Adult Learning Memory

Adult Learning Memory
Young adult still have some mental skills to learn. Comparisons of people who are new to their chosen fields study with those who are more experienced make this clear.

At Piaget’s highest stage of cognitive development formal operations, adults often perform better in their areas of specialization than in unfamiliar areas. Similarly, adults often learn, remember, and solve problems best in their areas of expertise.

Experts process information differently than novices do; that is, knowledge base influences both the nature and effectiveness of information processing.

Consider the effects of knowledge base in memory. How might adults who are baseball experts and adults who care little for baseball perceive and remember the same game? Researcher George Spilich and his associates (1979) had college students who knew a great deal or very little about baseball listen to the tape of half an inning of play.

Experts recalled more of the information central to the game – the important plays and the fate of each batter in proper order – whereas novices were caught up by less central facts such as the threatening weather conditioning and the number of people attending the game.

Experts also recalled more central details – for example, noting that a double was in line drive down the left-field rather than just a double.

Now consider the impact of increased expertise in one’s career on the ability to solve problems. Researchers observed how radiologists at different stages of career development interpret X-rays and make diagnoses based in them. Researcher emphasizes that these physicians were developing and using schemata, or organized networks of knowledge stored in long term memory, to guide their perception of X-rays and their ultimate decisions.

Resident radiologists out of medical school seemed to rely on general, relatively simple schemes and principals of diagnosis (for example, noting all the abnormalities one can and then looking for a disease that fits). These novices did not consider additional information such as the patient’s medical condition or the exact location of a dark spot on the film, factors that could mean the difference between seeing as collapsed lung and seeing a tumor.

Experienced physicians did consider these sorts of complexities. They had more complete schemes and could quickly, surely and almost automatically call up just the specific knowledge they needed to make an accurate diagnosis.

In short experts know more, and they use specific stored knowledge to solve problems, quickly detecting how new problems stack up against old problems.

In effect, experts do not need to think so much – like experienced drivers who can put themselves on “autopilot,” free to use their minds for more than driving unless some new situation occurs. Organized knowledge allows them to use well learned routines quickly and accurately.

Although adults continue to use general learning and memory strategies to deal with problem outside their expertise, they also develop highly effective, specific and automatized information-processing routines that help them learn, remember and think very effectively in their areas of specialization.
Adult Learning Memory