How does rumination impact cognition? A first mechanistic model.

Rumination is a process of uncontrolled, narrowly-foused neg- ative thinking that is often self-referential, and that is a hall- mark of depression. Despite its importance, little is known about its cognitive mechanisms. Rumination can be thought of as a specific, constrained form of mind-wandering. Here, we introduce a cognitive model of rumination that we devel- oped on the basis of our existing model of mind-wandering. The rumination model implements the hypothesis that rumina- tion is caused by maladaptive habits of thought. These habits of thought are modelled by adjusting the number of memory chunks and their associative structure, which changes the se- quence of memories that are retrieved during mind-wandering, such that during rumination the same set of negative memo- ries is retrieved repeatedly. The implementation of habits of thought was guided by empirical data from an experience sam- pling study in healthy and depressed participants. On the ba- sis of this empirically-derived memory structure, our model naturally predicts the declines in cognitive task performance that are typically observed in depressed patients. This study demonstrates how we can use cognitive models to better un- derstand the cognitive mechanisms underlying rumination and depression

How does rumination impact cognition? A first mechanistic model.

Rumination is a process of uncontrolled, narrowly-foused neg- ative thinking that is often self-referential, and that is a hall- mark of depression. Despite its importance, little is known about its cognitive mechanisms. Rumination can be thought of as a specific, constrained form of mind-wandering. Here, we introduce a cognitive model of rumination that we devel- oped on the basis of our existing model of mind-wandering. The rumination model implements the hypothesis that rumina- tion is caused by maladaptive habits of thought. These habits of thought are modelled by adjusting the number of memory chunks and their associative structure, which changes the se- quence of memories that are retrieved during mind-wandering, such that during rumination the same set of negative memo- ries is retrieved repeatedly. The implementation of habits of thought was guided by empirical data from an experience sam- pling study in healthy and depressed participants. On the ba- sis of this empirically-derived memory structure, our model naturally predicts the declines in cognitive task performance that are typically observed in depressed patients. This study demonstrates how we can use cognitive models to better un- derstand the cognitive mechanisms underlying rumination and depression

Predicting University Students’ Exam Performance Using a Model-Based Adaptive Fact-Learning System

Modern educational technology has the potential to support students to use their study time more effectively. Learning analytics can indicate relevant individual differences between learners, which adaptive learning systems can use to tailor the learning experience to individual learners. For fact learning, cognitive models of human memory are well suited to tracing learners’ acquisition and forgetting of knowledge over time. Such models have shown great promise in controlled laboratory studies. To work in realistic educational settings, however, they need to be easy to deploy and their adaptive components should be based on individual differences relevant to the educational context and outcomes. Here, we focus on predicting university students’ exam performance using a model-based adaptive fact-learning system. The data presented here indicate that the system provides tangible benefits to students in naturalistic settings. The model’s estimate of a learner’s rate of forgetting predicts overall grades and performance on individual exam questions. This encouraging case study highlights the value of model-based adaptive fact-learning systems in classrooms

Prior Knowledge Norms for Naming Country Outlines:An Open Stimulus Set

Paired-associate stimuli are an important tool in learning and memory research. In cognitive psychology, many studies use materials of which the learners are expected to have little to no prior knowledge. Despite their theoretical usefulness, conclusions from these studies are difficult to generalize to real-world learning contexts, where learners can be expected to have varying degrees of prior knowledge. Here, we present an ecologically valid stimulus set with 112 country outline-name pairs, and report response times and prior knowledge for these items in 285 largely Western European participants. Prior knowledge per item ranged from very high (94.4%) to zero (0.3%), thereby allowing researchers to select materials of which participants can be expected to have any given amount of prior knowledge. As such, this database provides a useful tool for research on real-world learning. The database can be accessed at: https://osf.io/q25rd/

Lockdown Learning:Changes in Online Foreign-Language Study Activity and Performance of Dutch Secondary School Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic caused lockdowns and sudden school closures around the world in spring 2020, significantly impacting the education of students. Here, we investigate how the switch to distance learning affected study activity and performance in an online retrieval practice tool used for language learning in Dutch secondary education. We report insights from a rich data set consisting of over 115 million retrieval practice trials completed by more than 133 thousand students over the course of two consecutive school years. Our findings show that usage of the tool increased substantially at the start of lockdown, with the bulk of study activity occurring on weekday mornings. In general, students’ progress through the material was largely unaffected by lockdown, although students from the highest educational track were somewhat more likely to be on or ahead of schedule than students from lower tracks, compared to the previous year. Performance on individual study trials was generally stable, but accuracy and response time on open answer questions went up, perhaps as a result of students being more focused at home. These encouraging findings contribute to a growing literature on the educational ramifications of distance learning during lockdown