Part I. Experimental Studies: 2. Experiment in psychology 3. Experiments on perceiving III Experiments on imaging 4-8. Experiments on remembering: (a) The method of description (b) The method of repeated reproduction (c) The method of picture writing (d) The method of serial reproduction (e) The method of serial reproduction picture material 9. Perceiving, recognizing, remembering 10. A theory of remembering 11. Images and their functions 12. Meaning Part II. Remembering as a Study in Social Psychology: 13. Social psychology 14. Social psychology and the matter of recall 15. Social psychology and the manner of recall 16. Conventionalism 17. The notion of a collective unconscious 18. The basis of social recall 19. A summary and some conclusions.

Remembering. A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology, Cambridge (University Press) 1964.

Preclinical mouse models suggest that the gut microbiome modulates tumor response to checkpoint blockade immunotherapy; however, this has not been well-characterized in human cancer patients. Here we examined the oral and gut microbiome of melanoma patients undergoing anti-programmed cell death 1 protein (PD-1) immunotherapy (n = 112). Significant differences were observed in the diversity and composition of the patient gut microbiome of responders versus nonresponders. Analysis of patient fecal microbiome samples (n = 43, 30 responders, 13 nonresponders) showed significantly higher alpha diversity (P < 0.01) and relative abundance of bacteria of the Ruminococcaceae family (P < 0.01) in responding patients. Metagenomic studies revealed functional differences in gut bacteria in responders, including enrichment of anabolic pathways. Immune profiling suggested enhanced systemic and antitumor immunity in responding patients with a favorable gut microbiome as well as in germ-free mice receiving fecal transplants from responding patients. Together, these data have important implications for the treatment of melanoma patients with immune checkpoint inhibitors.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/early/2017/11/01/science.aan4236.full.pdf

Gut microbiome modulates response to anti–PD-1 immunotherapy in melanoma patients

We need to make substantial changes to how we conduct research. First, in response to heightened concern that our published research literature is incomplete and untrustworthy, we need new requirements to ensure research integrity. These include prespecification of studies whenever possible, avoidance of selection and other inappropriate data- analytic practices, complete reporting, and encouragement of replication. Second, in response to renewed recognition of the severe flaws of null-hypothesis significance testing (NHST), we need to shift from reliance on NHST to estimation and other preferred techniques. The new statistics refers to recommended practices, including estimation based on effect sizes, confidence intervals, and meta-analysis. The techniques are not new, but adopting them widely would be new for many researchers, as well as highly beneficial. This article explains why the new statistics are important and offers guidance for their use. It describes an eight-step new-statistics strategy for research with integrity, which starts with formulation of research questions in estimation terms, has no place for NHST, and is aimed at building a cumulative quantitative discipline.

/pdf/the-new-statistics-why-and-how-3hdt8qe2jn.pdf

The New Statistics Why and How

Many students are being left behind by an educational system that some people believe is in crisis. Improving educational outcomes will require efforts on many fronts, but a central premise of this monograph is that one part of a solution involves helping students to better regulate their learning through the use of effective learning techniques. Fortunately, cognitive and educational psychologists have been developing and evaluating easy-to-use learning techniques that could help students achieve their learning goals. In this monograph, we discuss 10 learning techniques in detail and offer recommendations about their relative utility. We selected techniques that were expected to be relatively easy to use and hence could be adopted by many students. Also, some techniques (e.g., highlighting and rereading) were selected because students report relying heavily on them, which makes it especially important to examine how well they work. The techniques include elaborative interrogation, self-explanation, summarization, highlighting (or underlining), the keyword mnemonic, imagery use for text learning, rereading, practice testing, distributed practice, and interleaved practice. To offer recommendations about the relative utility of these techniques, we evaluated whether their benefits generalize across four categories of variables: learning conditions, student characteristics, materials, and criterion tasks. Learning conditions include aspects of the learning environment in which the technique is implemented, such as whether a student studies alone or with a group. Student characteristics include variables such as age, ability, and level of prior knowledge. Materials vary from simple concepts to mathematical problems to complicated science texts. Criterion tasks include different outcome measures that are relevant to student achievement, such as those tapping memory, problem solving, and comprehension. We attempted to provide thorough reviews for each technique, so this monograph is rather lengthy. However, we also wrote the monograph in a modular fashion, so it is easy to use. In particular, each review is divided into the following sections: General description of the technique and why it should work How general are the effects of this technique? 2a. Learning conditions 2b. Student characteristics 2c. Materials 2d. Criterion tasks Effects in representative educational contexts Issues for implementation Overall assessment The review for each technique can be read independently of the others, and particular variables of interest can be easily compared across techniques. To foreshadow our final recommendations, the techniques vary widely with respect to their generalizability and promise for improving student learning. Practice testing and distributed practice received high utility assessments because they benefit learners of different ages and abilities and have been shown to boost students' performance across many criterion tasks and even in educational contexts. Elaborative interrogation, self-explanation, and interleaved practice received moderate utility assessments. The benefits of these techniques do generalize across some variables, yet despite their promise, they fell short of a high utility assessment because the evidence for their efficacy is limited. For instance, elaborative interrogation and self-explanation have not been adequately evaluated in educational contexts, and the benefits of interleaving have just begun to be systematically explored, so the ultimate effectiveness of these techniques is currently unknown. Nevertheless, the techniques that received moderate-utility ratings show enough promise for us to recommend their use in appropriate situations, which we describe in detail within the review of each technique. Five techniques received a low utility assessment: summarization, highlighting, the keyword mnemonic, imagery use for text learning, and rereading. These techniques were rated as low utility for numerous reasons. Summarization and imagery use for text learning have been shown to help some students on some criterion tasks, yet the conditions under which these techniques produce benefits are limited, and much research is still needed to fully explore their overall effectiveness. The keyword mnemonic is difficult to implement in some contexts, and it appears to benefit students for a limited number of materials and for short retention intervals. Most students report rereading and highlighting, yet these techniques do not consistently boost students' performance, so other techniques should be used in their place (e.g., practice testing instead of rereading). Our hope is that this monograph will foster improvements in student learning, not only by showcasing which learning techniques are likely to have the most generalizable effects but also by encouraging researchers to continue investigating the most promising techniques. Accordingly, in our closing remarks, we discuss some issues for how these techniques could be implemented by teachers and students, and we highlight directions for future research.

https://www.wku.edu/senate/documents/improving_student_learning_dunlosky_2013.pdf

Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology

Bayesian estimation for 2 groups provides complete distributions of credible values for the effect size, group means and their difference, standard deviations and their difference, and the normality of the data. The method handles outliers. The decision rule can accept the null value (unlike traditional t tests) when certainty in the estimate is high (unlike Bayesian model comparison using Bayes factors). The method also yields precise estimates of statistical power for various research goals. The software and programs are free and run on Macintosh, Windows, and Linux platforms.

/pdf/bayesian-estimation-supersedes-the-t-test-57drp31ai6.pdf

Bayesian Estimation Supersedes the t Test

The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association, 2001, American Psychological Association, 2010) calls for the reporting of effect sizes and their confidence intervals. Estimates of effect size are useful for determining the practical or theoretical importance of an effect, the relative contributions of factors, and the power of an analysis. We surveyed articles published in 2009 and 2010 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, noting the statistical analyses reported and the associated reporting of effect size estimates. Effect sizes were reported for fewer than half of the analyses; no article reported a confidence interval for an effect size. The most often reported analysis was analysis of variance, and almost half of these reports were not accompanied by effect sizes. Partial η2 was the most commonly reported effect size estimate for analysis of variance. For t tests, 2/3 of the articles did not report an associated effect size estimate; Cohen's d was the most often reported. We provide a straightforward guide to understanding, selecting, calculating, and interpreting effect sizes for many types of data and to methods for calculating effect size confidence intervals and power analysis.

Effect size estimates: Current use, calculations, and interpretation.

"Effect size estimates: Current use, calculations, and interpretation": Correction to Fritz et al. (2011).

Kay (1955) presented a text passage to participants on a weekly basis and found that most errors and omissions in recall persisted despite repeated re-presentation of the text. Experiment I replicated and extended Kay's original research, demonstrating that after a first recall attempt there was very little evidence of further learning, whether measured in terms of further acquisition or error correction, over three more presentations of the text passages. Varying the schedule of presentations and tests had little effect, although performance was better when intermediate trials included both presentation and test than when only presentations or tests occurred. Experiment 2 explored whether this 'failure of further learning' effect could be overcome by (a) warning participants against basing their recall on their previous recall efforts and specifically directing them to base their recall upon the passages, (b) making each presentation more distinctive, or (c) drawing participants' attention to areas that would benefit from further learning by requiring them to tally their omissions and errors. The effect persisted in all cases. The findings have serious implications for the learning of text material.

When further learning fails: stability and change following repeated presentation of text.

The benefits of expanding retrieval practice for preschool children were explored in two experiments. In Experiment 1, three groups learned names for six plush toy pigs using expanding retrieval practice, a reward incentive, or a control condition. Reward did not significantly improve learning but retrieval practice doubled recall. In Experiment 2, three groups learned names to soft toys, comparing recall following massed elaborative study with either expanding retrieval practice or expanding re-presentation. Recall was tested after 1 minute, 1 day, and 2 days. A very large effect size (d = 1.9) indicated the very considerable benefit from expanding retrieval practice over the elaboration condition. Comparison with the re-presentation condition suggested that half of the benefit of expanding retrieval practice came from spaced scheduling and half from retrieval practice. Expanding retrieval practice provides an effective method to improve learning by young children.

Expanding retrieval practice: An effective aid to preschool children's learning

Experiment 1 compared the effectiveness of retrieval practice, the keyword mnemonic and rote rehearsal for learning foreign language vocabulary. Both mnemonic methods produced similar recall and were superior to rote rehearsal. In Experiment 2, participants learned German vocabulary using keywords, retrieval practice or their own method. Retrieval practice and keyword-based recall were similar and superior to self-directed study. In Experiment 3, participants studied using keywords, retrieval practice, a combination or an elaboration strategy. Criterion testing occurred immediately and after a week. For receptive learning, retrieval practice and keywords were equally beneficial but for productive learning, retrieval practice was more effective. Combining strategies produced mixed results with significant benefits only for receptive learning in the delayed test. Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Catherine O. Fritz

Papers

Effect size estimates: Current use, calculations, and interpretation.

"Effect size estimates: Current use, calculations, and interpretation": Correction to Fritz et al. (2011).

When further learning fails: stability and change following repeated presentation of text.

Expanding retrieval practice: An effective aid to preschool children's learning

Comparing and combining retrieval practice and the keyword mnemonic for foreign vocabulary learning.