%% ### ==Todo== - [ ] Add from [[Why We Forget and How to Remember Better]], chapter 2: procedural memory - [ ] Add from [[Foundations of Embodied Learning]], chapter 8. - [ ] Add from an email by Scott Young re: Fitts and Posner's model - Automaticity has advantages and disadvantages. - The advantage is that it frees up resources to do other things. For skills like reading or driving, this can be essential. If you can’t automatically recognize words or manipulate the steering wheel, additional tasks, like analyzing a text or finding your way in a new city, are nearly impossible. - The disadvantage is that, being automated, skills overlearned to this point are very difficult to change or correct. Anders Ericsson proposed that much of becoming a world-class expert was engaging in practice efforts that work to undo some of the effects of this skill automation, using drills that bring awareness of the skill back under effortful control. - [ ] https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2022/02/15/act-r/ - [ ] https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2023/01/03/intermediate-plateau/ - [ ] How exactly is procedural learning different from non-associative and associative learning? - [ ] [[Learning and Memory]], ch. 11, implicit memory, procedural memory %% Procedural learning is about the ability to carry out a **sequence of operations**. It covers both **motor skills** and some types of **cognitive skills** (Seel, 2012). It is a type of [[Implicit learning is characterized by more unconscious and unintentional operations|implicit learning]] (Polk, 2018). Procedural learning creates **[[Procedural knowledge refers to an understanding of how to carry out a sequence of operations (knowing how)|procedural knowledge]]**, which is knowledge of how to perform tasks and solve problems. **Defining characteristics** include (Oakley et al., 2021; Polk, 2018; Seel, 2012): - Implicit: It is inaccessible to conscious awareness. Learning is inferred from observable improvements in performing a task. - Slow and gradual acquisition: It typically takes time and practice to learn a procedural skill. - Automatic: Once learned, the skill is performed largely without thinking about it. **Examples** include: - [[Motor learning consists of long-lasting changes in a person's capability to perform a motor skill as a result of practice or experience|Motor skills]] such as learning to ride a bicycle or play an instrument. - But also some cognitive skills – see [Tower of Hanoi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Hanoi) and [Tower of London](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_London_test) test. So procedural learning isn't the same as motor learning, because the former also includes the acquisition of certain cognitive skills (Seel, 2012). A crude distinction that probably gets at something fundamental: Whereas [[The declarative learning pathway sends information from working memory to both the hippocampus (indexing the information) and the neocortex (storing information in long-term memory)|declarative learning]] seems to be mostly about [[Perception is the organization and interpretation of sensory information|perception]], procedural learning seems mostly about [[The brain learns to use whatever outputs are available by putting out motor actions, receiving sensory feedback, and adjusting its internal model accordingly|motor actions]]. During procedural learning, the performance of a task becomes **increasingly automatic** and independent of conscious cognitive input and control. In line with this, a classic model by Fitts and Posner (1967) proposes that learners go through three **stages of skill acquisition** (Polk, 2018): 1. **Cognitive stage**: At this stage, the learner needs to focus all their attention on the performance of the skill. This involves thinking and explicit, declarative knowledge. 2. **Associative stage**: At this stage, the learner tries out different variations of the skill and associates them with different responses, thus figuring out what works and what doesn't. This requires [[Error feedback measures the difference between the expected and the actual outcome]], either self-generated or provided by someone else. 3. **Autonomous stage**: At this stage, the learner can perform the skill well without thinking about it. Performance at this stage involves little to no explicit, declarative knowledge. Instead, it depends a lot on proprioception, i.e., the ability to perceive the location and movement of one's body parts in space. ![[Pasted image 20221221074357.png]] The graph above shows how the three stages of skill acquisition ([source](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4330992/)) map onto the learning process. It also shows that **practice follows a power law**: When you start to practice a skill, you tend to improve a lot initially, but less so the more skilled (proficient) you get. John Anderson (1982) proposed one of the most influential explanations for how learners move from the cognitive stage to the autonomous stage (Polk, 2018). The key points include: - [[Procedural learning is about the ability to carry out a sequence of operations|Procedural knowledge]] is represented by **production rules**, that is, *if-then* associations between some conditions (cues) and some actions. If the conditions are satisfied, the actions will be performed. - These associations are **automatic, unconscious, and implicit**. When the conditions are satisfied, the associated actions are executed immediately, without conscious awareness of the underlying production rule. - At the cognitive stage, learners **convert** an explicit, declarative description of the skill into a form that their motor system can execute. This involves the following stages: - 1. **Proceduralization**: An individual piece of declarative knowledge gets converted into a single production rule. - 2. **Composition**: Several production rules are grouped together into a single, more complicated rule. --- Created: [[2022-12-19]] Type: #permanent Topics: [[Learning (Index)]] Related notes: - [[What are the different types of learning?]] - [[Procedural memory is about memory for actions]] - [[Implicit learning is characterized by more unconscious and unintentional operations]] - [[Procedural knowledge refers to an understanding of how to carry out a sequence of operations (knowing how)]] - [[The procedural learning pathway takes input from the entire cortex and sends it through the basal ganglia to create links in long-term memory]] - [[Associative learning involves learning the relationship between two events that occur together]] - [[Nonassociative learning involves a change in behavior as a result of exposure to a single stimulus]]