Learning from One’s Mistakes:
Effects of Age and Error Processing
Nicole D. Anderson, PhD, CPsych
Associate Professor, Psychiatry & Psychology, University of Toronto
Senior Scientist, Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest
York Neuropsychology Rounds – January 7, 2013
Errors in Everyday Life
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Outline
• Background
• Improving errorless learning
• Lubinsky, Rich, & Anderson (2009)
• Guild & Anderson (2012)
• Improving trial-and-error learning
• Cyr & Anderson (2012a)
• Cyr & Anderson (2012b)
• Cyr & Anderson (a couple in prep)
• A Framework of Error Processing in Episodic Memory
• Future Directions
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Baddeley & Wilson (1994)
• 16 people with amnesia (20-69)
• 16 healthy old (61-79)
• 16 healthy young (20-58)
• 5-word list
• 10-word list
• 10-word list
Three learning trials (data not provided), followed by
nine additional trials with the same word list,
conducted twice with different words.
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Baddeley & Wilson (1994)
“BRAIN”?
TEL BR____?
“BRIDGE”?
BRICK
“BRIM”?
EL
MU___?
Providing the world with innovations in aging
MUSTARD
Baddeley & Wilson (1994)
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Errorless Learning
• Acquired brain injury
•
•
•
•
• Aging, MCI, AD
Glisky et al. 1986
Kalla et al. 2001
Riley et al. 2004
Haslam et al. 2012
•
•
•
•
•
•
• Amnesia / Memory
Impairment
•
•
•
•
•
Hamman & Squire 1995
Squires et al. 1997
Hunkin et al. 1998
Tailby & Haslam 2003
Page et al. 2006
Lubinsky, Rich, & Anderson 2009
Ruis & Kessels 2005
Haslam et al. 2006
Anderson et al. 2012
Guild & Anderson 2012
Laffan et al 2010
• Semantic Dementia
• Jokel & Anderson 2012
• But see…
• Korsakoff’s
• Komatsu et al. 2000
Providing the world with innovations in aging
•
•
•
•
Evans et al. 2000
Dunn 2003
Dunn & Clare 2007
Kessels 2007
But hold on….
Errorless Learning
× Entirely passive
× Encourages shallow
processing
Trial-and-Error Learning
Active and effortful
Encourages deep
processing
Providing the world with innovations in aging
But hold on…
Passive
WA___
war-wand-walnut;
WALRUS
TEL
EL
Active
WA___
WALRUS
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Outline
• Background
• Improving errorless learning
• Lubinsky, Rich, & Anderson (2009)
• Guild & Anderson (2012)
• Improving trial-and-error learning
• Cyr & Anderson (2012a)
• Cyr & Anderson (2012b)
• Cyr & Anderson (a couple in prep)
• A Framework of Error Processing in Episodic Memory
• Future Directions
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Tailby & Haslam (2003)
Passive
Active
TEL
WA___
wall-wallet-walnut;
WALRUS
EL
WA___
A mammal with tusks
WALRUS
WA___
WALRUS
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Tailby & Haslam (2003)
• 24 people with mixed bag episodic memory
impairment: 8 mild, 8 moderate, 8 severe
• 12-word lists, each presented 3x
– Errorless – Passive (EL-P)
– Errorless – Active (EL-A)
– Trial-and-Error – Active (TEL-A)
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Tailby & Haslam (2003)
12
Immediate Cued Recall
10
8
EL-P
6
EL-A
TEL-A
4
2
0
Mild
Moderate
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Severe
Tobi Lubinsky
• 23 healthy older adults
• 23 people with singledomain amnestic MCI
• Four lists encoded
– Free recall
– Cued recall
• Final recognition for all
four lists
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Tailby & Haslam (2003)
Passive
Active
TEL
WA___
wall-wallet-walnut;
WALRUS
EL
WA___
A mammal with tusks
WALRUS
WA___
WALRUS
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Lubinsky et al. (2009)
Passive
Active
TEL
WAL___
wall-wallet-walnut;
WALRUS
Mammal; Tusks
WAL___
wall-wallet-walnut;
WALRUS
Mammal; Tusks
EL
WAL___
WALRUS
Mammal; Tusks
WAL___
Mammal; Tusks
WALRUS
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Lubinsky, Rich, & Anderson (2009) JINS
Lubinsky et al. (2009)
Passive
Active
Errorless
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Passive
Active
Trial-and-Error
Lubinsky, Rich, & Anderson (2009) JINS
Lubinsky et al. (2009)
• Results replicated in second study using sentence
stems (e.g., Hank reached into his pocket to get
the _______).
• Benefit of active errorless learning present only
when generation cues recapitulated at retrieval
 Free recall (Study 1 and 2)
 Yes/No recognition (walrus?) (Study 1)
Cued Recall (Study 1 and 2)
Cued Recognition (Study 2)
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Lubinsky, Rich, & Anderson (2009) JINS
Lubinsky et al. (2009)
• Consistent with multifactor view of generation
effect (Hirshman & Bjork, 1988; McDaniel et
al., 1990)
– Item-specific : yes/no recognition
– Cue-target : cued recall (tusks - ???) and cued
recognition (Hank reached into his pocket to get
the _______)
– Inter-item : free recall
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Lubinsky, Rich, & Anderson (2009) JINS
Emma Guild
• 32 healthy older adults
• Categorized or uncategorized word lists
(between-Ss)
• Four lists: EL-P, EL-A, TEL-P, TEL-A
• Free recall after each list; final cued recall
• Predicted EL-active advantage for unrelated
lists in cued recall, and for related lists in free
recall
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Lubinsky et al. (2009)
Passive
Active
TEL
WAL___
wall-wallet-walnut;
WALRUS
Mammal; Tusks
WAL___
wall-wallet-walnut;
WALRUS
Mammal; Tusks
EL
WAL___
WALRUS
Mammal; Tusks
WAL___
Mammal; Tusks
WALRUS
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Lubinsky, Rich, & Anderson (2009) JINS
Guild & Anderson (2012)
TEL
EL
Passive
Active
ANIMAL
Dog-Horse-Pig
Hop – r_bb_t: RABBIT
ANIMAL
Dog-Horse-Pig
Hop – r_bb_it
RABBIT
ANIMAL
Hop – r_bb_t: RABBIT
ANIMAL
Hop – r_bb_it
RABBIT
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Guild & Anderson (2012) ANC
Guild & Anderson (2012)
Proportion Correct
Cued Recall
1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
Related
Unrelated
Passive
Active
Errorless
Passive 2
Active 2
Trial-and-Error
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Guild & Anderson (2012) ANC
Guild & Anderson (2012)
Proportion Correct
Free Recall
1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
Related
Unrelated
Passive
Active
Errorless
Passive 2
Active 2
Trial-and-Error
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Guild & Anderson (2012) ANC
Improving Errorless Learning
• Active errorless learning is more advantageous
than passive errorless learning, but only when
the processes evoked by generation at
encoding are recapitulated at retrieval
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Lubinsky, Rich, & Anderson (2009) JINS
Outline
• Background
• Improving errorless learning
• Lubinsky, Rich, & Anderson (2009)
• Guild & Anderson (2012)
• Improving trial-and-error learning
• Cyr & Anderson (2012a)
• Cyr & Anderson (2012b)
• Cyr & Anderson (a couple in prep)
• A Framework of Error Processing in Episodic Memory
• Future Directions
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Andrée-Ann Cyr
• Website
https://sites.google.com/site/andreeanncyr/
• Email
andreeann.cyr@mail.utoronto.ca
Providing the world with innovations in aging
But hold on….
Errorless Learning
× Entirely passive
× Encourages shallow
processing
Trial-and-Error Learning
Active and effortful
Encourages deep
processing
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Perceptual Learning
“BRIM”?
TEL BRI____?
“BRIDGE”?
BRICK
“BRIDE”?
EL MUS___?
MUSTARD
EL > TEL
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Conceptual Learning
“ROSE”?
TEL
A flower?
“ORCHID”?
TULIP
“VIOLET”?
EL
A sport?
SOCCER
EL < TEL
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Cyr & Anderson (2012a)
“ORCHID”?
TEL
A flower?
EL
A sport?
“VIOLET”?
TULIP
SOCCER
33 younger adults
31 older adults
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Cyr & Anderson (2012) Psych & Aging
Cyr & Anderson (2012a): Study 1
Process dissociation procedure (Jacoby, 1991)
 Double exclusion task
• Prediction (cf. Anderson & Craik, 2006):
– Recollection: TEL > EL
– Familiarity: EL > TEL
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Cyr & Anderson (2012) Psych & Aging
Cyr & Anderson (2012a): Study 1
Familiarity
Recollection
1.0
1.0
0.9
0.9
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
0.5
0.5
0.4
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0.0
0.0
Younger
Older
EL
TEL
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Younger
Older
EL
TEL
Cyr & Anderson (2012) Psych & Aging
Cyr & Anderson (2012a): Study 2
“ORCHID”?
TEL
A flower?
EL
A sport?
“VIOLET”?
TULIP
SOCCER
15 younger adults
15 older adults
Recognition: All target words, first errors, and new words in random order
“Is this a target word, a word you provided as a guess, or a new word?”
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Cyr & Anderson (2012) Psych & Aging
Cyr & Anderson (2012a): Study 2
Proportion correct source memory
1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
Younger
Older
EL
Providing the world with innovations in aging
TEL
Cyr & Anderson (2012) Psych & Aging
Conceptual Learning
“ROSE”?
TEL
A flower?
“ORCHID”?
TULIP
“VIOLET”?
EL
A sport?
SOCCER
EL < TEL
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Cyr & Anderson (in progress)
TEST- Conceptual
EL
TEST- Perceptual
br____
A flower
Target?
Target?
TEL
tr____
A fruit
Guess 1?
Guess 2?
Target?
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Guess 1?
Guess 2?
Target?
Cyr & Anderson (in progress)
Proportion correct cued recall
1.00
0.90
0.80
0.70
0.60
0.50
0.40
0.30
0.20
0.10
0.00
EL-Target
TEL-Target
Conceptual
TEL-Errors
Perceptual
n = 16 older adults
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Study 4 Cue Constraint
– High cloze sentences (EL or TEL)
You can’t buy anything for a
______
– Low cloze sentences (EL or TEL)
There is something grand about
the ______
Cued Recall
 You can’t buy anything for a ______.
 There’s something grand about the ______.
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Cyr & Anderson (in prep)
• 56 younger adults; 56 older adults
• Prediction:
– “Close” conceptual errors will be less
beneficial than “far” conceptual errors.
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Cyr & Anderson (in prep)
Older adults
1.0
1.0
0.9
0.9
0.8
0.8
Proportion correct cued recall
Proportion correct cued recall
Younger Adults
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.1
0.0
0.0
Low-Cloze
High-Cloze
EL
TEL
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Low-Cloze
EL
High-Cloze
TEL
Cyr & Anderson (2012b): Study 1
“What is the capital of Australia?”
Response: “Sidney”
Confidence: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Answer: Canberra
21 younger adults
18 older adults
“What is the last name of the man who invented dynamite?”
Response “I don’t know….Jones”
Confidence: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Answer: Nobel
 Hypercorrection effect (Butterfield & Metcalfe, 2001)
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Cyr & Anderson (in purgatory)
Cyr & Anderson (2012b): Study 1
Proportion correct free recall
1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
Younger
0.4
Older
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Confidence in errors on initial test
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Cyr & Anderson (in purgatory)
Cyr & Anderson (2012b): Study 2
What is the last name of the author who wrote
‘Canterbury Tales’?
1) Austin
2) Shakespeare
How many alternatives did you
narrow it down to?
3) Chaucer
0 1 2 3 4
4) Joyce
5) Dickens
19 younger adults
17 older adults
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Cyr & Anderson (in purgatory)
Study 5b Hypercorrection
Proportion correct free recall
1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
Younger
0.4
Older
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
1
2
3
4
5
Rescaled confidence in errors on initial test
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Cyr & Anderson (in purgatory)
Improving Trial-and-Error Learning
• Neuropsychological literature has long
embraced errorless learning
• Our research turns this viewpoint on its head
– conceptual errors can benefit memory –
they can serve as stepping stones towards
better learning for older adults
–“If a mistake is not a stepping
stone, it is a mistake.” Eli Siegel
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Outline
• Background
• Improving errorless learning
• Lubinsky, Rich, & Anderson (2009)
• Guild & Anderson (2012)
• Improving trial-and-error learning
• Cyr & Anderson (2012a)
• Cyr & Anderson (2012b)
• Cyr & Anderson (a couple in prep)
• A Framework of Error Processing in Episodic Memory
• Future Directions
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Framework of Error Processing
Braver et al., 2007
PERCEPTUAL  BR______?
Proactive control
“BRIDGE?”
WRONG!
Reactive control
CONCEPTUAL  A flower?
Proactive control
“ROSE?”
Providing the world with innovations in aging
WRONG!
Reactive control
Future Directions
• Can conceptual errors confer a mnemonic
benefit for people with episodic memory
impairment (MCI, mild AD)?
• Are these effects specific to episodic learning?
Or can errors be beneficial for procedural or
spatial learning?
•But see…
• How long do these effects last? • Evans et al. 2000
• Dunn 2003
• Dunn & Clare 2007
• Kessels 2007
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Thank You!
nanderson@research.baycrest.org
Vinay Kansal
Nisha Kansal
Janice Babins
Andrea Maione
Laura Stefanik
Kashfia Alam
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Guild & Anderson (2012)
“ROSE”?
TEL
A flower?
“ORCHID”?
Hollandt_l_p
TULIP
“VIOLET”?
EL
A sport?
SOCCER
EL > TEL
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Study 1 Recollection and familiarity
• Design:
– Learning condition (EL/EF) INTERMIXED presentation
within-subjects
• Materials:
– 240 semantic categories each with four associates
– Target assignment (1, 2, 3 or 4) counterbalanced
• Participants:
– 31 younger and 33 healthy older adults
– MMSE, Shipley vocabulary scale, HVLT, Digit-symbol
• Procedure:
– Study and Test phases self-paced
– Brief delay between study-test (5 minutes or so)
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Cyr & Anderson (2012) Psych & Aging
Study 1 Recollection and familiarity
• Other findings/notes:
– Older adults made more false alarms to prior learning
errors relative to young adults
– We included a “Read” condition, not reported here
because it doesn’t add to the findings (we found an
expect YA > OA at recognition for Read words)
– We did control for generation (A flower  R_s_) and
participants never made mistakes in generation in
either EL or TEL. We are not reporting generation
because in other studies we did not control for it and
found the same effect (TEL > EL)
– No age differences in generation times at study
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Cyr & Anderson (2012) Psych & Aging
Study 2 Source Memory
• Design:
– Learning condition (EL/EF) INTERMIXED presentation within-subjects
• Materials:
– 56 semantic categories each with four associates (28 EL and 28 TEL)
– Target assignment (1, 2, 3 or 4) counterbalanced across participants
• Participants:
– 15 younger and 15 healthy older adults
– Health screening
– MMSE, Shipley vocabulary scale
•
Procedure:
– Study and Test phases self-paced
– Brief delay between study-test (5 minutes or so)
– CATCH TRIALS included (told their guesses are correct
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Cyr & Anderson (2012) Psych & Aging
Study 2 Source Memory
• Other findings:
– Like in Study 1, older adults made more false
alarms to prior learning errors relative to young
adults
– We included catch trials in Study 2 and still
corroborated Study 1
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Cyr & Anderson (2012) Psych & Aging
Study 3 Errors as stepping stones
• Design:
– Learning condition (EL/TEL) BLOCKED presentation withinsubjects
– Perceptual/conceptual between subjects
• Materials:
– 32 categories each with four associates (16 EL and 16 TEL)
– Target assignment (1, 2, or 3) counterbalanced across
participants
• Procedure:
– Study and Test phases self-paced
– 10 minute delay between study-test
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Study 4 Cue Constraint
• Design
– Learning condition (EL/TEL) BLOCKED within-subject
– HIGH/LOW between subjects
• Participants:
– 56 younger and 56 healthy older adults
• Materials:
– 108 sentence stems (54 HIGH and 54 LOW)
• Procedure:
– 20 minute delay between study and test  TETRIS
– Study and Test phases self-paced
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Study 5a Hypercorrection
• Materials:
– 150 general knowledge questions
• Nelson & Narens (1980)
• Participants:
– 21 younger and 18 older adults
– Shipley, HADS, MMSE
• Procedure:
– Participants tested in groups of 5-10
– 15 minute delay  Shipley, HADS, washroom break
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Study 5a Hypercorrection
1.0
Proportion correct free recall
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
Initial test
Younger
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Final test
Older
Study 5b Hypercorrection
• Materials:
– 170 general knowledge questions
• Nelson & Narens (1980) and other sources
• Participants:
– 19 younger and 17 older adults
– Shipley, HADS, MMSE
• Procedure:
– Participants tested individually
– 20 minute delay  TETRIS
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Study 5b Hypercorrection
1.0
0.9
Proportion correct free recall
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
Initial test
Younger
Providing the world with innovations in aging
Final test
Older
Anderson, Guild, Cyr, Roberts, & Clare (2011)