Intentional Learning Vs Incidental Learning, Thesis of Psychology

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Incidental Learning and

the Existence of

Accidental Learning

Practical 1

Rabia Khalid

nd

Year, course

Psychology Minor, Miss Sadaf

Dept of Islamic Learning

University of Karachi

S # Topic Page no. Teacher’s

remarks

1 Abstract 3

2 Introduction 4

3 Literature Review 6

4 Methodology 8

5 Result 10

6 Discussion 11

7 Conclusion 12

8 References 13

Index

Introduction: Learning is the attainment of knowledge or skills that we gain via experiences, studies or when we are taught. There are many different types of learning in psychology but the most important are incidental learning and accidental learning. Although learning occurs in everyday life in both incidental and intentional, but intentional learning instructions produce better recall and recognition performance than incidental learning. Learning, like breathing, is something everyone does all of the time and by our very nature, we acquire incidentals, trivia, and scraps of information from all across us. Both intentional and incidental learning are incorporated into everyday life as a technique of the brain acquiring and storing information. With intentional learning being when the individual intends to learn and decides on what to learn (American Accounting Association, 2014) whereas, incidental learning is learning which takes place purely by chance, with no intent to learn. Intentional learning can be described as having the purpose of learning data and committing it to one's memory (Thomas and Rohwer, 1986). Incidental learning refers to any learning that is unplanned or unintended. It develops while engaging in a task or activity and may also arise as a by-product of planned learning. Accidental learning can imply that the acquisition of knowledge is unconscious in nature and there is no expectation that such knowledge will remain inaccessible to conscious awareness. (Kelly S.W. (2012) Examples of intentional include language acquisition, manners, learning how to walk etc. Examples for accidental learning consist of school classes, music, computer programs etc. Intentional learning often takes place in formal environments like classrooms, offices where the students learn from teachers, or experts or parents with the help of books, lectures and notes. Accidental learning can be taken place in informal environment and is not highly structured as intentional learning.

Bereiter and Scardamalia ( 1989 ) point out that they used the term intentional learning to refer to cognitive processes that have learning as a goal rather than an incidental outcome. Intentional learning emphasizes on the consciousness of learning while accidental learning is independent of consciousness as it’s not intended to learn. Eagle and Leiter (1964) found that intentional learning is the most effective way of recalling information that we have studied. Accidental learning is the fruit of circumstances which is constructed and combined to provoke an unexpected learning turn. It may even have us learn something which we would have avoided unless we’ve been given the choice. Opercular cortex is involved in learning anything, intentionally (Bien, N, 2009). Opercular cortex is the final gateway which processes the information which will be soon recalled as exams or interrogation. Therefore, factual information and analysis are stored in long term with the intention of reusing it later. During this learning, there is an application of the technique of fast mapping in the brain where median lobe is involved (Hopkins, 2013). In addition, hippocampus is also used for such process. (Fletcher, P.C 1997) It is also observed that prefrontal cortex also takes part in terms of visualization which is learned unintentionally (Elfgren, C.,2000). In psychological experiments, incidental and intentional learning refer only to the absence or presence of an announcement to participants as to whether they will be tested after the experimental task. Thus, in the incidental case, the experiment may not even be explicitly presented as a “learning experiment”. Definition : “Intentional learning” is described as the having the intention to learn the material and to commit it to one’s memory. “Accidental learning” is the learning of one stimulus feature while concentrating on another stimulus feature too. It may involve the learning from intentional learning, mistakes, observations, instincts and assumptions. Purpose :

Masson and McDaniel’s (1976) study aimed to investigate whether incidental or intentional learning was most effective in recalling a list of words, including after the imposition of a time factor, by asking some groups of participants to recall the words immediately after reading the list. Holowinsky and Farrelly (1988) tested incidental and intentional memory where incidental memory was developed through a recall of details in a photograph, and the intentional memory score was developed through specific directions. For example, the examiner focused the subjects attention on the boy and girl going to school, he then asked the subject to remember how they were dressed and what they were carrying. When the subjects were later tested on recall, the subjects that received specific directions performed better than those who did the free recall.

Hypothesis

Hypothesis of this experiment is intentional learning is better than accidental learning. If the participant is able to recall majority of the cards, then accidental learning exists.

Methodology

Design

The experiment conducted was based on purpose technique where

independent variable are the cards containing words and colors which

are to be memorized by the subject and the dependent variables are

the number of correct responses the participant gives about words and

Materials

Two deck of cards 5” x 5” were made consisting of 7 cards onto which random 3 letters were scripted in black. Set 1 contained colored cards while Set 2 contained white cards with trigrams.

Procedure:

In the experiment carried out, the participant was tested in control session by showing him Set 1 of colored cards, each of which were marked with the three strands of letters, one by one. Each card was viewed for a couple of seconds or till he had memorized it. After all seven cards appeared, he was asked to recall each of them. His responses of first attempt were noted. Further attempts were carried out until he gave a row of correct answers, limited to 5 attempts only. In the experimental session, he was shown the deck of colorless cards, scripted with three strands of letters to test the accidental learning of the participant. His color responses were noted only once by the experimenter. Later, the participant was briefed and results were made.

Results: The results for the conducted experiment were 100% accurate in both the sessions. Every participant was able to yield correct row of responses up till fourth or fifth attempt in incidental learning. Most of them were able to recognize the colors in the second session of accidental learning. Since the data was collected in control settings, both our hypothesis were proved. CONTROL Response SESSION Sheet # (colored cards) S.No (^) Letters^1 st (^) attempt 2 nd (^) attempt 3 rd (^) attempt 4 th (^) attempt 5 th (^) attempt 1 XOH ✔^ ✔^ ✔^ ✔^ ✔ 2 GOM ✘^ ✔^ ✘^ ✘^ ✔ 3 ZER ✘ ✘ ✘ ✔ ✔ 4 KEL ✘^ ✘^ ✔^ ✔^ ✔ 5 LIH ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 6 CUJ ✘^ ✔^ ✔^ ✔^ ✔ 7 NIR ✘^ ✔^ ✔^ ✔^ ✔ EXPERIMENTAL Response Sheet # SESSION (uncolored cards) S.No Letters Colors Attempt

1 XOH ORANGE ✔

2 GOM PINK ✔

3 ZER RED ✔

4 KEL PURPLE ✔

5 LIH GREEN ✔

6 CUJ YELLOW ✔

7 NIR BLUE ✔

Discussion:

Cards like red, yellow and green were prominent and retained in the participant’s memory for long to be able to commit to their memories. However, colors like pink and purple broke their momentum and many participants suffered incorrect responses. Crane and Hicks (1989), examined whether certain colors have a higher degree of arousal then other colors. Berlyne (1971) described the color red as having the highest arousal potential of all colors. This supports how primary colors in our study were identified without much ado by the participants. Our aim to prove two hypotheses were successfully verified by our results and theories of previous researches. Conclusion: The interpretations of the results show that our hypothesis regarding intentional learning performing better than accidental learning was approved in the light of overall responses from the participants which were 100% accurate. With the advantage of attempts, they were able to retain the words intentionally in their memories to be recalled again during testing. With association of the words with the colors helped them in remembering the colors which were originally not intended to learn. Thus, accidental learning of the colors assisted in their second session proved that accidental learning did exist in our experiment. References:

 Ahmed S (2017) Mental Health Stigma and Subjective Happiness. J Psychol Clin Psychiatry, 7(1).  Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (1989). Intentional learning as a goal of instruction. Knowing, learning, and instruction: Essays in honor of Robert Glaser, 361–392.  Bien, N., Goebel, R., Roebroeck, A., & Sack, A.T. (2009). The brain’s intention to imitate: the Neurobiology of Intentional vs Intentional vs Automatic Imitation Cerebral Cortex. 19(10).  Blumschein P. (2012). Intentional Learning. In: Seel N.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Springer.  Crane, Larry L., & Robert A. Hicks. (1989). Preference for the color red and activation: A test of Thayer's Theory. Psychological Reports , 64, 947-  Eagle, M. & Leiter, E. (1964). Recall and recognition in intentional and incidental learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology , 68(1), 58-  Elfgren, C., Ingvar, M., Petersson, K.M, Sandblom, J., (2000) Prefrontal activation during Deep and Shallow Incident encoding of Figurative and Incident encoding of Figurative and Non- figurative Drawings. Neurobiology of Aging.  Fletcher, P.C, Frackowiak, R., Frith, C.D., & Rugg, M.D. (1997). Brain Regions supporting Intentional and Incidental Memory: A PET Study. Neuroreport.  Froufe M (1997) El inconsciente cognitivo: La cara oculta de la mente. Biblioteca Nueva, Madrid, Spain.  Holowinsky, I. Z. & Farrelly, J. (1988). Intentional and incidental visual memory as a function of cognitive level and color of the stimulus. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 66, 775-779.  Hopkins, R.O., Smith, C.N., Squire, L.R, & Urgolites, Z.J. (2013). Comparison of Explicit and Incidental learning Strategies in Memory-impaired Patients. Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences of United States of America.  Kelly S.W. (2012) Incidental Learning. In: Seel N.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Springer.  Masson, E. & McDaniel, M.(1976) Effectiveness of Intentional and Incidental Rehearsal Processes on Immediate and Delayed Recall  Mills, A.L. & Kerr N. H., (1988). False recollection of color in black and white photographs. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 66, 884.