Phoning it in on exams

Even in a crowded lecture hall your professors know when you are using your smartphone during class.

Some instructors ignore this, some punish this, but most of them do not like it.

Although students might think that class rules limiting or banning the use of mobile phones are cruel, in truth they come from a good place: most faculty believe that your phones will hurt your grades by stealing your attention. A basic idea from cognitive psychology is that you have to pay attention to something if you want to commit it to memory or be able to use the idea effectively.

A study done by Bjornsen and Archer (2015) further supports this argument. These professors spent two semesters in their psychology classes surveying a total of 218 college students about their in-class cell phone use. At the end of each class the students answered a questionnaire about the number of times that they looked at their phones for: social networking (texting, email, social network apps like Facebook and Instagram); getting information (Googling, checking the online syllabus, checking a website related to class); organizing their lives (personal calendar); or playing a game. The students were assured that their answers would not influence how the professor graded their work, so the assumption is that these self-reports were honest.

The authors compared the amount of each type of mobile phone use to test scores in these classes. They found that both social media use and gaming during class were associated with lower test scores, with playing games being much worse than using social media. Because social media use was more common than playing games, Bjornsen and Archer looked at these data in a more detailed way. They divided the students who used social media during class into high (5x per class), medium (2.4x per class), and low (1x per class) then looked at average test scores for each group. Across five exams the high in-class social media users scored an average of 74% and the low social media users scored an average of a 76%. These scores are close but they could be the difference between getting a C or a C+ in a class.

However, one of these effects changed when Bjornsen and Archer controlled for overall GPAs (grade point averages). As you might guess the students with the worst GPAs were more likely to play games in class, so the relationship between game playing and low test scores was likely influenced by this third variable: it disappeared once GPA was factored in. On the other hand, even when overall GPA was included as a factor, the relationship between in-class social media use and lower exam scores remained significant.

This implies that even students who have higher GPAs still score lower on exams when they use social media during those classes! From past research on college students we know that more than 90% admit to using cellphones during class and that 77% do not believe that this would cause problems with their learning. Bjornsen and Archer's results suggest that students, especially students who do well in school, may not be aware that their tests scores might be a bit higher if they reduced or stopped using social media during class time.

Before you worry that this study will drive professors to ban cell phones, the authors suggest that this is not sensible given that today's university students are used to having their smartphones as constant companions. They cite past research about this population: college students spend 5-9 hours a day on their phones which includes: 95 minutes of texting; 95 minutes on social networking apps; 49 minutes emailing; 34 minutes surfing the Web. Based on this Bjornsen and Archer suggest some integration of phones into the classroom. For example, I will ask students to put away their phones if they are not participating or are distracting other in the class, but I don't mind if student take pictures of notes and images that I project onto the screen at the front of the room (even though there is good research behind the idea that taking notes through handwriting increases your memory and understanding of those notes).

 
Ultimately university students are adults who should weigh the benefits and costs of using their phones in class. For some, being connected to friends and family will be more important that scoring a few points higher on exams. For others, every point matters because their grades are crucial for getting into programs like Nursing, keeping scholarships, or having good GPAs for graduate school applications. If you aren't sure which group you fall into...ask Siri?

Further Reading:

The Bjornsen and Archer (2015) article can be accessed through your local college library.

There's an app for that! In 2014 college students Mitch Gardner and Rob Richardson created Pocket Points, an app that rewards students for not checking their phones during class. Find out if your university uses this system - if so you can get discounts at stores and restaurants. As if scoring 2% higher on average exam scores was not enough!

Cell or mobile phone addiction is addressed by Web MD. Find out the symptoms and suggestions for managing your smartphone time.

B.F. Skinner and Cry-babies

Because of our parenting practices, long periods of crying are considered a normal part of infancy in Western cultures. When babies cry they are communicating that something feels bad: they may have pain; be frightened or lonely; feel uncomfortable; or be absolutely starving. In addition to the compassion that crying evokes, hearing a baby cry is simply unpleasant - we react to it physiologically and are motivated to do whatever it takes to stop it. We pick up our babies, inspect them, rock them, sing to them, offer them food, or grab a favorite toy to distract them...

In B.F. Skinner's theory of Operant Conditioning the reaction, or reinforcement, after a behavior happens is what encourages or discourages it from happening again. This meme is an example of two kinds of conditioning, or training, that encourage behaviors to continue:  negative and positive reinforcement. Without meaning to, both the child and the mother are training each other to keep doing these things.

The child is using negative reinforcement to to train his mother to continue giving him a teddy bear. In negative reinforcement there is something that is ongoing and unpleasant - in this case crying - and it is removed only when the trainee does what she is supposed to do - give a teddy bear. Negative reinforcement encourages a trained behavior to continue in the future, so the little boy is increasing the likeliness of getting his teddy bear in the future.

The mother is using positive reinforcement, or reward, to train her child to cry. In positive reinforcement once the trainee does what he is supposed to do - in this case crying - he gets something pleasant as a reward - the teddy bear. Positive reinforcement also encourages a trained behavior to continue in the future, so the mother is increasing the likeliness of having her son cry in the future.

Skinner, like the other Behaviorists, was not interested in thoughts or feelings because those are not observable actions. Instead he saw this type of training as reflexive: contrary to our meme, the boy and his mother are not planning these behaviors instead they are reacting to the situation. Even so, their reactions increase the likelihood of the situation occurring again.

Operant Conditioning is a very old theory, but it still can be applied to parenting today. For example, Thompson, Bruzek, and Cotnoir-Bichelman (2011) designed a small experiment to examine how infant cries may negatively reinforce caregivers and train them to perform comforting behaviors. The authors were also interested in what happens when that training has occurred but none of the comforting behaviors works to stop inconsolable crying.

Thompson et al. had a very small sample size: eight female and three male undergraduates were observed as they interacted with a baby doll under directions to, "...do what comes naturally" (p. 297). Eight of the participants were asked if they had prior experience with babies and all of them did; the other three were not asked. Even with this curiously missing information, we know that the majority of participants had real life experience "doing what comes naturally" with an infant.

Tested one at a time, all of the participants experienced several Negative Reinforcement conditions: a recording of an infant crying played until the participant engaged in the desired behavior with the doll. These behaviors ranged from rocking, bottle feeding, and offering a toy. All of the participants showed signs of training: they learned to do the desired behavior to stop the recorded crying.

Eventually the participants were each placed into an Extinction condition: this time no matter what comforting behavior they tried, the recorded crying would not stop. The participants all tried the behavior that had previously worked to stop the crying in the earlier conditions. When it did not work nine of these undergraduates showed extinction of that training: they gave up trying to get the crying to stop. Two of the participants did not show an extinction: they persisted with the trained comforting behavior for 30 minutes as the crying recording played the entire time. Perhaps these participants had real-life experience with their own colicky babies and their behavior in the Extinction condition mirrored what they did for their own children: persisted in giving care.

The results support the notion that negative reinforcement teaches parents which comforting behaviors work to stop their babies' crying and thus encourages these behaviors to continue in the future. The results may also demonstrate how some parents could give up and stop any attempt to comfort their babies when inconsolable crying occurs. In the worst case, these parents might engage in neglect or abuse of these infants. The authors did note that these findings and their implications would be stronger with a larger sample and a more realistic test situation.

In addition, I would caution that we should not interpret this to mean that babies consciously manipulate their caregivers. To manipulate another person is a very advanced cognitive ability. It implies that one person is going to fake a behavior to trick another person into doing something that he or she really does not want to do. Young infants do not possess the ability to do this: instead they simply cry when they feel bad. As well, most parents want to care for their babies and are motivated to reduce their babies' distress - they do not need to be tricked into these behaviors. In the ideal situation babies learn that if they cry a parent will help them feel better, and parents learn how to best calm their babies' distress - or even better, how to avoid that distress in the first place.

Further Reading:

A pdf of the Thompson et al. article, published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, can be accessed for free online.

Here are some good ideas for comforting a baby who is crying inconsolably from Ask Dr. Sears. Dr. Harvey Karp has a combination of five comforting behaviors that can help even colicky babies stop crying: here is a video of that technique on WebMD.

In addition to learning their babies' early cues of distress, parents can REDUCE crying by carrying their babies MORE often. An article by Hunziker and Barr (1986), published in Pediatrics, supports this idea.

Speaking French in German Class: non -- nein!

In college I double majored in Psychology and French, so I am fluent in French to this day. A few years ago my family and I spent a year in Denmark so I started to learn Danish. To my horror when I would try to speak Danish, French words would pop into my mind. More recently, I have been learning German. It is so frustrating to only find Danish words when I am searching my brain for German vocabulary! If you have ever tried to learn a foreign language this week's meme should be relatable:

If we assume that the Most Interesting Man in the World learned French first and it is making German hard for him to learn, then this is an example of proactive interference. Proactive interference is the situation when prior knowledge interrupts the learning of new information.

How can we overcome this? Past research suggests that people learning a second language have to inhibit their original languages to produce the new one. So my stories and our meme represent failures in this inhibition. 

An article by Declerck, Thoma, Koch, and Philipp (2015) supports the idea that people who are fluent in multiple languages also must use inhibition. Declerck et al. tested 18 German young adults who grew up speaking both Turkish and German as part of their everyday lives. These individuals also started to learn English in school around age ten, so they were fluent in this third language, although these skills were not as strong as their Turkish and German abilities.

In their experiment, the participants were shown slides depicting a number (1-9) and a symbol. If they saw a square they should say the number in Turkish; if they saw a diamond they should say the number in German; if they saw a triangle they should say the number in English. Each participant experienced 107 trials of this test. For some trials two cued languages alternated in sets of three (for example, German-Turkish-German) and for an equal amount of trials all three of the the cued languages cycled in sets of three (for example, German-Turkish-English). For all trials the speed and accuracy of the answers were recorded: a longer hesitation before saying the number indicated more inhibition of the previously cued language. 

Participants hesitated milliseconds more when two cued languages alternated, as compared to when all three cued languages cycled. This finding supports past research: alternating back and forth between two languages is most likely to increase the difficulty of suppressing one of the languages when using the other. This difficulty increases the response time.

All three languages created these tiny delays for speaking the next cued language, but the participants' dominant languages, Turkish and German, did this more than English. This also supports the idea of inhibition: a language that is stronger in your mind will take more effort to suppress which will slow down your response.

On the other hand, participants were most accurate in naming the numbers when cued to do so in English. In this case more mistakes were made when they had to speak their two strongest languages! The authors explain this counter-intuitive finding by pointing out that a person who is very strong in two languages (Turkish and German) will likely view this experiment as a test of the language that has weaker fluency (English). It is as if the participants were not so worried about being accurate in Turkish or German because those are easy-peasy for them; instead they were worried about goofing up in English so they tried harder when English was cued. This activation of English would decrease response time and also increase accuracy of naming numbers in that language.

This should make us all of us aspiring polyglots feel better. For second-language learners, don't be too hard on yourself if words from your native language pop out of your mouth in a foreign language class. This is just a problem of proactive interference and a failure of inhibition. For multilingual people, don't feel bad if you catch yourself hesitating ever so slightly as you switch between your languages. This only shows that your brain is working hard to inhibit the languages that you don't need at that moment. Moreover, the situation is going to play a role by activating a specific language which should increase your accuracy.

Further Reading:

You can access the Declerck et al. (2015) article at your local college library.

If you feel inspired to brush up on an old language or to learn a new one, two FREE apps that use cognitive psychological research for language learning are Memrise and Duolingo.

A Radiolab episode on Translation. Featuring Indiana University's Dr. Douglas Hofstadter attempts to translate a French poem into English, and other examples of how ideas can get lost, or changed, in translation.

Spring Break 2015

My students are currently on Spring Break.  Some of them took an exam before the break began - so they probably will not study this week;  some of them will have an exam on the Tuesday after break - so they will probably be studying and cursing my name.  So in honor of that second group we have this week's meme:

At first glance, professors like this one come across as over-zealous killjoys who are so obsessed with their pet subject that they cannot imagine anyone taking a break from it.  While it is true that professors really like their subjects and spend a weird amount of time thinking about those subjects (...as I type out a psychology blog during my Spring Break...) most of us do not think that our students feel the same way.  So why the homework over Spring Break?

Think about what you learn in a college class.  It is a. lot. of. information.  In fact, a 2006 review by Proctor and Williams found more than 400 terms that are common across most Introduction to Psychology textbooks (see Further Readings for this list).  Even in a basic psychology class you are asked to remember a lot!  And for right or wrong, both professors and students use exam grades to determine how much the class remembers: high scores mean that they remembered a lot.

So why would it matter if a student takes eleven days off from studying then comes back from Spring Break to take an exam?

It goes back to an idea that Hermann Ebbinghaus wrote about in 1885:  you remember more after having several practice sessions than you would by just having one big practice.  Today we would say that distributed practice allows you to remember more than massed practice.  So you will remember more and do better on tests if you practice the material on more than one day; it also means that you will not remember as much if you just try to learn the material during one long practice session.  This memory boost from distributed practice is noticeable when there is some time that passes between the last practice and when the material is tested.

How much time should go in between each of these practice sessions depends on how long it will be until that information is tested.  For example, in a study done by Küpper-Tetzel, Kaper, and Wiseheart (2014), German school children did better on vocabulary tests if they practiced the words on two days, with a one day break in between, and then took the exam seven days later.  Interestingly, the break in between the two practices had to be longer (eleven days instead of two) if the exam would occur 35 days after the second practice.

So your professors want you to succeed and part of that success is to remember the course material.  If you remember the course material you will do better on exams - something that most students want.  Practicing the material in class and then practicing material at home creates distributed practice.

The Küpper-Tetzel et al. study might suggest that if my college students have 11 days between our last class and the test, they would be making a smart choice to study on day two, take a day off, study again on day four, and then take the remaining seven days off to enjoy themselves before taking the exam.  That would be a better method than doing one big marathon study session on day four before taking those same seven days off before the test.

Now if you are reading this too late to use distributed practice, there still may be hope for you!  Cramming, which is really an example of massed practice, does increase memory if you are tested right after the cramming session.  So my students might also find success if they spend the entire day before the exam practicing the material over and over.  The only problem (beside lack of sleep and caffeine abuse) is that this sort of massed practice does not work for long-term learning.  If you want to remember material beyond one exam it is much better to stick to distributed practice!

And, if you don't want to remember the material - don't practice it at all!

Further Reading:

If you would like more study tips based on psychological research, the American Psychological Association's graduate student magazine offers this article.

Here is the Proctor and Williams (2006) list of terms that are common in Introduction to Psychology textbooks.  It is a paper from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology's (APA Division 2) Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology.  Derrick Proctor and Alisa Williams are affiliated with Andrews University in Michigan.

A draft of the Küpper-Tetzel et al. study, "Contracting, equal, and expanding learning schedules: The optimal distribution of learning sessions depends on retention interval," can be viewed on Dr. Küpper-Tetzel's webpage.  The published journal article can be accessed at your local university library.

Die-hard history of psychology fans can read more about Ebbinghaus' original thoughts on repetition and memory on Christopher Green's website archive:  Classics in the History of Psychology.