The Effect Of Cognitive Flexibility And Probability Domain Knowledge On The Probabilistic Cue Rule Learning

A large number of studies have confirmed that the characteristics of learners affect the learning effect.Firstly,cognitive flexibility is related to the level of cognitive ability and creativity,which is an important feature of intelligence.Secondly,individuals have different levels in the domain of probability knowledge.Under the learning background of probabilistic cues,whether the level of probability knowledge has an impact on the learning process and result remains to be studied.Besides,how cognitive flexibility interact with probability knowledge in probabilistic rule learning also need to be explored.We addressed these questions by taking advantage of the event-related potentials(ERP)technique in two rule tasks with the same probability properties,which aimed to see how learners' cognitive flexibility and probability knowledge promote the dynamic process and the neural mechanism of probabilistic clue rule learning.Four studies would be discussed.In study 1,on the one hand,we chose "number-letter task" as the effective tool to assess learners' cognitive flexibility level based on previous researches and our pretest study.On the other hand,after multiple pilot experiments,probability knowledge questions suitable for college students were compiled,and then the probability knowledge level of college learners was evaluated in experiment 1.Results showed that the number-letter task and the self-designed probabilistic knowledge questionnaire could be used to evaluate the cognitive flexibility and probabilistic knowledge level of college students.Because there was a weak correlation between college students' flexibility and probabilistic knowledge level,the subsequent research discussed the mechanism of these two factors respectively.Study 2 focused on the cognitive flexibility.According to the results of experiment 1,the subjects with high or low cognitive flexibility were selected to complete the coin search task(experiment 2)and the picture selection task(experiment 3)respectively in the EEG environment.Results showed that in these two tasks,learners with high flexibility had better learning performance than those with low flexibility in terms of both behavior and ERP measurement,which means the learners' cognitive flexibility had cross-task advantages.In experiment 2,there was a significant difference between high and low flexibility groups in the amplitude of feedback-FRN under the conditions of pre-acquisiton and expectation and the conditions of post-acquisition and unexpectation.And only the low flexibility group showed significant difference between high and low probability condition in the amplitude of feedback-P300.In experiment 3,there was a marginal significant difference between two groups in the amplitude of feedback-P300 under the condition of pre-acquisiton,high probability and reward.The advantage of high flexibility in rule learning was mainly due to the higher efficiency of feedback learningStudy 3 focused on the probability knowledge.According to the results of experiment 1,people with high or low probability knowledge level were selected to complete coin search task(experiment 4)and picture selection task(experiment 5)in EEG environment.The results showed that in both tasks,individuals with high probability knowledge performed better than those with low probability knowledge in terms of behavior and EEG measurement.However,there was a small advantage of probability knowledge in picture selection task,which means that learners' knowledge in probability domain had certain cross-task advantage.Experiment 4 and 5 found that the difference between high and low probability knowledge groups was in P300 during evaluation stage.The advantage of high probability knowledge in rule learning was mainly due to the recognition of stimulus probability attributes in the early learning stage.In study 4,based on previous behavioral and ERP data,we first explored whether cognitive flexibility and probabilistic knowledge had a common influence on learning process,and then used correlation and regression analysis to further understand the role of cognitive flexibility and probabilistic knowledge in the rule learning tasks.The correlation analysis showed that there was no correlation between switching cost and ERP at each stage of the two probabilistic cue rule learning tasks,and the probability knowledge was correlated with ERPs before the rule acquisition stage of the coin-searching task.That is to say,for the probabilistic knowledge,whether behavior was related to ERP data was affected by learners' perception of probabilistic attributes of tasks.The mixed repeated variance analysis showed no interaction between cognitive flexibility and probabilistic knowledge.The regression analysis was carried out to examine whether rules were found in the two tasks according to the standard scores of switching cost and probability knowledge test.The results showed that the level of cognitive flexibility(switching cost)was an important factor to determine whether rules could be found in the coin search task.For the picture selection task,cognitive flexibility and probability knowledge were both important factors,which means that cognitive flexibility is a significant factor in predicting learning effect in rule learning tasks with probabilistic cues regardless of specific task forms.The predictive effect of probabilistic domain knowledge on learning results is influenced by the demand of probabilistic knowledge and experience during the process of task execution.In conclusion,this study finds that both college students' cognitive flexibility and level of probability knowledge have an impact on the learning process of probabilistic cue rules Learners with high cognitive flexibility have a cross-task advantage on learning(experiment 2 and 3)and show higher learning efficiency based on feedback.Learners with high probability domain knowledge also have the cross-task advantage on learning(experiment 4 and 5)and may perceive the probabilistic attributes of tasks at the early stage of learning.Under the background of rule-based learning of probability cues,the study shows that learners' cognitive flexibility and probability knowledge have impacts on probabilistic rule learning,and further reveals the learning stages and potential brain mechanisms,which provides a theoretical basis for targeted learning training in higher education.