Neurological findings from the recent decades on the plasticity of the human brain, and the ability to acquire and improve cognitive skills much more than once thought possible, have produced the proliferation of commercial computerized systems aimed to train the brain and improve cognitive functions.However, despite the diversity of commercial and academic computerized systems for mental training, many core issues on how to best design and use these systems in order to enable learning are still unresolved.
The current research focused on the effect of Knowledge of Results (KR) during computerized cognitive training.KR provides information that the learner can use in order to correct his errors and proceed in the task. However, KR may prevent the learner from processing other sources of information (intrinsic feedback) and hence might block the development of more established and solid abilities, a process named “the guidance hypothesis”. The cognitive skill trained in the current research wasvisual temporal integration: the ability to combine a series of stimuli that are not presented together, but with a short break between them, to one stimulus. Visual temporal integration is one of the core skills needed in reading.
A computerized system dedicated for training of visual temporal integration was used. Thirty undergraduate students were randomly assigned to two training groups: an experimental group that got full KR during the training (the correctness of identifying the stimuli and the correct stimuli in case of a failure) – the KR group, and a control group that did not get any kind of KR – theNo KR group. The trainees were invited individually to three consecutive training sessions of about 45 minutes long each. The skill transfer was tested using a pre- and post-training d2 Test of Attention. The research hypotheses were that full KR will result in better performance in the training compared to training with no KR, but, based on the guidance hypothesis, full KR will also impair learning transfer compared to training with no KR,because of blocking the intrinsic feedback channels of the trainee.
The results demonstrated significant disadvantage to KR group compared to No KR group in two very important measures, one in the training (number oferrors in new sets), and the second - in the post-training transfer task (number of commission errors in the d2 Test of Attention). While the deterioration in the transfer task is predicted by the guidance hypothesis, the deterioration observed in performance during training is not a common phenomenon. We explain these results by the theory of overconfidence.Full KR during training might made trainees to feel that the task is easier than it really is and misjudge their temporal visual integration skills as higher than their true level. During training, this might cause trainees to respond too quickly and, as a result, mistakenly.Based on the current research results, giving KR during cognitive computerized training can lead to undesired consequences both in training and transfer of learning and should be re-considered.
