Why do some people learn from their mistakes, while others don't?
Psychologist Mike Cohen is researching why some people are prone to repeating their mistakes, and why impulsive people tend to repeat their mistakes more often. He received a Vidi grant of €800,000 to carry out his research.
People learn from their mistakes. But not everyone learns at the same rate; some people are prone to repeating their mistakes. Psychologist Mike Cohen is researching why that is, and why impulsive people tend to repeat their mistakes more often. He received a Vidi grant of €800,000 to carry out his research.Test subjects are presented with a word written in a particular colour, and are asked to state what colour it is. The word ‘YELLOW' appears on the screen, written in red. It's quite likely that the subject will say 'yellow' rather than 'red', because the word itself rather than its colour influenced their answer. Subjects who then complete the rest of the test make few or no further errors. ‘The brain has learned from its mistake,' says Cohen. ‘Various parts of the brain interact to make that happen. Those areas of the brain share information with each other and form a team. The connection between those different parts of the brain is the white matter, a kind of highway to transport all information. It's the physical, biological connection between the parts of the brain.'
Communication errors
The brain also holds functional connections: parts of the brain send electrical signals to each other, so they can communicate. To learn from mistakes, those signals need to be tuned into each other, and synchronised. In his research, Cohen will be researching exactly how that takes place and how errors can occur in this communication. He'll be paying particularly close attention to impulsive behaviour. ‘Impulsive people repeat their mistakes more often than cautious people do,' explains Cohen. ‘I want to find out why that is. My hypothesis states that the electrical signals are less synchronised amongst impulsive people than with others. The parts of their brain simply don't communicate as effectively with each other. It's also possible that the physical connections between the parts of the brain are less well developed. To research this, we're studying those physical connections using MRI, and the functional connections using EEG.'Stop or drive on?
Cohen has come up with quite a range of experiments for his subjects. For instance, he uses the ‘go-no go' experiment, which presents the subject with a dilemma: you're in a hurry and you approach a crossroads where the traffic lights are green. A car is approaching from the left at high speed. That car does not have right of way, but it's moving fast and doesn't look like it's inclined to stop. What do you do? ‘To protect yourself, the best option is absolutely to brake,' says Cohen. ‘After all, that car isn't going to stop. But impulsive people will in all likelihood be more inclined to ‘go'. They're thinking about their short-term goal: to be on time. Their brains appear less capable of regulating their behaviour. I'd like to know what accounts for those differences.' Cohen hastens to add that impulsive behaviour is not linked to a lower IQ. ‘You might think it's not very clever to decide not to stop when there's a car approaching at such a speed. But what's interesting is that intelligent people display impulsive behaviour too. Look at the bankers who caused the credit crisis. They're highly intelligent, but they too focused on short-term profits and didn't look beyond the here and now.'Cohen's research will last five years. Two PhD students will be working alongside him.
Author: Esther van Bochove, FMG Communication department