Psychology
The Outer Limits of Cognitive Processing: A Closer Look at What is Desirable
Document Type
Oral Presentation
Start Date
10-4-2015 1:15 PM
End Date
10-4-2015 2:30 PM
Sponsor
Mandy Gingerich (Butler University)
Description
Neuronal interplay within the brain plays a major role in how we perceive, understand, and encode pieces of information we obtain in our everyday lives (Driver & Noesselt, 2008). One of the ways to effectively study the effects of neuronal interplay is through cognitive processes. The current study touches on two specific cognitive phenomena: desirable difficulties and mental thresholds. Desirable difficulties are defined as certain difficulties in the learning process that can greatly improve long term retention of learned material (Bjork & Bjork, 1992). Expanding on this concept, Labroo and Kim (2008) found that people are much more satisfied and invested in goals that require some sort of physical or mental effort as opposed to goals that are relatively easy. This finding suggests that the concept of desirable difficulties is not just critical for learning, but plays an important role in individual enjoyment. However, determining what is desirably difficult is challenging because beliefs about what is "desirably difficult" are often skewed by faulty perceptions. The concept of desirable difficulties allows for the study of mental thresholds, or certain thresholds in cognition, that indicate relative easiness and relative difficulty.
The main focus of our study is to determine whether there is a universal mental threshold that separates what is desirably difficult from what is too cognitively difficult. In order to examine this phenomena, we examined word and picture recognition of varying frequencies, with and without distractor items, in five different rotations (0 °, 45 °, 90 °, 135 °, 180 °). We also administered an enjoyment survey to guage differences in enjoyment among the different rotations. We also instructed participants to indicate their judgments of learning (JOLs) immediately following the presented stimuli.
Results suggest that items perceived in an upright position (0 ° and 45 °) yield different cognitive thresholds than perceived inverted positions (90 °, 135 °, 180 °). In addition, there are different mental thresholds when observing pictures rather than words and low-frequency distractor words elicit false word recognition. Finally, our results suggest that the concept of desirable difficulties does not operate on a smooth continuum, but rather as a product of what stimuli are presented.
The Outer Limits of Cognitive Processing: A Closer Look at What is Desirable
Neuronal interplay within the brain plays a major role in how we perceive, understand, and encode pieces of information we obtain in our everyday lives (Driver & Noesselt, 2008). One of the ways to effectively study the effects of neuronal interplay is through cognitive processes. The current study touches on two specific cognitive phenomena: desirable difficulties and mental thresholds. Desirable difficulties are defined as certain difficulties in the learning process that can greatly improve long term retention of learned material (Bjork & Bjork, 1992). Expanding on this concept, Labroo and Kim (2008) found that people are much more satisfied and invested in goals that require some sort of physical or mental effort as opposed to goals that are relatively easy. This finding suggests that the concept of desirable difficulties is not just critical for learning, but plays an important role in individual enjoyment. However, determining what is desirably difficult is challenging because beliefs about what is "desirably difficult" are often skewed by faulty perceptions. The concept of desirable difficulties allows for the study of mental thresholds, or certain thresholds in cognition, that indicate relative easiness and relative difficulty.
The main focus of our study is to determine whether there is a universal mental threshold that separates what is desirably difficult from what is too cognitively difficult. In order to examine this phenomena, we examined word and picture recognition of varying frequencies, with and without distractor items, in five different rotations (0 °, 45 °, 90 °, 135 °, 180 °). We also administered an enjoyment survey to guage differences in enjoyment among the different rotations. We also instructed participants to indicate their judgments of learning (JOLs) immediately following the presented stimuli.
Results suggest that items perceived in an upright position (0 ° and 45 °) yield different cognitive thresholds than perceived inverted positions (90 °, 135 °, 180 °). In addition, there are different mental thresholds when observing pictures rather than words and low-frequency distractor words elicit false word recognition. Finally, our results suggest that the concept of desirable difficulties does not operate on a smooth continuum, but rather as a product of what stimuli are presented.