How do old dogs learn new tricks: teaching a technological skill to brain injured people

B A Wilson, Alan Baddeley, J M Cockburn

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Little is known about the way people learn technological skills. This investigation was carried out to see how 100 brain injured, 50 controls and two amnesic patients performed on a task requiring them to learn a six-step programme for an electronic memory aid. Performance was correlated with other measures of memory to determine whether the technological skill was similar to a procedural learning task, a spatial memory task, a visual task, a verbal task or an amalgam of these. All controls but only 59 percent of the patients learned the task within three trials. The two amnesic patients also failed to learn the new skill. There was a high correlation between overall performance on a standardized test of everyday memory (the Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test) but little evidence that the technological skill was similar to a procedural learning task; nor was it specifically related to visual, verbal or spatial memory. It is concluded that a combination of skills is required to learn the technological task. Implications for the concept of procedural learning are discussed.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)115-9
Number of pages5
JournalCortex
Volume25
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - 1989

Keywords

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Brain Injuries
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Intelligence
  • Learning
  • Male
  • Memory
  • Middle Aged
  • Neuropsychological Tests
  • Reference Values

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