MAY 14,
2019
Rewards
are necessary for learning, but may actually mask true knowledge, finds a new
Johns Hopkins University study with rodents and ferrets.
The
findings, published May 14 in Nature Communications, show a distinction
between knowledge and performance, and
provide insight into how environment can affect the two.
"Most
learning research focuses on how humans and other animals learn 'content' or
knowledge. Here, we suggest that there are two parallel learning processes: one
for content and one for context, or environment. If we can separate how these
two pathways work, perhaps we can find ways to improve performance," says
Kishore Kuchibhotla, an assistant professor in The Johns Hopkins University's
department of psychological and brain sciences and
the study's lead author.
While
researchers have known that the presence of reinforcement, or reward, can
change how animals behave, it's been unclear exactly how rewards affect
learning versus performance.
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