Speaker 10: Robert A. Bjork
Saturday March 9, 13:40 - 14:40
Optimizing treatment and training:
Implications of a new theory of disuse
Robert A. Bjork
Elizabeth L. Bjork
Treatment and training have a central goal in common---optimizing the long-term retention and transfer of the new learning that is the target of therapy or training. A variety of basic-research findings suggest, however, that optimizing such retention and transfer may require structuring the conditions of therapy or training in some unintuitive and nonstandard ways. Conditions that may appear optimal, as measured by desirable changes observed during treatment, or by rapid improvements in performance during training, may prove far from optimal---as measured by the actual carryover of those effects to real-word environments. Conversely, conditions that introduce certain difficulties, often slowing the apparent rate of progress and learning, may enhance long-term retention and transfer of desired changes or knowledge.
In this paper we discuss the implications of a particular theoretical framework—one we have labeled the new theory of disuse (Bjork & Bjork, 1992)---for how treatment and training should be structured. The theory distinguishes between storage strength, a measure of learning, and retrieval strength, a measure of current ease of access—a distinction that is consistent with the time-honored distinction between learning and performance. From the standpoint of the theory, programs of treatment and training are frequently far from optimal for two reasons: (a) Retrieval strength is confused with learning; and (b) manipulations that---according to the theory---optimize the gain of retrieval strength are not those that will optimize the gain of storage strength and, hence, support long-term retention and transfer.