The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

[Carrie McLaren <temporary181 AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

Monkeys seem to learn the same way humans do, a new research study indicates.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070801161511.htm
August 1, 2007

A rhesus monkey chooses between images on a touch-screen computer 
monitor. In a new study, monkeys were asked to select five 
photographs in a particular order. (Credit: Herbert Terrace/Columbia 
University)

"Like humans, monkeys benefit enormously from being actively involved 
in learning instead of having information presented to them 
passively," said Nate Kornell, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar in 
psychology and lead author of the study, which appears in the August 
issue of the journal Psychological Science. "The advantage of active 
learning appears to be a fundamental property of memory in humans and 
nonhumans alike."

In Kornell's study, conducted when he was a psychology graduate 
student at Columbia University, two rhesus macaque monkeys learned to 
place five photographs in a particular order. The photographs were 
displayed on a touch-screen computer monitor similar to those found 
on ATMs. When the monkeys pressed a correct photograph, a border 
appeared around it. When either monkey pressed all five photographs 
in the correct order, he received a food reward. The chance of 
guessing all five accurately is less than one percent.

In all, each monkey learned to order at least 18 separate series of 
photographs, which included such items as a fish, a human face, a 
building, a football field and a flame from a match. They underwent 
three of training before being tested.

In some of the training trials, the monkeys had to figure out the 
correct order themselves, while in others, they had the option of 
getting help by pushing an icon in the corner of the screen that 
caused the border of the correct photograph to flash. They were 
rewarded with an M&M candy each time they correctly completed the 
task without help and with a less desirable food pellet when they 
completed the task with hints from the help icon. After three days, 
the monkeys were tested without the benefit of the help icon.

"Both monkeys did much better if they had studied without a hint than 
if they had studied with a hint," Kornell said. "The monkeys did much 
better on the first three days when they had the help than when they 
didn't, but on the test day, it completely reversed. When they 
studied with the hint, there is no evidence they learned anything 
about the list. They learned the lists when they didn't get the 
help." The findings are closely related to findings in humans that 
recalling answers from memory enhances long-term learning.

"The findings were somewhat unintuitive, because passively using the 
hint appeared to enhance performance during the study phase of the 
experiment but had a deleterious effect on long-term learning," 
Kornell said.

What are the implications for human learning?

"Many people incorrectly assume the better you do as you're studying, 
the more you're learning," said Kornell, who works in the laboratory 
of Robert A. Bjork, professor and chair of psychology at UCLA. "If 
students don't test themselves when they read a chapter, they can 
easily think they know the material when they don't. When you test 
yourself as you study, you may feel like you're making it harder on 
yourself, but on the test, you will do much better. Robert Bjork 
calls this 'desirable difficulty.' If you want to learn something 
well, when you're reading, stop and think about what you've read, and 
test yourself; you learn by testing yourself. If you make it more 
difficult for yourself while you study, you feel like you're doing 
worse, but you're learning more.

"Active learning is important in humans and -- this study 
demonstrates -- in monkeys as well," he added.

Less effective passive learning includes listening to a presentation 
and reading without testing yourself or summarizing what you have 
learned.

"When you summarize the material in your own words, that's much more 
active," Kornell said. "You can't do that if you don't understand it."

Cramming right before a test does not work as well as spacing 
studying out over a longer period of time, Kornell added, citing 
other research on learning and memory.

Kornell's research, supported by the National Institute of Mental 
Health, was conducted with Herbert Terrace, a professor of psychology 
at Columbia. The two monkeys, Macduff and Oberon, are housed at the 
New York State Psychiatric Institute, where Terrace has a joint 
appointment. Neither animal was harmed in the study, and they were 
fed daily regardless of how they performed in the trials.

"Many people," Kornell noted, "have had the experience of listening 
to a computer instructor open a menu and go through a series of 
steps. Then you try to do it, and you don't even know which menu or 
what the first step is. If you are passively following along, you 
won't remember it as well as if you're forced to do it yourself. 
Active learning is much harder, but if you can do it successfully, 
you will remember it much better in the long run.

"If you're learning to serve a tennis ball, you won't get much out of 
an instructor taking your arm and practicing the swing over and 
over," he said. "That's not going to help you nearly as much as if 
you serve the ball yourself."

The situation is the same for monkeys, according to Kornell.

"The way the monkeys learn to remember the correct answers is through 
active learning, like humans," he said. "They have to generate the 
answers themselves from memory. Generating the correct sequence from 
memory resulted in more long-term learning than the more passive 
training with hints."

Kornell noted that more than a century ago, author William James 
remarked on the importance of being actively involved in learning. 
Since then, science has proven him correct. Kornell also noted that 
his research confirms the teachings of another monkey: Curious George.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by 
University of California - Los Angeles.