Two instructional studies directed at the comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities of seventh grade poor comprehenders are reported. The four study activities were summarizing (self-review), questioning, clarifying, and predicting. The training method was that of reciprocal teaching, where the tutor and students took turns leading a dialogue centered on pertinent features of the text. In Study 1, a comparison between the reciprocal teaching method and a second intervention modeled on typical classroom practice resulted in greater gains and maintenance over time for the reciprocal procedure. Reciprocal teaching, with an adult model guiding the student to interact with the text in more sophisticated ways, led to a significant improvement in the quality of the summaries and questions. It also led to sizable gains on criterion tests of comprehension, reliable maintenance over time, generalization to classroom comprehension tests, transfer to novel tasks that tapped the trained skills of...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3233567.pdf

Reciprocal Teaching of Comprehension-Fostering and Comprehension-Monitoring Activities

Richard Schmidt presents on the role of consciousness in second language learning at the 1988 Second Language Research Forum (SLRF) held in at the University of Hawai‘i.

/pdf/the-role-of-consciousness-in-second-language-learning-4tc4iwvjpu.pdf

The role of consciousness in second language learning

\, SUMMARY In 1967, Overmier and Seligman found that dogs exposed to inescapable and unavoidable electric shocks in one situation later failed to learn to escape shock in a different situation where escape was possible. Shortly thereafter Seligman and Maier (1967) demonstrated that this effect was caused by the uncontrollability of the original shocks. In this article we review the effects of exposing organisms to aversive events which they cannot control, and we review the explanations which have been offered. There seem to be motivational, cognitive, and emotional effects of uncontrollability. (a) Motivation. Dogs that have been exposed to inescapable shocks do not subsequently initiate escape response in the presence of shock. We review parallel phenomena in cats, fish, rats, and man. Of particular interest is the discussion of learned helplessness in rats and man. Rats are of interest because learned helplessness has been difficult to demonstrate in rats. However, we show that inescapably shocked rats do fail to learn to escape if the escape task is reasonably difficult. With regard to man, we review a variety of studies using inescapable noise and unsolvable problems as agents which produce learned helplessness effects on both instrumental and cognitive tasks, (b) Cognition. We argue that exposure to uncontrollabl e events interferes with the organism's tendency to perceive contingent relationships between its behavior and outcomes. Here we review a variety of studies showing such a cognitive set. (c) Emotion. We review a variety of experiments which show that uncontrollable aversive events produce greater emotional disruption than do controllable aversive events. We have proposed an explanation for these effects, which we call the learned helplessness hypothesis. It argues that when events are uncontrollable the organism learns that its behavior and outcomes are independent, and that this learning produces the motivational, cognitive, and emotional effects of uncontrollabi lity. We describe the learned helplessness hypothesis and research which supports it. Finally, we describe and discuss in detail alternative hypotheses which have been offered as accounts of the learned helplessness effect. One set of hypotheses argues that organisms learn motor responses during exposure to uncontrollabl e shock that compete with the response required in the test task. Another explanation holds that uncontrollable shock is a severe stressor and depletes a neurochemical necessary for the mediation of movement. We examine the logical structure of these explanations and present a variety of evidence which bears on them directly.

Learned helplessness: Theory and evidence.

Rationale: The notion that stress leads to drug abuse in vulnerable individuals and relapse in addicts is not new. Most major theories of addiction postulate that stress plays an important role in increasing drug use and relapse. Several animal studies and some human laboratory studies have shown that stress exposure enhances drug self-administration. Although clinical observations suggest that exposure to stress increases drug use, and are associated with craving and relapse in addicts, human research in this area is largely correlational and at times contradictory. Objective: Given the growing preclinical evidence that supports the key role of stress in substance abuse, careful examination of this research area in humans is warranted. This paper examines empirical evidence on how stress may increase the vulnerability to drug abuse, and explores whether chronic drug abuse alters the stress response and coping in addicts, thereby increasing the likelihood of drug seeking and relapse. Unanswered questions on the association between stress and substance abuse in humans are identified. Conclusion: Preclinical research has shown that stress, in addition to drug itself, plays a key role in perpetuating drug abuse and relapse. However, the mechanisms underlying this association in humans remain unclear. A greater understanding of how stress may perpetuate drug abuse will likely have a significant impact on both prevention and treatment development in the field of addiction.

How does stress increase risk of drug abuse and relapse

How do people monitor their knowledge during acquisition? A cue-utilization approach to judgments of learning (JOLs) is outlined, distinguishing 3 types of cues for JOLs: intrinsic, extrinsic, and mnemonic. In 4 experiments using paired-associates learning, item difficulty (intrinsic) exerted similar effects of JOLs and recall. In contrast, the extrinsic factors of list repetition, item repetition within a list, and stimulus duration affected JOLs less strongly than recall, supporting the proposition that extrinsic factors are discounted in making JOLs. Although practice impaired calibration, increasing underconfidence, it did improve resolution (i.e., the recall-JOL correlation). This improvement was seen to reflect a shift in the basis of JOLs with practice, from reliance on intrinsic factors, towards greater reliance on mnemonic-based heuristics.

Monitoring one's own knowledge during study : A cue-utilization approach to judgments of learning

Metacognition, cognition, and human performance

1 Introduction.- 2 General Method.- 3 Decoding.- 4 Comprehension and Strategies.- 5 Overview of "Reading Skills" and Preview.- 6 Language, Memory, and Attention.- 7 Computed Scores: Results and Discussion.- 8 General Discussion and Conclusions.- References.- Appendices.- Author Index.

Cognition, metacognition, and reading

Effects of inescapable shock on subsequent avoidance performance: Role of response repertoire changes

In five experiments it was found that stress of inescapable unavoidable shock produced increased self selection of alcohol. These effects were maintained only so long as the shock schedule was continued. Factors such as predictability of shock, shock schedule and nutritional deficiency were found not to alter alcohol consumption substanially. In contrast to the effects of inescapble unavoidable stress, shock-produced conflict did not lead tio the self selection of alcohol. Results were interpreted in terms of a Tension Reduction Hyothesis and the role of control over aversive stimulation.

Effects of inescapable shock and shock-produced conflict on self selection of alcohol in rats.

Hooded rats received five 1-sec shock presentations of 0.3, 0.5, or 1.0 mA. Activity measures recorded during each 30-sec intershock interval and at various retention intervals (.10, 2.5, and 24 h) following footshock (FS) indicated that (a) 5 sec after FS activity is directly related to shock intensity, while 10–30 sec following FS activity is inversely related to shock intensity; (b) the rate of decline in activity following FS increases with successive shock presentations; (c) activity is greater 10 h after FS than at a 2.5- or 24-h retention interval; and finally (d) shock compartment confinement increased activity and resulted in a substantial alteration in the form of retention curve in the 0.3-mA group but had lesser effects upon the retention curves of the 0.5- and 1.0-mA groups. The data were interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that the “incubation effect” is a result of a decline of the activating effects of FS.

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T. Gary Waller

Papers

Metacognition, cognition, and human performance

Cognition, metacognition, and reading

Effects of inescapable shock on subsequent avoidance performance: Role of response repertoire changes

Effects of inescapable shock and shock-produced conflict on self selection of alcohol in rats.

Footshock-produced excitation and inhibition of activity in rats