept of trajectories of participation is
potentially important in scientific attempts to under-
stand the complex, temporal nature of situated learn-
ing. However, it also has its pitfalls. The following
critical remarks should not be overlooked. First, it is
problematic – in terms of learning – to use the concept
of trajectory alone, since it implies a set path with
a start and an end, and participation in itself offers
limited help. Participation as a metaphor for learning
can easily become the same as “going with the flow,” an
empty jargon that offers little insight into the selections
that individuals make, what they do, the dynamic that
people in interactions create, and how paths are
formed. Likewise, it is relevant to ask whether the
concept of trajectories of participation makes us more
attentive to aspects of learning than more prosaic terms
like “learning processes”; if not, why use it? Hence, the
concept of trajectories of participation is one that needs
specification to gain preciseness and analytical power.
In other words, the researcher needs to specify the level
and the scope of analysis.
Multiplicity and diversity as premises for move-
ment between places, tools, and practices is what char-
acterizes human learning. Human interactions are like
links in a chain. Each and every interconnected link is
symbolizing responsivity to the past, situatedness in the
present, and anticipation toward the future. This
implies that different accounts of time are always in
play. The concept of trajectories of participation pro-
vides a unit of analysis and levels of description that
cuts across and makes the connection between tempo-
rality and learning more transparent. The concept of
trajectories of participation may therefore provide
empirical accounts of how moment-by-moment inter-
action is constituted as part of larger scale activities.
Cross-References
▶ Adaptation and Anticipation: Learning from
Experience
▶ Apprenticeship Learning in Production Schools
▶ Critical Learning Incidents
▶ Cumulative Learning
▶ Discourse Processes and Learning
▶ Learning: A Process of Enculturation
▶ Life-Long Learning
▶ Social Learning
References
Furberg, A., & Ludvigsen, S. R. (2008). Students’ meaning-making of
socio-scientific issues in computer-mediated settings: exploring
learning through interaction trajectories. International Journal of
Science Education, 30, 1775–1799.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral
participation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lemke, J. L. (2000). Across the scales of time: Artifacts, activities, and
meanings in ecosocial systems. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 7(4),
273–290.
Ludvigsen, S. R., Rasmussen, I., Krange, I., Moen, A., & Middleton, D.
(2010). Temporalities of learning in intersecting trajectories of
participation. In S. R. Ludvigsen, A. Lund, I. Rasmussen, & R.
Säljö (Eds.), Learning across sites; new tools, infrastructures and
practices (Routledge in the Early Learning series). New York:
Taylor and Francis.
Rasmussen, I. (2005). Project work and ICT: Studying learning as
participation trajectories. Unpublished Ph.D thesis, University
of Oslo, Oslo.

Schatzki, T. R. (2006). The time of activity. Continental Philosophy
Review, 39, 155–182.
Strauss, A., Fagerhaugh, S., Suczek, B., & Weiner, C. (1985). Social
organization of medical work. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Transdisciplinary Research
▶ Multidisciplinary Research on Learning
Transfer Learning
Transfer refers to the influence of earlier learning on
later learning. Some kinds of transfer take the form of
simple stimulus generalization, while in more complex
learning situations transfer may depend on the acqui-
sition of rules or principles that apply to a variety of
different circumstances. Learning can be viewed as
intermediate between simple generalization and the
more complex transfer phenomena involved in hierar-
chically organized skills.
Cross-References
▶ Task Sequencing and Learning
Transfer of Learning
NORBERT M. SEEL
Faculty of Economics and Behavioral Sciences,
Department of Education, University of Freiburg,
Freiburg, Germany
Synonyms
Application of learning; Knowledge transfer; Learning
transfer; Transfer of training
Definition
Generally speaking, the term learning transfer is used to
refer to the influence of learning in one situation on
learning in another situation. Accordingly, research on
Transfer of Learning T 3337
learning transfer encompasses all studies which are
concerned with how learning in a certain school subject
affects subsequent learning in the same or another
subject or how school learning influences achievements
outside of school. The transfer of learning can be pos-
itive and negative. One speaks of positive transfer when
a learner accurately remembers a learning outcome
reached in a certain situation and applies it in a new
situation. This form of transfer is typically at the core of
educational interests, whereas the fact that transfer can
also be negative is often ignored. For example, a person
who has learned to apply a certain procedure when
working on a certain type of problem generally does
not show a tendency to apply this procedure when
attempting to solve problems from another class, even
if the two problem classes are similar.
For a classification of learning transfer we can refer
to Ausubel and Robinson (1969) who identified three
basic forms of transfer:
1. Lateral transfer occurs when learners are able to
solve different but similar problems of equal com-
plexity as soon as they have learned to solve one of
them. Lateral transfer involves a learning achieve-
ment at the same level as the initial learning but in
another context.
2. The concept of sequential transfer corresponds with
the observation that most content learned in school
is organized into broad disciplines and is taught
sequentially. The topic which is taught today should
be in some way related to a topic which will be
taught tomorrow. As with lateral transfer, sequen-
tial transfer happens in one and the same context,
i.e., both are organized horizontally.
3. Vertical transfer, on the other hand, requires that
learning at a lower level must be transferred to
T
a higher level of cognitive skills. Thus, vertical
transfer is the ability to solve similar and at the
same time more complex or elaborated problems
with the help of previously acquired declarative and
procedural knowledge. An example of vertical
transfer is when a student uses the concept of accel-
eration to discover or understand the generalization
“power = mass X acceleration.”
An alternative classification has been suggested by
Salomon and Perkins (1987). They distinguish between
“low road transfer” (or near transfer) and “high road
transfer” (or far transfer). Low road transfer occurs when
3338 T Transfer of Learning
a skill which has been practiced to the point of automa-
tion is triggered spontaneously in a new context –
e.g., when two cars are so similar that they trigger the
same complex skills in a driver. High road transfer
requires a “meaningful” abstraction in the sense of a
decontextualization as well as a good deal of practice.
Theoretical Background
The idea of transferring learning (e.g., learning Latin as
an introduction to the Romance languages) has a long
tradition in the field of educational psychology around
the world. At the beginning of the twentieth century,
Thorndike and other psychologists had stressed the
significance of learning transfer. They argued that the
amount to which a person will profit from previous
experiences in a new situation depends on the degree to
which the stimulus–response connections between the
old and new situation overlap. Gestalt psychologists
(e.g., Wertheimer 1959) contested that successful trans-
fer is dependent on whether two tasks share a “deep”
structural relation which enables them to be solved
through the use of the same procedure. In the course
of the twentieth century numerous transfer theories
were developed. Some of them still influence our
thought today although they have been empirically
refuted.
Actually, an influential theory of learning transfer is
the theory of identical elements formulated by Thorn-
dike (1913). This theory assumes that elements of the
original learning situation must appear in the new
situation in order for transfer to occur. Identical ele-
ments may include specific facts and skills. The theory
of identical elements was followed by the generalization
theory and the transposition theory. The generalization
theory assumes that we abstract generalizations or prin-
ciples on the basis of numerous experiences and then
apply them to new situations in which they guide our
behavior. The transposition theory goes even further,
requiring the entire pattern of relations between
means and ends as the basis for learning transfer. The
more elaborate the knowledge of relations a person
acquires during the initial learning process, the greater
the chances that transfer will occur. This idea also
forms the basis of the transfer theory of meaningful
learning developed by Ausubel and Robinson (1969).
Aiming at improving the transfer of learning these
authors recommend the use of advance organizers
which provide the learner an overview of units of
information as well as a conceptual frame in which
new information can be integrated. Organizers are
a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for sequential
transfer. According to Bruner (1966), a further condi-
tion is the structure of discipline. An adequate structure
conforms to the learner’s level of psychological devel-
opment as well as to the extent and depth of the
knowledge of the topic. Also necessary for a successful
sequential transfer are several principles including pro-
gressive differentiation, sequential organization, coor-
dination of learning tasks, and consolidation of the
material learned by way of overlearning and exercises.
Another approach of learning transfer emerged in
the 1960s when Gagné (1962) formulated an ability
theory of learning transfer. Gagné argues that
a successful transfer of a solution from one problem
to another is dependent on whether the learner suc-
ceeds in putting the content of the two tasks into
relation with one another and whether the learner has
developed and can apply an ability to solve problems by
generalizing the experiences with the initial learning
task. The major characteristic attribute of this type of
transfer is the scope of the generalization of the mate-
rial learned to new situations. The more varied the
situations in which an ability is put to the test during
learning are, the greater is the likelihood that the
learner will be able to transfer the material learned to
new and different situations.
Although cognitive psychologists first ignored the
transfer problem some of them started in the 1980s
with investigating the conditions of analogical transfer
and the specific transfer of general abilities under
metacognitive control (Mayer and Wittrock 1996).
Approaches related to this phenomenon are grounded
on a belief from Gestalt psychology which states that
people learn an operational strategy in a certain situa-
tion and then use it to solve similar problems in other
situations (Wertheimer 1959). A transfer happens
when two problems require the learner to apply the
same operations. Here, we have to distinguish between
a specific transfer of general skills and a general transfer of
specific skills. In the first case the skills learned in solving
problem A may be transferred in a specific way to
the requirements of problem B, and in the second
case the operations which are transferred from
A to B correspond with a general principle or strategy.

The assumption of a general transfer is based on the
belief that skills can have a broad range of application
over and above the specific behavioral patterns in the
initial situation. Similarly, Anderson (1987) contested
that a transfer between two problems requires that the
two problems share similar content and also, and even
more importantly, that they allow the learner to apply
the same operator schemas. In contrast to the gestalt
psychologists, however, Anderson also stressed the
necessity of domain and skill-specific fine tuning of
transferable procedures for a transfer of general skills.
An alternative approach, which has received
increasing attention since the early 1980s, assumes
that the specific transfer of general skills is based on
an analogical transfer which occurs when a person
solves a new learning task by using that which they
already know about a similar task which they can
already solve. Vosniadou and Ortony (1989) have
defined this type of transfer as “the transfer of relational
information from a domain that already exists in
memory. . . to the domain to be explained” (p. 6).
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
“Non vitae, sed scholae discimus,” wrote Seneca in the
106th letter of the Epistulae morales ad Lucilium. What
he meant was that a school education is hardly an
appropriate means of preparing young persons for
life. Taking up the ironical turn in this statement,
pedagogy has long followed the guiding principle of
enabling students to apply the knowledge and skills
acquired in school to everyday situations. The state-
ment has also again and again sparked criticism from
those who believe that school falls short of fulfilling this
objective.
Actually, there is a long tradition in lamenting the
shortcomings of school learning and many people are
strongly convinced that things which are learned in the
classroom are forgotten shortly afterward. However,
Semb and Ellis (1994) conducted a meta-analysis on
more than 50 articles on this topic and found that the
long-term retention of school knowledge is really sub-
stantial: Students retain much of that which they learn
in class and they retain it for a remarkably long time.
Although retention performance diminishes with time
as a function of the retention interval, the forgetting
curves for school knowledge do not fall nearly as
Transfer of Learning T 3339
rapidly as forgetting curves in psychological learning
experiments. This is due to the fact that knowledge
acquired in school does not consist in isolated units,
but rather is built up cumulatively and includes numer-
ous relations between knowledge units.
Nevertheless, some movements motivated by
reform-pedagogy (e.g., Resnick 1987) call into question
the legitimacy of knowledge acquired in school, espe-
cially in mathematics class, due to its insufficient appli-
cability. Anderson et al. (1996) have remarked that
these positions are grounded primarily on findings
from psychological transfer research, and that they
oversee the fact that it is difficult if not impossible to
apply the results of this research to school learning.
Actually, psychological transfer research is situated pri-
marily in highly specialized experimental situations
with a narrow focus and a limited scope, not on real
instructional situations in school. Moreover, Anderson,
Reder, and Simon point out that the transfer tasks used
in experimental psychological studies are typically
more similar to brainteasers than to the real conditions
and demands of school learning. Finally, they raised the
objection that observations of daily life provide enough
evidence that skills acquired in school such as reading,
writing, or knowledge of specialized symbolic systems
(such as numbers) are used successfully in many dif-
ferent contexts and situations. Indeed, a mechanical
engineer would have little trouble calculating the trans-
mission of signals in linear time-invariant systems in
the domain of communications engineering with the
help of the convolution algebra and Fourier integrals he
learned in college. On the other hand, there is enough
empirical evidence demonstrating that students often
find it difficult to apply declarative and procedural
knowledge acquired in school to similar problems
from the same subject domain – not to mention their T
insufficient ability to solve problems in everyday life
with the help of knowledge acquired in school. The
transfer and application of knowledge and skills
acquired in school to new problem situations is and
evidently is set to remain the neuralgic point of the field
of activity of school.
More than 40 years ago, Ausubel and Robinson
(1969) referred to the significance of the specific con-
tent of school subjects and the teaching of transferable
skills as appropriate means of training lateral transfer.
They stressed that this process does not run
3340 T Transfer of Learning
automatically. Rather, the learners must be taught to
apply general principles in working on learning tasks
through conscious control. However, in cases in which
metacognitive abilities are also necessary, the lateral
transfer of concepts and the generalizations associated
with them extend beyond Ausubel’s conception of
meaningful learning. This conclusion is also in line
with studies on transfer which operated with simpler
tasks (Sternberg and Frensch 1993). They demonstrate
that initial learning and subsequent transfer are essen-
tially dependent on the initial representation of declar-
ative knowledge and even more on how easy it is to
differentiate between the concepts and principles used.
Aside from the observation that domain-specific prin-
ciples and a conceptual model with causal explanations
can be decisive for a flexible and creative transfer of
newly acquired knowledge, more recent studies on
learning transfer also indicate that only little transfer
occurs during problem solving (e.g., in physics and
programming) when the learners are not trained to
come up with and apply explanations on their own
when processing learning tasks and acquiring declara-
tive knowledge (Renkl et al. 1998).
Although this seems immediately clear, the obser-
vation that being able to solve one version of a problem
does not make it easier to solve another version of the
problem is something of a leitmotif in the research
literature on analogical transfer. According to several
studies (Gick and Holyoak 1983, 1987; Reed et al.
1974), learners are often not capable of realizing that
a solution which they have worked out in one domain
can be transferred to a structurally equivalent problem
in another domain. Researchers see the reasons for this
in three cognitive subprocesses of analogical transfer,
which Mayer and Wittrock (1996) have termed “recog-
nition,” “abstraction,” and “mapping.” Recognition
happens when someone who is working on a problem
recalls a potential analog, abstraction occurs when the
learner abstracts the general principle which can be
used to solve the base problem, and mapping occurs
when the learner uses this knowledge successfully to
solve the target problem. Mayer and Wittrock demon-
strate that the findings outlined above can be put down
to the difficulties of learners in these three cognitive
subprocesses of analogical transfer: One of the main
stumbling blocks for a successful analogical transfer is
the inability to recognize that knowledge on the
processing of a previous problem can be used to
process a new problem with an isomorphic structure.
A second difficulty has to do with the process of
abstraction: Even a person who identifies that one or
two base problems are potential analogs for the
processing of the target problem is often unable to
actually affect the analogical transfer because the per-
son is incapable of abstracting general structural prin-
ciples from concrete structural attributes. Remarkably,
several studies (e.g., Gick and Holyoak 1983) indicate
that it is possible to encourage the abstraction process
by providing the learner with multiple analogs which
can be used to abstract the structural principle of the
convergence. Finally, an analogical transfer can also fail
if the learner is not capable of “mapping” the path from
the base to the target domain. Holyoak and Koh (1987)
have shown that learners are less likely to identify a
structural similarity and use it to process a problem if the
base and target domain include analog structures but no
surface similarity. Furthermore, Holyoak and Koh drew
attention to the effect of a pedagogical intervention
which consisted in explicitly demonstrating to learners
the structural similarities between problems with differ-
ent content. The research on analogical transfer
conducted to date has significant pedagogical implica-
tions – for instance for the use of analog models in
teaching physics problems and for the use of “worked
example problems” for solving mathematical problems.
Cross-References
▶ Analogy-Based Learning
▶ Advance Organizers
▶ Cross-Linguistic Influence and Transfer of Learning
▶ Deutero-learning
▶ Gestalt Psychology of Learning
▶ Interdisciplinary Learning
▶ Metacognition and Learning
▶ Retention and Transfer
▶ Trouble with Transfer: Insights from the Study of
Learning
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Reed, S. K., Ernst, G. W., & Banerji, R. (1974). The role of analogy in
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436–450.
Renkl, A., Stark, R., Gruber, H., & Mandl, H. (1998). Learning from
worked-out examples: The effects of example variability and
elicited self-explanations. Contemporary Educational Psychology,
23, 90–108.
Resnick, L. B. (1987). Learning in school and out. Educational
Researcher, 16(9), 13–20.
Salomon, G., & Perkins, D. N. (1987). Transfer of cognitive skills from
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Thorndike, E. (1913). Educational psychology: The psychology of learn-
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Vosniadou, S., & Ortony, A. (Eds.). (1989). imilarity and analogical
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Wertheimer, M. (1959). Productive thinking (Enlargedth ed.).
New York: Harper & Row.
Transfer of Training
▶ Learning Set Formation and Conceptualization
▶ Transfer of Learning
Transfer Test
A test measuring the transferability of what was learned
under different practice conditions to a novel task
variation or a novel situation. Similar to retention
tests, transfer tests are conducted after a certain inter-
val, with identical conditions for all groups.
Transformational Learning T 3341
Transformation
▶ Internalization
Transformation of Aesthetic
Experiences
▶ Aesthetic Learning
Transformational Learning
ALI SIMSEK
Institute of Communication Sciences,
Anadolu University, Eskisehir, Turkey
Synonyms
Transformative learning
Definition
Transformational learning is the process of deep,
constructive, and meaningful learning that goes
beyond simple knowledge acquisition and supports
critical ways in which learners consciously make mean-
ing of their lives. It is the kind of learning that results in
a fundamental change in our worldview as
a consequence of shifting from mindless or unques-
tioning acceptance of available information to reflec-
tive and conscious learning experiences that bring
about true emancipation. As Mezirov (2000) puts it,
T
transformational learning is one’s becoming critically
aware of tacit assumptions/expectations and assessing
their relevance for making an interpretation.
As the definition implies, transformational learning
often leads to profound changes in our thoughts, feel-
ings, perspectives, beliefs, and behaviors because it is
a radical shift of consciousness that permanently alters
our way of being in the world. In other words, trans-
formational learning is more than a shift in knowledge
and behavior because it involves a totally new paradigm
of learning and living. It affects personal understanding
of ourselves, relationships with other people, ways of
3342 T Transformational Learning
thinking, belief systems, responses to environment, and
overall interpretation of the world. Moreover, it influ-
ences purposes, priorities, and prospects that we hold
in terms of life; thus, it goes beyond everyday learning
and changes our patterns of life.
Theoretical Background
The theory of transformational learning was developed
by Jack Mezirow in 1978 and evolved over the years
with contributions of some other researchers to include
new dimensions. In general, this theory is based on the
psychoanalytic theory and the critical theory. As
described by Mezirow, Transformational Learning The-
ory is constructivist in nature because learners contin-
uously interpret their sense of existence in order to
create meaning or develop alternative views.
Transformational Learning Theory involves two
kinds of learning. Those are instrumental learning
and communicative learning. Instrumental learning
focuses on manipulating the environment through
learning task-oriented problem solving and determina-
tion of cause and effect relationship. Communicative
learning involves how people communicate their
needs, thoughts, feelings, values, and desires with
another person (Taylor 1998).
Transformational Learning Theory is often
described through meaning structures. As a vital ele-
ment of this theory, meaning structures are our frames
of reference including assumptions and expectations
often experienced outside of our conscious awareness.
Meaning structures are divided into two categories.
The first is meaning perspectives (or habits of mind),
defined as “broad sets of predispositions resulting from
psychocultural assumptions determining the horizons
of our expectations.” They usually act as a filter for our
experiences including social norms, religion, world
view, personality, learning style, etc. The second cate-
gory of the meaning structures is meaning schemes
(points of view), defined as “the constellation of con-
cept, belief, attitudes, judgment, and feelings which
shapes a particular interpretation.” When we become
aware of our own points of view along with the views of
other people, we realize that there are alternative views
on the same topic and they should be interwoven in
order to form multiple and probably more comprehen-
sive points of view (Mezirov 1994).
Reflection plays the central role in developing mean-
ing structures because it involves a critique of
assumptions to determine whether the beliefs that
were acquired in childhood through cultural assimila-
tion remain to be functional for adults when in fact
they are capable of evaluating the validity of belief
systems based on their accumulation of knowledge,
experiences of life, and problem solving skills. It is
highly interesting to observe that through the reflection
process people can explore themselves more and then
understand learning better. Mezirov (1994) emphasizes
four related ways of learning in this context: refining
personal meaning schemes, learning new meaning
schemes, transforming meaning schemes, and
transforming meaning perspectives; each are challeng-
ing enough for traditional learners who are ready to
accept whatever information is presented as true.
Meaning schemes are ways people make sense of
experiences, deconstruct them, and act upon them in
a rational matter. Mezirow suggests that this happens
through a series of phases that begin with the disorienting
dilemma, passes through several intermediate phases, and
ends with integration of the new perspective into the
person’s life. Disorienting dilemma is usually triggered
by a life crisis, accumulation of transformations in mean-
ing schemes over time or predicaments created by
teachers. Perspective transformation is at the core of
transformational learning. It is the process whereby we
move over time to reformulate our structures for making
meaning, usually through reconstructing dominant dis-
course. Clark (1991) identifies three dimensions of this
process: psychological (changes in understanding of
the self), convictional (revision of belief systems), and
behavioral (changes in lifestyles).
In addition to Mezirow, there are also several other
people who have started to work with this theory and
contributed to develop it more by adding new ideas.
Robert Boyd is probably the most important figure who
has extended this theory. Boyd worked with Mezirow’s
“Transformative Learning Theory” and developed his
revised version of “Transformational Learning Theory.”
He feels that his theory is based on the ability for the
person to be able to work with themselves and take care
of problems that they have going on within themselves
in order to develop more refined personality. He
focused more on discernment within the theory,
whereas Mezirow was more involved with the self and
reflection.
Discernment uses images and symbols in order to
create a personal image of what they are like. It is made

up by three different things: receptivity, recognition,
and grieving (Boyd and Myers 1988). First, the learner
must be willing to have an open mind and to think
about things (receptivity). Second, the learner must
recognize things that need to change or things that
are going on around them (recognition). Third, the
learner must take on a new way of doing things or try
to integrate new ideas into his/her life; he/she then
must come to terms with the fact that the steps that
he/she has taken before are no longer relevant to what
he/she is going to do in the future (grieving).
Paulo Freire is another educational theorist who has
contributed to transformational learning. Although he
is not interested in Mezirow’s idea on just learning the
self, he wants people to learn about the societal trans-
formation that goes on around them. Toward this pur-
pose, he questions education that is simply based on
the accumulation of dysfunctional knowledge and
defends the idea that education should be based on
dialogue and liberation of people. However, he agrees
with Mezirow on the idea that critical reflection is an
important part of the transformational learning pro-
cess. He claims that when the learner critically becomes
more aware of the power structure surrounding them,
they are able and willing to transform society and
eventually their own reality (Taylor 1998).
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Transformational Learning Theory has been particu-
larly useful for adult learning because adults continu-
ously interpret and reinterpret their experiences from
a developmental and critical perspective. This theory
has many concepts, issues, and approaches that may be
used in adult learning. Because transformational learn-
ing often requires a more comprehensive and collabo-
rative understanding of the meaning, learners should
have the willingness and capability to share their
mutual experiences. In many cases, this is done easier
and better within the context of adult learning since
each learner comes to the educational environment
with invaluable experiences. In fact, most of the leading
figures of the Transformational Learning Theory have
come from the field of adult education.
Freire has stated that educators and learners being
on the same level will make the classroom of a more
open, relax, and safe environment; therefore, learners
will feel comfortable to share their views and feelings
Transformational Learning T 3343
with others. Similarly, Boyd points out that the learners
usually look at what they need to accomplish and then
get the job done themselves in adult learning so that
they typically go through the three steps of transforma-
tional learning (receptiveness, recognition, and griev-
ing). Mezirow, another educator who thinks that this
theory suits adult learning better, indicates that adult
learners become more successful by using the mutual
meaning structures to understand the situations.
Taylor (1998) reports a number of views on apply-
ing transformational learning theory to adult educa-
tion. Adult educators find this theory “ideal to promote
a sense of safety, openness, and trust.” They also posit
that “it promotes learner autonomy, participation, and
collaboration.” There are also other adult educators
indicating that “it encourages the exploration of alter-
native perspectives, problem-posing, and critical
reflection.” Imel (1998) states that “transformational
learning builds trust, facilitates the development of
sensitive relationships among learners, and gives the
learner the chance to create the conditions under which
learning will occur.”
A number of critical responses to the Transforma-
tional Learning Theory have emerged over the years.
Most of them have contributed to articulation or
expansion of this theory. A major criticism has been
about the emphasis of the Transformational Learning
Theory on rationality. These critics claim that transfor-
mational learning generally grants rational reflection
too much importance, and critical reflection by nature
may not be always be rational, considering a number of
potentially distorting variables.
Cranton (1997) summarizes it all: “At its core,
transformative learning theory is elegantly simple.
Through some event which could be as traumatic as
losing a job or as ordinary as an expected question, an T
individual becomes aware of holding a limiting or
distorted view. If the individual critically examines
this view, open herself to alternatives, and consequently
changes the way she sees things, she has transformed
some part of how she makes meaning out of the world.”
Cross-References
▶ Adult Teaching and Learning
▶ Deep Approaches to Learning in Higher Education
▶ Jack Mezirow on Transformative Learning
▶ Lifelong Learning
▶ Organizational Learning
3344 T Transformative Education

References
Boyd, R. D., & Myers, J. G. (1988). Transformative education. Inter- Transition of Learning
national Journal of Lifelong Education, 7(4), 261–284.
Clark, M. C. (1991). The restructuring of meaning: An analysis of the
▶ Stochastic Models of Learning
impact of context on transformational learning. Unpublished doc-
toral dissertation. University of Georgia.
Cranton, P. (Ed.). (1997). Transformative learning in action: Insights
from practice. New directions for adult and continuing education.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Translational Education
Imel, S. (1998). Transformative learning in adulthood. (ERIC Docu-
▶ Integrated, Multidisciplinary, and Technology-
ment Reproduction Service No. ED423426).
Mezirov, J. (1994). Understanding transformation theory. Adult Edu- Enhanced Science Education
cation Quarterly, 44(4), 222–232.
Mezirov, J. (2000). Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on
a theory in progress. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Taylor, E. W. (1998). The theory and practice of transformative
learning: A critical review. (ERIC Document Reproduction Ser- Transposition
vice No. ED423422).
Transfer-of-training phenomenon in which organisms
learn about the relation between stimuli (e.g., respond
to the larger stimulus or to the darker block of color)
rather than about the specific stimuli themselves (e.g.,
Transformative Education respond to the stimulus of a specific size or shade).
▶ Creative Inquiry

Treadmill Running
Transformative Experience ▶ Effects of Exercising During Learning

▶ Science, Art, and Learning Experiences

Triadic Looking
Transformative Learning ▶ Joint Attention in Humans and Animals
▶ Creative Inquiry
▶ Transformational Learning

Trial-and-Error Learning
▶ Adaptive Learning Through Variation and Selection
Transforming New Information ▶ Reinforcement Learning in Animals
Into Cognitive Rules ▶ Tool Use and Problem Solving in Animals

▶ Rule Formation

Trial-Spacing Effect
Transient Recollection Learning is relatively rapid and/or better retained when
consecutive learning trials are spaced or distributed in
▶ Short-Term Memory time as opposed to being massed.

Trial-Spacing Effect in
Associative Learning
TRAVIS P. TODD, MARK E. BOUTON
Department of Psychology, University of Vermont,
College of Arts and Sciences, Burlington, VT, USA
Synonyms
Distributed practice; Spaced practice
Definition
Learning is usually more rapid when consecutive learn-
ing trials are distributed in time rather than massed in
time. This phenomenon, known as the ▶ trial-spacing
effect, appears to be ubiquitous. It has been demon-
strated in a number of different species (including
humans, rats, pigeons, fruit flies, and sea slugs
[Hermissenda]) and in a number of associative learning
tasks (including appetitive and aversive classical con-
ditioning, autoshaping, eyelid conditioning, taste-
aversion learning, and categorization).
The trial-spacing effect has been studied particu-
larly extensively in ▶ classical conditioning in animals.
In this method, animals learn to respond to
a conditioned stimulus (CS), such as a tone, that has
been repeatedly paired with a biologically significant
event (an unconditioned stimulus, or US), such as
a foot shock or a food pellet. The trial-spacing effect
takes the form of more rapid learning when the CS–US
pairings are widely distributed in time. Another way of
saying this is that each CS–US pairing is relatively more
effective at generating learning when there is ample
time between trials (the ▶ intertrial interval).
Theoretical Background
There are several explanations of the trial-spacing
effect. One recent theory of learning states that
responding in classical conditioning emerges when
the organism estimates that the rate of presentation of
the US is greater in the CS than in the background
(Gallistel and Gibbon 2000). Theoretically, subjects
are thought to be sensitive to time both within and
between CSs, so that they can compute the rate of
reinforcement (US presentation) in the CS and in the
background. If the ratio of these rates (CS reinforce-
ment rate/background reinforcement rate) exceeds
Trial-Spacing Effect in Associative Learning T 3345
a criterion, responding will emerge. According to the
theory, responding emerges more rapidly with long
intertrial intervals because the longer the intertrial
interval, the lower the perceived rate of reinforcement
in the background. The general relationship between
time in the CS and time in the intertrial interval is
captured by the I/T ratio, where I represents the dura-
tion of the intertrial interval and T represents the dura-
tion of the trial, or CS. Learning rate is thought to be
proportional to the value of this ratio; low ratios result
in slow learning, while high ratios result in more rapid
learning.
Other explanations are possible. Perhaps the most
important alternative is based on the influential view
that associative learning is best when the items that are
going to be associated (i.e., the CS and US) are surpris-
ing when they occur on a learning trial (e.g., Wagner
1981). Items are not surprising when they have recently
been activated and are therefore already present in
▶ short-term memory when they occur. With short
intervals between successive trials, the CS and US are
still in short-term memory on a given trial because of
their recent presentation on the preceding trial. This
makes them less surprising when they are presented
again, and less learning therefore results from the cur-
rent trial. When longer intervals intervene between
successive trials, the items are less likely to be in
short-term memory at the start of each new trial
(short-term memory is short term, after all). This
makes the items more surprising on the next trial,
and better learning will occur. Thus, the trial-spacing
effect may be a consequence of the dynamics of mem-
ory between trials. A variety of evidence is consistent
with this view, and the processes just described have
been shown to operate and create a trial-spacing effect
in different subjects that otherwise have equivalent I/T T
ratios (e.g., Sunsay et al. 2004).
Nonetheless, trial spacing has also been studied
with intertrial intervals that are longer than the interval
over which items are forgotten from short-term mem-
ory. Even here, further increases in the time between
trials can facilitate learning, suggesting that the account
given above is not complete. In the case of such
extended intertrial intervals, other processes that influ-
ence short-term memory may begin to dominate.
Specifically, the to-be-associated items (CS and US)
may be associated with stimuli in the background
(so-called ▶ contextual stimuli) whenever they occur.
3346 T Trial-Spacing Effect in Associative Learning
All learning and remembering occurs in a given place
or psychological state that can contribute to the ▶ con-
text, and as a consequence of the association between
the item and the context, the context can become a
▶ retrieval cue: The context’s association with the item
allows it to activate or retrieve a representation of the
item into short-term memory. Retrieval of the item by
the context will thus make the item less surprising –
and therefore also reduce learning. When the intervals
between trials are longer, the subject is exposed to the
context for longer periods of time, and this will increas-
ingly weaken the context–item association through
▶ extinction. Such extinction will reduce the context’s
tendency to retrieve the item into short-term memory,
making the item more surprising, and thus yielding
better learning with widely spaced trials. The trial-
spacing effect is thus due to a subtle interplay between
psychological learning and memory processes that con-
trol short-term memory (Sunsay and Bouton 2008).
Relatively little research has rigorously applied the
mechanisms described above to learning tasks in
humans, although there is little reason to think they are
not involved. In humans, there are at least two other
historically popular accounts of the trial-spacing effect.
According to one, long intervals between trials cause
forgetting of the items between trials, and this makes
processing the items more difficult on the next trial.
Effortful processing may lead to better learning.
Although the language here is different from the lan-
guage used above, the idea may not be fundamentally
different: In both accounts, forgetting between trials
yields better learning. Another account emphasizes that
the contextual stimuli in the background are likely to
fluctuate or change as time passes between trials. With
longer intervals between trials, a larger set of these con-
textual stimuli therefore become connected with the
items that are being learned. This state of affairs increases
the probability that a test conducted in a new context, or
after another interval, will contain contextual stimuli
that have been associated with the items, and can thus
support retrieval of them. As a consequence, learning
with distributed trials can lead to better long-term reten-
tion of the learned association.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
There are several open questions about the trial-
spacing effect. For one, according to the I/T approach
described above, adding time to the intertrial interval
will not increase the rate of learning if the time in the
CS is increased by a proportional amount. For example,
if the intertrial interval (I) and the CS duration (T)
were both tripled, the I/T ratio would be unchanged,
and the beneficial effect of adding time between trials
would be nullified. This effect, known as ▶ timescale
invariance, sometimes occurs in classical conditioning,
although it may be restricted to a certain range of CS
and intertrial interval durations (Holland 2000). Cur-
rently, no other theories have been designed or
extended to account for the timescale invariance effect.
Another open question is the extent to which the
trial-spacing effect is relevant to understanding forms
of psychopathology that depend on learning. For
example, the development of anxiety disorders appears
to depend on learning associations between cues and
emotional trauma, and drug dependence may depend
on persons learning to associate certain cues and cer-
tain behaviors with drugs. Thus, a person might
become afraid of an enclosed space because of its asso-
ciation with a traumatic event in childhood, and a drug
user might develop stronger craving and drug-taking
frequency in the presence of stimuli that have been
associated with drug taking. Are these examples of
associative learning similarly dependent on the spacing
of the learning trials? And can the trial-spacing effect be
used to engineer efficient new learning, such as the
learning involved in psychotherapy? Clinical psycholo-
gists have long known the value of exposure therapy, in
which a client with a learned fear of enclosed places, for
example, is exposed to them without consequence so
that fear undergoes extinction. There is preliminary
evidence that increasing the spacing of exposure ther-
apy trials does in fact lead to better retention of thera-
peutic learning. But this needs to be further explored.
Finally, although the trial-spacing effect is also gen-
erally consistent with the possibility that distributed
trials allow more time for certain time-dependent
brain processes to ▶ consolidate learning after each
trial, there has been relatively little research that specif-
ically links the trial-spacing effect to underlying
changes in the brain. However, some evidence does
suggest that distributed trials may allow better memory
formation because they allow more protein synthesis to
occur, between trials, at the synapses activated by the
CS and the US, leading to long-term strengthening of
these synapses (Scharf et al. 2002).
 Trouble with Transfer: Insights from the Study of Learning T 3347

Cross-References in the future. Without the ability to transfer knowledge

▶ Associative Learning
▶ Computational Models of Classical Conditioning
▶ Conditioning
▶ Pavlovian Conditioning
▶ Short-Term Memory and Learning
References
Gallistel, C. R., & Gibbon, J. (2000). Time, rate, and conditioning.
Psychological Review, 107, 289–344.
Holland, P. C. (2000). Trial and intertrial durations in appetitive
conditioning in rats. Animal Learning & Behavior, 28, 121–135.
Scharf, M. T., Woo, N. H., Lattal, K. M., Young, J. Z., Nguyen, P. V., &
Abel, T. (2002). Protein synthesis is required for the enhance-
ment of long-term potentiation and long-term memory by
spaced training. Journal of Neurophysiology, 87, 2770–2777.
Sunsay, C., & Bouton, M. E. (2008). Analysis of a trial-spacing effect
with relatively long intertrial intervals. Learning & Behavior, 36,
104–115.
Sunsay, C., Stetson, L., & Bouton, M. E. (2004). Memory priming and
trial spacing effects in Pavlovian learning. Learning & Behavior,
32, 220–229.
Wagner, A. R. (1981). SOP: A model of automatic memory processing
in animal behavior. In N. E. Spear & R. R. Miller (Eds.), Infor-
mation processing in animals: Memory mechanisms (pp. 5–47).
Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
(or ▶ generalize) across related situations and prob-
lems, a person would be forced to constantly relearn
information even when very small details differed
between the original learning context (the ▶ base
domain) and the transfer context (the ▶ target
domain).
Transfer is also an important element in
▶ microgenetic studies, which are central to the psy-
chology of learning. In microgenetic studies,
researchers obtain densely sampled observations that
span the period of learning, and these dense observa-
tions are intensively analyzed in an attempt to infer the
mechanisms that produced the change. Microgenetic
data provides key information about five dimensions of
cognitive change: source, the experiences that set the
change in motion; path, the sequence of cognitive states
leading up to and following competence; rate, the
amount of time or trials that elapse before a cognitive
change occurs; breadth, how broadly the new cognitive
state generalizes to new contexts and problems, and
variability, individual differences in any of the other
four dimensions.

Theoretical Background
Despite the importance of transferring knowledge –
Triggering Conditions whether from domain to domain, from school to
everyday life, or from everyday life to school – sponta-
▶ Learning Action Affordances and Action Schemas neous transfer is notoriously difficult to elicit, with
learners typically generalizing new approaches to
a much narrower set of problems than is optimal.
Learning to solve symbolic math problems, for exam-
Trouble with Transfer: Insights ple, often generalizes fairly weakly to familiar – but
from the Study of Learning formally identical – real-world problems, and the
reverse is equally true: Brazilian street vendors who
CLARISSA A. THOMPSON1, JOHN E. OPFER2 can solve difficult arithmetic problems in their daily T
1
Department of Psychology, The University of work fail to transfer their solutions to the symbolic
Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA problems they face in school. This “trouble with trans-
2
Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, fer” does not arise simply because initial learning is
Columbus, OH, USA incomplete or unstable; even in microgenetic studies
of children’s learning, where stability and completeness
of learning is assessed, children very often under-
Synonyms extend novel solutions (Siegler 2006).
Generalization Interest in transfer dates to work by Thorndike
(1922) who posited the somewhat pessimistic conclu-
Definition sion that learning is universally narrow and situation-
Transfer is the ability to retrieve and use previously specific. According to Thorndike’s identical-elements
learned information in order to solve related problems theory of transfer: “Any disturbance whatsoever in the
3348 T Trouble with Transfer: Insights from the Study of Learning
concrete particulars reasoned about will interfere
somewhat with the reasoning, making it less correct,
or slower, or both” (Thorndike 1922, p. 36). In
Thorndike’s view, the more overlap in surface-level
similarity between the base and target domains, the
more likely transfer of learning will occur. Thorndike’s
identical-elements theory challenged the prevailing
school of thought at the turn of the twentieth century:
the doctrine of formal discipline. According to the
doctrine of formal discipline, if individuals successfully
studied difficult subjects (like Latin or geometry), the
training would ultimately strengthen the mind’s gen-
eral ability for reasoning and problem solving, much
like a muscle that could be strengthened through exer-
cise and exertion. Over the next century, these two
views regarding transfer led to a flurry of scientific
investigation, including research on the effects of sim-
ilarity and of practice on transfer.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Although subsequent work has not revived the doctrine
of formal discipline, studies on the psychology of learn-
ing have found several important factors that do pro-
mote transfer. Here we review three factors that have
figured prominently in this research: (1) perceptual
similarity of the base and target domains, (2) relational
similarity of the base and target domains, and (3) prac-
tice with the target domain.
Perceptual similarity of the base and target domains.
Across many species and domains, learning transfers
most robustly to perceptually similar situations. This
finding might be best illustrated by Pavlov’s experi-
ments examining classical conditioning in dogs. In
these experiments, dogs were presented with
a clicking metronome immediately prior to being
given meat powder; after many such presentations,
the dogs learned that the metronome predicted the
arrival of meat powder, and the dogs salivated as soon
as they heard the metronome itself. Critically, the dogs
also transferred their learning to similar situations. For
example, when dogs learned to anticipate meat powder
from the sound of one pitch, transfer was very great for
a highly similar pitch, but it decayed exponentially with
less similar pitches.
Findings from classical conditioning suggest that
transfer occurs more broadly than just when elements
between the base and target domains are identical, as
Thorndike’s theory might suggest. Yet the degree of
similarity required for transfer has been difficult to
establish, partly because the degree of similarity in the
base and target domains may be defined differently
from one study to the next (see Siegler 2006, for
a related criticism). To deal with this problem, Chen
and Klahr (2008) analyzed the conditions under which
transfer occurred and identified three important
dimensions. These dimensions included task similarity,
which is shared elements across the base and target
tasks (e.g., shared mathematical operations in calculus
and physics); context similarity, which is the similarity
of the physical and social contexts in which solutions
and strategies are acquired and used (e.g., classroom
versus laboratory setting; teacher versus researcher);
and time interval, which is duration of time between
the learning and transfer tasks (e.g., a time gap of
minutes versus many years). Using these dimensions,
Chen and Klahr concluded that the degree of transfer is
inversely proportional to the time delay between the
learning and transfer problems and proportional to the
similarity between the learning and transfer contexts.
Thus, when all three dimensions are maximized, the
elements between the base and transfer tasks will be
truly identical and transfer will be highest, as in
Thorndike’s theory. Unlike Thorndike’s theory, how-
ever, Chen and Klahr’s analysis predict transfer when
elements are similar but not identical.
Relational similarity of the base and target domains.
Even with no identical elements between the base and
target domains, transfer can also occur because learners
observe the base and target domains to be analogous.
That is, learners map elements from the base domain to
different elements in the target domain because the
nonidentical elements share similar relations. A good
example of this analogical transfer would be Bohr’s
analogy from the structure of the solar system to the
structure of the atom (sun:planets::nucleus:electrons),
where none of the elements (e.g., sun, planets, nucleus,
electrons) are perceptually similar, let alone identical.
Analogical transfer can be quite remarkable for the
robustness and breadth of learning obtained. In Gick
and Holyoak’s (1980) study of analogical reasoning, for
example, college students learned about a general and
his troops attempting to capture an enemy fortress. The
key lesson was that the general could not allow all his
troops to descend on the fortress through one road
because the troops would detonate hidden mines, so
 Trouble with Transfer: Insights from the Study of Learning
he ordered them to converge on the fortress through
multiple roads. After this vignette about the general,
students were challenged to solve a problem in which
a doctor wanted to eliminate a patient’s stomach tumor
through the use of radiation. Like the general, the
doctor faced the dilemma that the radiation that was
strong enough to destroy the tumor would inevitably
destroy surrounding healthy tissue. Gick and Holyoak
found that when participants were given a hint to
compare the military and medical problems, solving
the medical problem was much easier for the college
students. In this case, mapping of nonidentical, sur-
face-level features of the problems (i.e., convergence on
fortress versus tumor) allowed participants to general-
ize from their initial learning.
Microgenetic studies of learning in children have
found similar benefits of learning by analogy. For
example, children often believe that 1,500 is closer in
size to 10,000 than to 0, yet they typically understand
that 15 cherries is closer in size to 0 cherries than to
100 cherries. To prompt children to analogize between
15 cherries and 1,500, Thompson and Opfer (2010)
gave children two types of number lines (0 cherries –
100 cherries and 0–10,000), and they colored the last
two zeros of 1,500 and 10,000 red (like the cherries). In
this case, the combination of the coloring and align-
ment served as a hint to children (as in Gick
and Holyoak’s study), and it prompted children to
note similarities between placement of 15 cherries on
the 0–100 number line and placement of 1,500 on
the 0–10,000 number line. By noting these similar
relations (15:100::1,500:10,000), children spontane-
ously transferred their knowledge about the placement
of all the numbers from 0 to 100 to the corresponding
numbers that were orders of magnitude higher.
Practice with the target domain. Another factor con-
tributing to transfer (in this case, inhibiting transfer) is
the amount of practice that students have with the
target domain. The ▶ mental set literature, for exam-
ple, provides insight on difficulties participants face
when attempting to solve problems on which they
have received previous practice. For example, Duncker
tested whether participants could apply novel func-
tions to various familiar objects (e.g., a matchbox,
tacks, and candles). In this study, to solve the problem
of placing three small candles on a door at eye-level,
participants had to conceive of a novel function for the
matchbox (i.e., to serve as a platform). Normally, about
T 3349
86% of such problems were solved; however, if partic-
ipants were given a pretest to determine their knowl-
edge of the original functions of the familiar objects,
the rate of problem solving dropped to 58%. Duncker’s
explanation was that previous experience with the
objects induced a ▶ functional fixedness that inhibited
participants’ novel solutions.
Just as previous experience with objects can induce
functional fixedness in students, microgenetic studies –
which often repeatedly test the same participant over
many trials, sessions, or days – can induce a conceptual
fixedness that inhibits transfer (Opfer and Thompson
2008). Thus, when children have practice on a task
without any feedback (e.g., when they complete
a pretest on a transfer task), children must use some
mental ▶ representation to complete that task, and the
more they use that mental representation, the greater
the strength of the representation, and the more likely
children will continue using the representation in the
future. Under circumstances in which the representa-
tion used on the task is appropriate, pretests can facil-
itate transfer. However, when representations are
inappropriate, practice on a pretest makes imperfect
because practice merely strengthens the inappropriate
representation used on the transfer task and thereby
blocks transfer of the more optimal representation
learned during training. An important implication of
this finding is that one “trouble with transfer” is at least
partly an experimental artifact of studies that ask par-
ticipants to complete a pretest on the transfer task. It
also helps to explain why school lessons sometimes fail
to transfer to children’s problem solving on real-world
tasks in which children have prior experience.
In this entry, we reviewed evidence from the psy-
chology of learning for three types of factors – percep-
tual similarity between the base and target domains, T
relational similarity between the base and target
domains, and previous practice with the target
domain – that affect transfer of learning. In fact, the
number of factors is likely to be much larger than these
three, and an open question for future research is to
examine the impact of other factors on transfer, such
as where attention is directed during learning, the
stability and organization of initial learning, and
insufficient prior knowledge in the base domain. Any
of these factors might affect how similar tasks seem to
children and might also give them further troubles
with transfer.
3350 T Trust into e-Learning
Cross-References
▶ Analogy/Analogies: Structure and Process
▶ Analogy-Based Learning
▶ Generalization (Versus Discrimination) in Learning
▶ Learning (How) to Learn
▶ Microgenetic Analysis of Learning
▶ Representation Changes in Learning
▶ Thorndike, Edward L. (1874–1949)
▶ Transfer of Learning
References
Chen, Z., & Klahr, D. (2008). Remote transfer of scientific reasoning
and problem-solving strategies in children. In R. Kail (Ed.),
Advances in child development and behavior (36, pp. 419–470).
Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Gick, M. L., & Holyoak, K. J. (1980). Analogical problem solving.
Cognitive Psychology, 12, 306–355.
Opfer, J. E., & Thompson, C. A. (2008). The trouble with transfer:
Insights from microgenetic changes in the representation of
numerical magnitude. Child Development, 79, 790–806.
Siegler, R. S. (2006). Microgenetic analyses of learning. In W. Damon
& R. M. Lerner (Series Eds.) & D. Kuhn & R. S. Siegler (Vol. Eds.),
Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 2: Cognition, perception, and
language (6th ed., pp. 464–510). Hoboken: Wiley.
Thompson, C. A., & Opfer, J. E. (2010). How 15 hundred is like
15 cherries: Effect of progressive alignment on representational
changes in numerical cognition. Child Development, 81, 1768–
1786.
Thorndike, E. L. (1922). The effect of changed data upon reasoning.
Journal of Experimental Psychology, 5, 33–38.
Trust into e-Learning
ALESSANDRO LONGHEU, VINCENZA CARCHIOLO, MICHELE
MALGERI, GIUSEPPE MANGIONI
Department of Electric, Electronic and Informatics
Engineering (DIEEI), University of Catania, Catania,
Italy
Synonyms
Collaborative learning; Recommendation systems;
Reputation; Social networks
Definition
Trust is generally defined as the assured reliance on
a specific feature (e.g., the ability) of someone, and it
is involved as a central element in all human interac-
tions allowing to cope with uncertainty and risks.
In the context of learning, its role is becoming as
relevant as the huge increase of:
1. Online available resources, according to the Web
2.0 philosophy that promote user-generated
content
2. Social networks–based learning, that includes terms
as collaborative learning, associated collaborative
communities, learning communities, working groups,
and many others
Trust indeed can be effectively used both
when choosing learning contents from different
providers, in order to download high-quality resources
(recommender systems), as well as when joining to
groups for collaborative learning purposes, allowing
to xploit others’ experiences to select most rated people
to study or collaborate with (▶ reputation systems).
Theoretical Background
The word “trust” assumed several meanings over time
and across different disciplines. Several scientific works
attempted to define trust and its applications,
discussing about the general meaning of trust in soci-
ology, psychology, economics, and politics, providing
a set of attributes that should characterize trust as
competence, predictability, reliability, honesty, and
many others.
The frequently cited work by Marsh (Marsh 1994) is
focused on trust in computer science, and its main
contributions are (1) one of the first analytical formu-
lation of trust relationship between two people (or
agents); (2) the inclusion of human factors as the
reciprocity (if x trusts y then y could trust x somehow),
transitivity of trust and distrust, and legal issues in real
life interactions; and (3) how people can leverage trust,
balancing the need of cooperation with the risk that
such interaction implies.
The recent survey of trust in computer science and
semantic web by Artz and Gil (Artz 2007) recalls the
three most frequently adopted notions of trust, which
can be intended as a measure of:
1. How good the future behavior of a given agent will
be based on his past actions, thus leading to the
reputation-based trust

2. How much expert (hence, reliable) is a given agent
in a specific context, introducing trust as
competence
3. How much an agent will act dependably in
performing a specific action within a specific period
The words user or person is frequently used instead
of the word agent since trust is being used more and
more within social networks and services to achieve
safety in virtual interactions among people.
Apart from these definitions, several factors con-
tribute to outline a metric for trust, and consequently
lead to different approaches to its evaluation.
A first question is whether trust is expressed as
a simple (scalar) value or as a set of values (i.e.,
a vector); this can be reformulated as the question: “Is
trust absolute or can different kinds of trusts be defined,
according to some property, thus leading to a set of
values?” Different properties can affect the definition of
trust, for instance the context where trust is actually
used, so we could assign a high trust value to
a computer scientist within the context “computer
programming” and a low trust value to the same sci-
entist within the “financial services” context. Most
researches however intend trust as absolute (unique
value), hence context or other properties generally
lead to different terms (e.g., a context-based rank is
known as expertise).
Another issue is the range of values used to express
trust; usually the [0, 1] range is adopted, where the
0 models the indifference due either to the absence of
information (no trust can be given) or to the same
amount of positive and negative judgments (some-
times, these situations are treated separately). The
range is chosen to normalize trust values.
Sometimes a set of discrete values (eventually
within the range [0, 1]) are used for trust, especially
when such values represent some specific quality or
property the trust is based on, for instance the
Advogato data set (http://www.advogato.org/) is an
online community dedicated to free software develop-
ment where three different levels of certification in
programming ability (Apprentice, Journeyer, and Mas-
ter) are defined, thus leading to three numerical values.
Continuous ranges are however mostly adopted, both
to provide a fine-grained value range and to avoid the
rescaling of values whenever two or more trust values
must be somehow joined together, e.g., when many
Trust into e-Learning T 3351
users provide different trusts about the same person
and we want to compute a unique trust to assign him.
The use of negative values for trust leads to the term
distrust, sometimes adopted to leverage negative users’
experiences; it has been observed however that in real
world, people rarely provide explicit distrust; rather
they prefer to not express any opinion at all, so distrust
has not received the same interest as trust among
researches.
Finally, the last aspect that characterizes trust is
whether a user is assigned with a single trust value in
the whole network he belongs to (i.e., trust is global) or
different values can be assigned to the same user by
different persons (i.e., trust is local or personalized).
The former case is computationally feasible since trust
is evaluated just once for all users, conversely the local
approach is considered the most precise and tailored
to the point of view of each user, and also more attack-
resistant to malicious peers (i.e., persons or agents
that try to subvert trust values within a given trust
network), although trust evaluation must be
performed for any user.
Most researchers implicitly assume that a single,
global value of trust for each user exists, but others
claim that local values are necessary since a shared
opinion could be impossible to achieve, as it occurs
for instance in the case of a controversial user, i.e.,
someone trusted by many users and distrusted by
many others; hence, the personalized approach is gen-
erally preferred, especially in recommender systems.
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Trust recently gained an increasing attention thanks to
its role within virtual social networks, consequently
affecting the e-learning which is more and more T
exploiting social networking to facilitate the sharing
of learning materials, knowledge, and users
experiences.
In such a scenario, a first question is that a massive
user-generated content is now available on the Internet,
shifting the question from the lack of learning materials
to the difficulty of selecting high-quality contents
among hundreds of shared resources; trust is then
used to select the “best” learning material as the one
recommended by “trusted” users, as it is adopted in
e-commerce and review sites like eBay or Epinions.
3352 T Trust into e-Learning
Similarly, the process of learning is increasingly
accomplished via collaborative tools and activities like
Weblogs, wikis, social networks, and communities
through which learners exchange knowledge, skills,
competences (Na Li et al. 2010), hence trust is useful
to select most rated peers or groups to study or collab-
orate with, for instance, by exploiting others’ experi-
ences as it occurs in reputation systems.
The research on trust can be outlined into three
major areas: (1) policy-based trust, (2) reputation-
based trust, and (3) trust on the (semantic) web.
Works in the first area are quite old (started in
1993), and concern with trust as a consequences of
hard evidences like certificates, used to implement pol-
icies. This approach requires a well-defined network
infrastructure, e.g., the use of Kerberos protocol to
exchange credentials.
The second research area endorses the idea of using
users’ past interactions (reputation) to assess trust, and
it is frequently adopted in recommendation systems,
peer-to-peer networks, and social networks.
Many proposals for trust evaluations have been
formulated in this context; the first work is the
Eigentrust algorithm by Garcia-Molina in 2003,
followed by Peertrust (2003), Powertrust (2007), and
Gossiptrust (2008); authors of each algorithm use dif-
ferent criteria to evaluate trust, and also focus on its
performance, scalability, and robustness to malicious
attacks.
The third research area deals with the need to estab-
lish the reliability of web resources (known as informa-
tion quality) and sites (provenance); by leveraging trust
to achieve these goals, agents in the Semantic Web will
make decisions autonomously, thus providing users
with the best information available. Well-known
works in this area include the PageRank algorithm,
whose original goal was to rate web pages using hyper-
links and, as their authors wrote, “. . .can help the user
to decide if a site is trustworthy or not,” so it can be
used as a trust metric. A more recent work is
TrustWebRank (2009), that proposes a mechanism for
personalized (i.e., local approach) and dynamic trust
evaluation in social networks, and it addresses specifi-
cally the question of network evolution over time,
analyzing what happens when nodes leave the network
or new nodes join (hence the adjective “dynamic”).
Trust in e-learning involves both “reputation-based
trust” and “trust on the web” research areas, so results
cited above allow to leverage trust into e-learning
activities; some specific consideration can though be
added. In particular, (Fisler and Firestone 2006) high-
lights the positive role of trust in supporting the idea of
collective responsibility for student success, i.e., learn-
ing is a common goal for which all teachers are respon-
sible, and trust among them helps to enforce this idea.
Trust among students however usually is considered
the most relevant in several works. In (Chih-Wei and
Gwo-Dong 2007), the use of a trust management sys-
tem is proposed to students in a computer-supported
cooperative learning (CSCL) environment; the work
shows how collaboration performances increase with
the presence of trust.
A more extensive analysis (Gerdes 2010) about
preconditions for trust (including ethics and philoso-
phy) in CSCL confirms that trustful interactions in
virtual teams play a central role, but also point out
the fact that trust in virtual environment suffers from
the lack of bodily presence of both counterparts, and
also from the lack of personal long-term behavior sta-
bility, i.e., a person is unlikely to achieve a stable idea
about its performances over time within a virtual envi-
ronment (for instance, he/she can decide at any time to
leave the social network). These factors limit the phil-
osophical idea of trust as self-surrender, but an effective
evaluation of trust is possible thanks to social networks,
discussion boards and chat rooms, where trust can be
built upon social cues likes the attitude to positive
interactions, the kindness, or an helpful behavior, in
turn exploiting online reputation systems; in a few
words, trust is a tool to incentivize users mutual
cooperation.
In summary, the shared opinion is that trust plays
an important role in learning activities, for teachers,
students, and resources management; however,
a unified approach to its evaluation seems still missing,
also due to its multidisciplinary nature. Some open
questions are currently discussed in research commu-
nity, in particular:
1. Who the trustee and trustor are (user-user, user-
resource, user-website, user-network. . .), and what
consequences this will have on trust definition and
evaluation?
2. More and more large and complex networks (social
networks, CSCL environments with tens or hun-
dreds of thousands nodes) aim at embodying the
 Twentyfirst Century Skills and Competencies T 3353

concept of trust to effectively accomplish their pur-

poses, so trust evaluation approaches have to take Twenty-First-Century
into account critical factors as the performance, the Competencies
scalability, and the dynamic evolution of networks.
▶ 21st-Century Skills and Competencies
Cross-References
▶ Community of Learners
▶ Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning
▶ Cooperative Learning
▶ e-Learning and Digital Learning
Twenty-First-Century Learning
▶ Network Communities ▶ 21st-Century Skills and Competencies
▶ Social Interactions and Learning

References
Artz, D., & Gil, Y. (2007). A survey of trust in computer science and
the Semantic Web. Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on Twenty-First-Century Skills
the World Wide Web. 5(2), 58–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/
j.websem.2007.03.002 ▶ Learning in Information-Rich Environments
Chih-Wei, C., & Gwo-Dong, C. (2007). A methodology to facilitate
inter-trust in computer supported collaborative learning. IEEE
International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies
(pp. 71–73). Seventh IEEE International Conference on
Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT), July 18–20, 2007.
Fisler, J., & Firestone, W., (2006). Teacher learning in a school- Twentyfirst Century Skills and
university partnership: Exploring the role of social trust and Competencies
teaching efficacy beliefs. Teachers College Record 108(6), 1155–
1185. http://www.tcrecord.org. ID Number: 12521 CHARLES FADEL1, BERNIE TRILLING2
Gerdes, A., (2010). Revealing preconditions for trustful collaboration 1
21st Century Learning LLC, Boston, MA, USA
in CSCL. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collabo- 2
rative Learning, 5(3), 345–353. ISSN 1556–1607, New York: 21st-Century Learning Consultant, Palo Alto,
Springer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11412-010-9090-8 CA, USA
Li, N., El Helou, S., & Gillet, D., (2010). Trust-based rating prediction
for recommendation in web 2.0 collaborative learning social
software. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on
information Technology Based Higher Education and Training, Synonyms
Cappadocia, Turkey, April 29 – May 01, 2010 (pp 197–201). Twenty-first-century competencies; Twenty-first-
Piscataway: IEEE Press. century learning
Marsh, S. P., (1994). Formalising trust as a computational concept.
PhD thesis, University of Stirling.
Definition T
Twenty-first-century learning, or the twenty-first-
century Skills Movement as it is commonly known
(Trilling and Fadel 2009), refers to a global movement
Try-Step Abuse Model to redefine education goals and transform learning
practice in response to the question, “What do students
▶ Guessing Model need to learn for life in our times?” – A world that is
rapidly evolving from the industrial to the knowledge
and innovation era.
Since this is a global topic, taxonomy matters sig-
Tutoring nificantly: the word “skill” may appear as “competen-
cies” in some languages. In others, such as English,
▶ Coaching and Mentoring some users draw the definition as the formula
3354 T Twentyfirst Century Skills and Competencies

“Knowledge + Skills = Competencies.” In French, there Important Scientific Research and

is the progression from “savoir” (knowledge) to
“savoir-faire” (literally know-how; skill) to “compe-
tences” (competencies). “Knowledge” here refers to
how people store their experiences within their minds
as cognitive structures, and “skill” is defined as dexter-
ity in relation to the execution of a mental or physical
task performance. “Competency” is then a measure of
task performance, indicated by graduated scales such as
“novice” to “competent” to “expert” performance.
Theoretical Background
Though there are timeless similarities, what constitutes
a well-educated person in a nineteenth-century agrar-
ian society differs dramatically from the competencies
of a well-educated twenty-first-century citizen. Global-
ization is imposing significant pressures on businesses
to remain competitive, and societal woes (environmen-
tal, financial, etc.) drive the demand for better-
equipped citizenry.
The movement from agrarian, to industrial, to
knowledge and innovation economies requires the use
of concrete, abstract, and creative thought processes.
This in turns implies teaching not only knowledge, but
also its application, via a range of skills such as imag-
ination and creativity, communication and collabora-
tion, etc.
Open Questions
Twenty-First-Century Educational
Goals
Arising from a number of initiatives to define the
critical knowledge, skills and competencies needed
by our increasingly information driven and technolog-
ically powered societies (Trilling and Fadel 2009;
US Department of Labor 1992; European Union
Lisbon Council on Skills and Human Capital 2010),
21st learning proponents advocate an expanded set of
educational goals, as in the Partnership for twenty-
first-Century Skills (P21) learning framework (P21
2010) as depicted in Fig. 1.
In this model, the “rainbow” above represents the
goals, standards, or intended outcomes of learning for
21st students, and the concentric circles below indicate
the learning–support systems that enable the goals.
The learning goals include traditional core subject
knowledge areas, such as math, science, language,
etc.; interdisciplinary and contemporary thematic con-
tent, such as environmental, health, financial, and civic
literacy; and three sets of essential skills, representing
the application of content knowledge (see Table 1).
A number of frameworks exist, and Table 2 com-
pares the most prominent. There is a significant

Learning and
Innovation Skills

Core Subjects and

21st Century Themes Information,
Life and Media, and
Career Skills Technology
Skills

Standards and
Assessments

Curriculum and Instruction

Professional Development

Learning Environments

Twentyfirst Century Skills and Competencies. Fig. 1 P21 framework for twenty-first-century learning
 Twentyfirst Century Skills and Competencies T 3355

Twentyfirst Century Skills and Competencies. Table 1 P21 skills

Learning and innovation – the 4 Cs Digital literacy Career and life
Critical thinking and problem solving Information literacy Flexibility and adaptability
Communications Media literacy Initiative and self-direction
Collaboration ICT literacy Social and cross-cultural interaction
Creativity and innovation Productivity and accountability
Leadership and responsibility

Twentyfirst Century Skills and Competencies. Table 2 Comparison of the various global frameworks

European
Partnership for twenty-first-century Commission ISTE ETS OECD
Skills skills (P21) (Lisbon) ATC21S NETS iSkills PISA NAEP
Creativity and X X X X
innovation
Critical thinking X X X X
Problem solving X X X X X X X
Decision making X (part of problem solving) X X
Communication X X X X X
Collaboration X X X X
Information literacy X X X X X
Research and (part of curriculum and instruction X X
inquiry guidelines – not a standard)
Media literacy X
Digital citizenship X (part of information literacy; in synch X
with ISTE NETS)
ICT operations and X (part of information literacy; in synch X X X X
concepts with ISTE NETS)
Flexibility and X X X T
adaptability
Initiative and self- X X
direction
Productivity X
Leadership and X X
responsibility
Integrated with X (base of construct: knowledge AND X X
school subjects skills)
Learning to learn; X (instruction-level implementation) X
metacognition
“X” indicates that the skill is included in the identified framework
3356 T Two-Choice Reaction Time Task
consensus between them, particularly as it comes to
the 4 Cs: Critical thinking, Communication, Collabo-
ration, Creativity (in italics in the table below).
Twenty-First-Century Learning
Methods
Equally important to 21st learning is the application of
learning science research and principles to education
methods and the design of learning activities, projects,
assessments, and environments. Principles of effective
learning important to 21st education practitioners
include (Bransford et al. 1999):
● Authentic learning – learning from real-world
problems and questions
● Mental model building – using physical and virtual
models to refine understanding
● Internal motivation – identifying and employing
positive emotional connections in learning
● Multimodal learning – applying multiple learning
methods for diverse learning styles
● Social learning – using the power of social interac-
tion to improve learning impact
A particularly effective learning method that incorpo-
rates these principles is “Project Learning”: inquiry – and
design-based, collaborative learning projects (Markham
et al. 2003). Students in well-designed and managed
learning projects often produce artifacts (reports, models,
simulations, presentations, inventions, videos, etc.) that
can be evaluated for both content understanding and skill
proficiency, and can demonstrate increasing competency
when included in an ongoing project portfolio.
Assessments, for their part, need to evolve as well,
and there is a sustained call for
● Better summative assessments: authentic, problem-
based, not simplistic multiple choice, and assessing
multiple dimensions of the learner
● Many more formative assessments: real-time,
across the instructional cycle, performance-based,
and assessing multiple dimensions across all skills
and understandings
Open Questions
● Resistance to change of highly interlocked educa-
tional systems - standards, assessments, curriculum
and instruction, professional development, and
learning environments
● Scarcity of solid guiding materials for Project
Learning, including database of effective projects
and practices
● Insufficient teacher training on classroom project
design and management
● Readiness and science of formative assessments
that measure 21st skills. This is being addressed by
www.atc21s.org as well as other organizations.
Cross-References
▶ Assessment of Learning
▶ Collaborative Learning and Critical Thinking
▶ Critical Thinking and Learning
▶ Cross-Disciplinary Learning
▶ Literacy and Learning
▶ Measurement of Creativity
▶ Multimodal Learning Through Media
▶ Problem-Based Learning
References
Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.). (1999). How
people learn: Brain, mind, experience and school (expanded ed.).
Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
European Union Lisbon Council on Skills and Human Capital. (2010,
June 18). Skills and Human Capital. Retrieved April 18, 2011,
from http://www.lisboncouncil.net/initiatives/human-capital.
html
Markham, T., Larmer, J., & Ravitz, J. (2003). Project based learning
handbook: A guide to standards-focused project based learning for
middle and high school teachers. Novato: Buck Institute of
Education.
P21 (2010, June 18). Framework for 21st century learning. Retrieved
April 18, 2011, from http://p21.org/index.php?option=com_-
content&task=view&id=254 &Itemid=119
Trilling, B., & Fadel, C. (2009). 21st century skills: Learning for life in
our times. San Francisco: Wiley/Jossey-Bass.
US Department of Labor, Secretary’s Commission on Achieving
Necessary Skills (SCANS). (1992). Learning a living: A blueprint
for high performance. Washington, DC: US Department of Labor.
Two-Choice Reaction Time Task
▶ Choice Reaction Time and Learning
Two-Factor Theory
The idea that there are two basic learning processes:
emotional conditioning, produced by the Pavlovian

pairing of conditioned stimuli (CSs) with uncondi-
tioned stimuli (USs), and instrumental conditioning,
produced by the stamping in of Thorndikian stimulus-
response (S-R) associations by drive reduction (as in
drive-reduction theory). Two-factor theory, articulated
by Mowrer in 1947, was a reaction to monistic theories
of learning that either suggested that all learning was due
to Pavlovian conditioning or that all learning was due to
the law of effect. Two-factor theory proposed that nei-
ther form of learning is reducible to the other. The two
forms of learning can, however, interact. For example,
suppose that a subject (either a human or a nonhuman
animal) learns to fear a CS via Pavlovian pairings of the
CS with an aversive US. If the subject is subsequently
allowed to perform a response that terminates the CS,
two-factor theory predicts that the response should be
reinforced, because fear is assumed to be a drive, and the
reduction in fear produced by the CS termination is
therefore assumed to be reinforcing. These predictions
were confirmed by the results of acquired-drive experi-
ments and form the basis for one of the most influential
explanations for avoidance learning.
References
Mowrer, O. H. (1947). On the dual nature of learning-a reinterpre-
tation of conditioning and problem solving. Harvard Educa-
tional Review, 17, 102–148.
Two-Process Models
▶ Dual-Process Models of Information Processing
Typicality Effect on Learning
ERIN JONES HIGGINS1, BRIAN H. ROSS2
1
Psychology Department, University of Illinois,
Champaign, IL, USA
2
Psychology Department, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA
Synonyms
Family resemblance; Graded category structure; Proto-
type effects
Typicality Effect on Learning T 3357
Definition
A category is a class of items, grouped together for
some purpose. Some category members are better
examples of a category than others. For example,
most people would agree that a blue jay is a better
example of a bird than a penguin. Not because we have
a preference for blue jays over penguins, but because
of the typicality of each bird. A typical category mem-
ber has properties that are true across most if not all
members of the category. An atypical category mem-
ber has fewer properties shared with other category
members as well as properties that tend to occur in
items from other categories. When learning about
a category, the typicality of the items encountered
has an impact on what knowledge is acquired about
the category as well as how easily the category is
learned. The typicality effect on learning is that typical
items are learned earlier than atypical items – they
provide more information about properties that are
common across most category members and they
have more category typical properties. Imagine trying
to learn what a bird is by only seeing penguins and
ostriches. It would be very difficult to develop an accu-
rate prototype, or best category member, because most
of these examples’ properties are atypical (e.g., pen-
guins and ostriches cannot fly).
Theoretical Background
There are several current theories of how categories are
represented, most of which can account for typicality
effects in learning, but the prototype view provides the
simplest explanation. According to the prototype view,
the category’s prototype is a summary representation
of the category’s typical features, which is learned
through experience with category members. This view
captures the idea that the members of a category are T
similar to one another and share many features, but not
all members must have all of the category features.
Category membership is determined by comparing an
item to the prototype. If the item shares more features
with the category’s prototype than with other catego-
ries’ prototypes, then it is a member of the category.
Some items are better (i.e., more typical) category
members than others, but how is typicality deter-
mined? Typicality is measured as an item’s family
resemblance compared to other category members
(Rosch and Mervis 1975). If one looks at
a photograph of an extended family, including a few
3358 T Typicality Effect on Learning
generations, one will see that the family members share
a number of features, with some members having more
of the family features than others. Rosch and Mervis
defined family resemblance as the extent to which an
item overlaps with the category’s prototype and does
not overlap with other categories’ prototypes. They
demonstrated that most natural categories have
a family resemblance structure by showing that items
possessing more features typical of their respective
categories were more likely to be rated as typical than
those items possessing fewer typical features. Addition-
ally, items possessing more features typical of other
categories were rated as less typical than items with
fewer features typical of other categories. To eliminate
potential confounds in the interpretations of these
correlations, these effects were also replicated with arti-
ficial categories – items were rated as more typical if
they possessed more category typical features than
other items and if they overlapped less with members
of another category (Rosch and Mervis 1975).
The typicality of an item affects both learning and
use. If a learner is presented with a variety of different
items during learning of multiple categories, he or she
will learn to accurately classify the typical examples
before learning the atypical examples (Rosch and
Mervis 1975). Once a category is learned, typical
items are classified faster than atypical items (e.g.,
Rips et al. 1973). It is easier for learners to see how
typical examples relate to each other and the summary
representation (because they have many of the same
features) than it is to see how atypical examples relate
to other typical or atypical examples, thus making it
easier to learn and classify the typical examples.
Children are also affected by an item’s typicality
during learning. Children learn to classify typical cate-
gory members before they learn to classify atypical
category members, even when provided with the entire
set of category members in a random order (Mervis
and Pani 1980). Additionally, Meints et al. (1999)
showed that the age of acquisition is lower for typical
compared to atypical examples. In their study, 12-
month-old infants identified typical but not atypical
targets as members of a familiar, named category,
where identification was measured as the difference in
looking time between the target and the distracter (i.e.,
longer looking times to the target than to the
distracter).
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Given that typical items are learned and accessed faster,
what are the implications for how one might better
learn categories? Researchers have shown that the
types of examples encountered during learning affect
how well a category is learned. Mervis and Pani (1980)
demonstrated that both children and adults will
acquire a category faster and generalize what they
learn to novel items more accurately if they learn with
typical examples than if they learn with only atypical
examples. This is because typical items have the most in
common with other members of the same category and
very little in common with members of other catego-
ries. Atypical items, on the other hand, have some
similarity to items in other categories, which makes it
more difficult to learn to categorize them and figure
out what features and feature values are prototypical
and relevant for category membership. For instance, it
is easier to figure out what mammals are like by
encountering dogs and cats rather than whales and
dolphins.
The order in which the examples are encountered
affects how well a category is learned. Learners will
acquire more knowledge about a category, as measured
by item-by-item typicality ratings and classification
accuracy on a final test, if they are shown the typical,
or best example, items at the beginning of learning
followed by more atypical items (Elio and Anderson
1984). This is compared to a random ordering of items
or atypical items followed by typical ones. One expla-
nation for this effect is that the learner will generate
hypotheses based on the initial items encountered and
will use the remainder of the items to test and refine the
hypotheses. If typical items are shown first, then those
features common to most category members will be
encountered more often at the beginning of learning,
thus allowing learners to generate the appropriate
hypotheses.
Even though it is helpful to see typical items before
atypical items, the benefits of learning are not just due
to seeing good items earlier. Interestingly, if the best
item, the prototype, is presented a few times before
seeing other category items, then category learning is
slowed. Performance is worse than just seeing typical
items first, but also even worse compared to seeing
atypical items first or a random order of items

(Elio and Anderson 1984). Learning about the category
involves not just the most common features, but also
learning about the variability of the features. In this
prototype-repetition-first case, learners are not able to
learn the probability of each feature occurring across all
members, making it difficult to generalize to less typical
items.
There are ways of improving learning that take
advantage of the typicality of items, but do people
know and use this advantage? There is some evidence
that people understand the effect typicality has on
learning and can effectively choose which examples
should be studied next. Avrahami et al. (1997) used
a teaching-by-examples paradigm, where participants
learn about two categories and then teach the catego-
ries to someone else. They found that the most com-
mon teaching sequence participants employed, across
a variety of situations, consisted of typical examples
followed by atypical examples.
There are many open questions that still need to be
considered. One question is whether the typicality
effect on learning depends on the variation of instances
within a category as well as the similarities and differ-
ences between that category and the categories neces-
sary to distinguish it from. A second is whether these
different orders for learning categories influence the
category representation. A third question is how one’s
background knowledge and prior experiences with the
Typicality Effect on Learning T 3359
category might influence the typicality of items and
typicality effects in learning. A final question is the
degree to which these effects might be used to improve
learning in real-world education situations.
Cross-References
▶ Categorical Learning
▶ Categorical Representation
▶ Concept Formation: Characteristics and Functions
▶ Conceptual Clustering
▶ Schema(s)
References
Avrahami, J., Kareev, Y., Bogot, Y., Caspi, R., Dunaevsky, S., & Lerner,
S. (1997). Teaching by examples: Implications for the process of
category acquisition. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psy-
chology, 50A, 586–606.
Elio, R., & Anderson, J. R. (1984). The effects of information order
and learning mode on schema abstraction. Memory & Cognition,
12, 20–30.
Meints, K., Plunkett, K., & Harris, P. L. (1999). When does an ostrich
become a bird: The role of prototypes in early word comprehen-
sion. Developmental Psychology, 35, 1072–1078.
Mervis, C. B., & Pani, J. R. (1980). Acquisition of basic object cate-
gories. Cognitive Psychology, 12, 496–522.
Rips, L. J., Shoben, E. J., & Smith, E. E. (1973). Semantic distance and
the verification of semantic relations. Journal of Verbal Learning
and Verbal Behavior, 12, 1–20.
Rosch, E., & Mervis, B. (1975). Family resemblances: Studies in the
internal structure of categories. Cognitive Psychology, 7, 573–605.