Controversy & Clarity #5--Elizabeth and Robert Björk
Happy New Year, everyone!
In this episode, we discuss
*How the Björks define learning
*The difference between learning and performance
*The retrieval effect
*The relationship between forgetting and learning
*Some thoughts on why humans are terrible at predicting what they know vs what they don’t know and how well they think they’ll perform vs how they’ll actually perform
*How accessing memories changes them in our brain
*How our recall is highly dependent on contextual cues
*The myth of muscle memory
*How variability in practice conditions makes for better learning
*How our intuitions can mislead us about our abilities
*The benefit of educational and training simulations
*Bob’s work with the Nuclear Training Center
*Some ideas on how to introduce desirable difficulties to already successful students
*The difference between near and far transfer of learning
*The Björk’s take on the Marine Corps’ colloquial definitions for training (“preparation for the known”) and education (“preparation for the unknown”)
*The one thing Bob and Elizabeth hope US servicemembers take away from our conversation
Links
The Björk Center for Learning and Forgetting at UCLA
Errata
In the last 30 minutes of show, Bob mentions the “Blue Force” being the opposition force at the US Army’s National Training Center. He meant instead to say, “Red Force.”