Kara D. Sage

2010 Special Issue: Social gating and pedagogy: Mechanisms for learning and implications for robotics

It seems self-evident that human responsiveness to social input enhances learning, yet the details of the social forces at play are only beginning to come into focus. Recent research on language and cognitive development in preschoolers and infants illuminates mechanisms such as social gating and natural pedagogy, and specific ways in which they benefit learning. We review such advances and consider implications of this research for designing robotic systems that can harness the power of social forces for learning.

Children's Use of Self-Paced Slideshows: An Extension of the Video Deficit Effect?.

Past research has established that children typically learn better from live demonstrations than from two-dimensional (2D) media. In the present set of experiments, we investigated the efficacy of a new 2D learning medium—the self-paced slideshow. A primary goal was to determine whether the “video deficit effect” extended to self-paced slideshows. In Experiment 1, preschool-age children saw demonstrations of novel events either live, on video, or by advancing through self-paced slideshows. They were then tested on their performance and verbal memory. In line with past work, children in the live condition outperformed those in the video and slideshow conditions at reproducing the target actions. To further explore the 2D media, Experiment 2 directly compared learning from self-paced slideshows to that from videos. Changes to the stimuli included a more natural extraction rate of slides and a higher focus on the objects. Children’s performance differed little between conditions, with the exception of reproducing fewer actions in the slideshow than video condition on two (of four) toys. Ultimately, we conclude that the video deficit extends to self-paced slideshows. Future work must investigate how to enhance children’s learning from 2D sources, given their increasing role in daily life.

Pacing, Pixels, and Paper: Flexibility in Learning Words from Flashcards.

The present study focused on how self-control over pace might help learners successfully extract information from digital learning aids. Past research has indicated that too much control over pace can be overwhelming, but too little control over pace can be ineffective. Within the popular self-testing domain of flashcards, we sought to elucidate the optimal level of user control for digital learning and compare learning outcomes between paper and digital flashcards. College students learned vocabulary from paper flashcards or one of several digital flashcard versions and were scored on their memory recall and asked about their perceptions of the learning process. With digital flashcards, students were randomly assigned to an automatic slideshow of cards with no user control, automatic slideshow with pre-set pauses, automatic slideshow where users could press the spacebar to pause at any time, or a self-paced slideshow with complete user control. Users reported feeling more in control when indeed having some control, but ultimately memory recall, cognitive load, and satisfaction were similar across the five versions. However, memory recall was positively related to user satisfaction with their specific flashcard set, and negatively related to users’ perceived mental effort and difficulty. Notably, whether paper or digital, students showed individual variability in how they advanced through the words. This research adds to the educational literature by suggesting that paper and digital flashcards are equally viable options for students. Given differences between individual users and the connection between satisfaction and recall, individualistic options that offer, but do not force, some control over pace seem ideal. Paper flashcards may already include such options, and e-flashcards should offer similar adaptive features to appeal to a wide variety of users.

Amerika'daki otizmli çocukların Avrupalı Amerikan ve Asyalı Amerikan ailelerinde ebeveynlerin kardeş ilişkilerini sosyalleştirmesi

Bu calisma Avrupali Amerikan ve Asyali Amerikan ailedeki ebeveynlerin nasil kardes iliskilerini sosyallestirdigini arastirmistir. Ailelerin otizm hakkindaki inanislarini ve bu inanislarin normal gelisim gosteren cocuklarin engellilige yonelik farkindaliklarinin olusmasi uzerine etkisini ve ebeveynlerin kardeslik iliskisi icin beklentilerini aciklamaktayiz. Ayrica ebevenylerin kardes iliskilerinin sosyallesmesindeki rolu belirtilmektedir. Analizler ebeveynlerle derinlemesine gerceklestirilen mulakatlara dayanmistir. Bulgular iki grup ebeveylerin inanc, beklenti ve uygulamalar konularinda farkliliklar gosterdiklerini belirtmektedir. Kardeslik iliskisi ciktilari da iki grup ailede farklilik gostermistir. Arastirma icin yansimalar aciklanmaktadir.