# data[].attributes.body
Habits shape our brain!

# data[].attributes.body
Insights into how our brain adapts and learns throughout our lives.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
After watching this, your brain will not be the same | Lara Boyd | TEDxVancouver

# data[].attributes.headline
Neurons that fire together, wire together

# data[].attributes.subject
Neurons that fire together, wire together

# data[].attributes.body
This video explains how practice strengthens neural connections in our brain.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to practice effectively...for just about anything - Annie Bosler and Don Greene

# data[].attributes.body
NPR article with practical tips based on scientific research.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Practice is a physical activity, of course, but it's also hard mental work - if you're doing it right. A new video published by TED Ed gets down to the scientific nitty-gritty of what good practice looks like, and what it does to your brain. (Think axons and myelin, not "muscle memory" - muscles don't have "memory.")

As Annie Bosler and Don Greene, the creators of this TED Ed lesson, point out, this advice can apply to everything from music to sports. They define effective practice as "consistent, intensely focused and target[ing] content or weaknesses that lie at the edge of one's current abilities." That's another way of saying: Don't waste your time practicing the stuff you already know, just to fill up those minutes.

More of their specific advice, with each point bolstered by research:

"Focus at the task on hand." Shut off all those digital distractions. No excuses.

"Start out slowly, or in slow motion. Coordination is built with repetitions." Get it right at a slow pace and then work on increasing your speed while still playing the music correctly.

"Frequent repetition with allotted breaks are common practice habits of elite performers." Do what many pros do: split your practice time into smaller, super-concentrated chunks, working multiple times a day.

"Practice in your brain, in vivid detail." Visualize playing your music without actually playing it. Put yourself through the music, note by note. Imagine what it feels like to press that key, or take that breath, every step of the way.

Of course, their advice about practicing isn't new; quite a bit of it has been floating around for some time now, like in a series of posts published here on Deceptive Cadence a few years ago. But having a better understanding why and how it works is inspiring - and helps you reinforce good habits.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How To Practice Effectively, According To Science

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Want to boost those neural pathways? TED Ed offers practical suggestions: Practice in concentrated bursts, work through passages slooowly -- and step away from Facebook.

# data[].attributes.headline
Neuroscience and Learning: TEACHING is a GREAT way to LEARN

# data[].attributes.subject
Neuroscience and Learning: TEACHING is a GREAT way to LEARN

# data[].attributes.body
TEACHING is a GREAT way to LEARN

LEARNING: 3 aspects: intake, storage (memory–glue that links experiences)--long and short term (repetition, LTP long term potentiation, brain is looking for patterns, neuroplasticity.

Stress can aid in learning: Unfamiliar information→ forced to learn something that doesn’t fit.

Limbic system

Activation of amygdala → cortisol → stress →

Optimize you stress!

Too little = boredom

Too much = frustrated

Failure is in the feedback of learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The neuroscience of learning. | Siddharth Warrier | TEDxSIESGST

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
ADD/ADHD | What Is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?

# data[].attributes.body
Our ability to focus and sustain attention significantly impacts what we learn and remember.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Should mobile devices be encouraged in class? Trinity College, CC BY-NC-ND

It's hard not to notice the connection of today's youth to technology.

Fused to their smartphones around the clock, they prefer screens to paper and text message to speech; they consider leaving voicemail an act of interpersonal aggression.

They seem to focus differently too: skimming and sampling their way through multiple streams of data, they look like they're taking it in all at once.

Some educators call them "digital natives," reflecting the idea that tech is at the core of who they are and how they function.

If living with technology really has rewired this generation for multitasking, what implications does this have for how we educate them? Should we tolerate - or maybe even encourage - mobile devices in class? And should we worry when we see students keeping an eye on social media or other diversions while doing homework?

Why attention matters for learning

As a professor who specializes in course design, I deal with these questions frequently as I help fellow faculty devise better strategies. In this work, I draw on my research background in cognitive psychology, a specialization focusing on mental processes such as reasoning, memory and attention.

Of those processes, attention is one that I tell teachers to be particularly attuned to. Research shows that memory - especially working memory, which holds information we're using in the present moment - is deeply intertwined with attention.

Without sustained focus, we retain surprisingly little, and that window of focus is much narrower than we may realize.

So, are the minds of digital natives - or any heavy tech users - better or worse when it comes to attention? It's a complicated question, partly because attention works in some paradoxical ways.

The function of attention is to prioritize where we put our limited cognitive resources at any given moment. One thing attention does is keep irrelevant information at bay. Like a bouncer at an exclusive nightclub, its job is to ensure that only the most important and relevant elements pass through into conscious awareness.

But at the same time, a well-functioning attention system has to stay open to information that's in the background and could be potentially useful. That mental bouncer has to constantly scan the crowd for anyone who might turn out to be a great addition to the party, pick them out and usher them inside.

What technology does to the ability to pay attention

Technology seems to have a bigger impact on that second side of attention.

Certain kinds of tech use - habitually consuming lots of online media at once, or playing certain kinds of video games - appear to boost the ability to efficiently pick up on peripheral information while keeping up with a main task.

And although long-term studies are lacking, there is a growing body of research on how tech-saturated environments shape the minds and brains of kids.

It's unlikely that video games or online media damage kids' ability to pay attention. But comparative research across high-tech and low-tech societies suggests that information processing is different in kids who grow up working with digital rather than physical tools. Neither group is better or worse across the board, but this research suggests that high-tech kids may be less inclined to learn by watching for extended periods of time.

That said, we should be cautious about concluding that today's students have developed the ability to juggle as much technology as they want. Technology has not reshaped the basic ways in which our brains process information.

As cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham points out, the impact of things like video games is relatively subtle. All they can do is tinker around the edges of our mental systems, rather than altering them at the core.

As Willingham says, something as fundamental as attention couldn't be deeply reshaped without a major overhaul of the brain - something that would be a function of evolution, not life experiences.

All of this means that college teachers should be skeptical of claims that their game- and tech-obsessed students process information completely differently. Compared to earlier generations, today's students are probably no more able to learn while simultaneously engrossed in Twitter, Facebook and texting.

College students and technology

There are other pitfalls to consider.

Research with young adults in college suggests that they are neither as enthusiastic about technology nor as adept at using it as we may assume. Sometimes, they intentionally opt for lower-tech approaches; in one study of California college students, most said that they preferred paper over a browser for their own studying.

This is something my faculty colleagues commonly observe as well - that although their students may use technology like social media casually throughout the day, it doesn't translate to other tech-based tasks, such as navigating a course's online homework system.

Students also get into trouble if they assume - because of the "digital nativism" idea, or simple lack of self-awareness - that they can master demanding coursework while engaged in digital distractions.

Evidence suggests that multitasking - such as tweeting in class - reduces learning, or at the very least makes it take longer.

Even sitting next to a classmate surfing the web on his or her own laptop hampers learning.

In sum, despite that appearance of being fused to their devices, today's students aren't immune to the distraction those devices cause. And they don't necessarily want technology in every corner of their educational lives.

How college teachers can help

College teachers need to include lots of tech support for online assignments and other kinds of educational technologies, because even students who have grown up with computers still get stuck when using them in new contexts.

Teachers must also avoid the trap of adding tech to a class just because they assume digital native students want it. Educational technology can be highly effective, but only when it is tightly coupled to the teacher's goals.

Even better, teachers can help students understand for themselves how attention works - knowledge that everyone ought to have in today's distracting era. Without vilifying technology, teachers can work to raise students' awareness about how attention impacts learning more than we may realize, no matter what our age.

The effects of technology on cognition are intriguing, but they don't justify teaching millennials as if they were a new species. Teachers need to think twice about tolerating devices in class, except as part of structured activities that link to the lesson at hand.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Can millennials pay attention to classwork while texting, tweeting and being on Facebook?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From the look of it, the millennials appear to be very comfortable with technology. But are they as immune to the effects of digital distraction as some might assume - especially in the classroom?

# data[].attributes.body
Sleep, diet, physical exercise, and social interactions affect our memory. Creating a conducive environment can significantly enhance our ability to learn and remember.

# data[].attributes.body
Strong links between emotions and memory. Emotional events are often remembered more vividly and for longer periods. Understanding this connection can help us leverage emotions for better learning outcomes.

# data[].attributes.body
Ways to engage students' attention, promote active learning, and create emotionally positive learning environments.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Bonni: [00:00:00] Dr. Saundra McGuire discusses how to teach students how to learn. On today's episode number 132 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.

Production Credit: [00:00:13] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Bonni: [00:00:22] Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I'm Bonni Stachowiak and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to increase our personal productivity so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students.

Bonni: [00:00:49] Today's guest Dr. Saundra McGuire was connected with me through the ACUE organization and she is an expert consultant for them in the area of engaging under-prepared students. She is the director emeritus at the Center for Academic success at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and she also formerly held the positions of Assistant Vice Chancellor and Professor of Chemistry. Prior to that she spent 11 years at Cornell University where she received the coveted Clark Distinguished Teaching Award. She's been teaching chemistry working in the area of learning and teaching support and mentoring students for over 40 years. Saundra, welcome to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Saundra: [00:01:41] Thank you so much branning for having me. I'm really excited to be here today.

Bonni: [00:01:46] I know that you have had a great career in higher ed and one of the things just one of many that you have really learned to stress is how important it is for us to really be teaching our students how to learn. Saundra, can you tell me when that first started to have you seen in your career just how important that is?

Saundra: [00:02:07] Yes. Well, actually, I can tell you that teaching students how to learn are effective learning strategies and really didn't know the importance of that and started to do that with students until I got to LSU, which was about the 30th year of a 43 year career.

Saundra: [00:02:26] And so I didn't always know this I was a chemistry professor and I always knew the importance of helping students understand concepts and recognizing that there were concepts beneath concepts and that they needed to know between the lines information.

Saundra: [00:02:42] But the idea that you could actually teach them how to learn was something that came to me relatively late in my career and I can tell you in fact when I first heard the term teach students how to learn which is ironically just a little bit but the title of the book when I first heard that phrase I really thought that was the most nonsensical phrase on the planet.

Saundra: [00:03:04] I'm thinking, "Teach students how to learn? How are you going to do that if they don't know how to learn? And you teach them how to learn, you're not going to learn it because they don't know how to learn."

Bonni: [00:03:14] It is cyclical.

Saundra: [00:03:15] It didn't make any sense to me but now I understand what that means to extend the learning process. Teach them that learning is not an activity but a process - is not something you do the night before a test - and it was actually when I came to LSU as director of the learning center there that I started to really be responsible for talking to students about increasing their learning.

Saundra: [00:03:42] And I started reading a lot of information and there was a wonderful learning strategist who was there Sarah who was fantastic and she really taught me a lot about this.

Saundra: [00:03:55] And when I saw some of the things that she was doing with students and I started reading everything I could get my hands on and I started trying out the strategies but I could tell you that initially I didn't really think they would work I thought the strategy were too easy I didn't think students would do them.

Saundra: [00:04:09] But as the weeks and months passed and students were coming back telling me that they had been flunking exams and now they were making A's on the exams I really became a believer in how easy it is to teach students these fundamentally basic learning strategies that typically they haven't learned by the time they get to college.

Bonni: [00:04:32] I think that some of them are almost counter intuitive and even for us as faculty we try not to think of ourselves as so far apart from our students that they really can be. Well I mean I think I think one that I know of which is not necessarily teaching our students how to learn but just the importance of sleep being one example that it seems like one big of a deal would it be if I lost out on sleep.

Bonni: [00:04:54] That's something that it seems like, "Oh. The longer I stayed up to study the better off I would be the next day and more prepared I would be for my exams." So that's kind of one of those counter-intuitive...

Saundra: [00:05:03] Exactly. And I remember thinking the same thing. And so I addressed this in the book but the importance of getting enough sleep proper nutrition of getting exercise. There's so many students especially around final exam time when they are in cram mode and they have so much to do and they just give up their gym routine.

Saundra: [00:05:23] But we now know that physical activity is really so important to having the brain operate at peak efficiency that these are really important. And as you say it's pretty counter-intuitive because students think well the more time I put into this the more hours I spend on it the better the outcome will be when that is really just not the case.

Bonni: [00:05:47] One of the techniques that I've been really enjoying in using a lot in the last couple of years is retrieval practice and that's one of those things where they're pulling it out of their heads instead of me trying to cram information into their heads and trying to get them to pull it out of their heads.

Bonni: [00:06:01] And that's one of those things I'm actually encouraging them to spend less time but do it more often. So I'll tell them, you know, "I want you every single day for 10 minutes to do this. Not three hours for one day but just every day for 10 minutes pull out this little flashcards."

Saundra: [00:06:15] Yes. And the way that I help students develop a strategy for doing this. Well I start with asking them a reflection question. The question is would you work harder if you were trying to make an A on a test or if you knew that you had to teach the information to the class to prepare the class for an upcoming exam or for going over all of the important concepts in the course paying particular attention to the more the more difficult concepts to make sure everyone understood. For which task would you work harder?

Saundra: [00:06:50] Students always say they would work harder if they had to teach the information. OK. And I tell them that absolutely that's true for most people and I ask them why they said [that]. "Well I have to really know if I have to teach it." Or they'll say, "I have to be able to answer questions," and so that's actually a great way of pretending that you're teaching information is a great way to practice that retrieval of the information.

Saundra: [00:07:15] Because if you're pretending you're teaching something if you get to a part that you don't totally understand you're going to get stuck at that point and then you know that you don't totally understand that and you can go back and you can reread that information or study it again to make sure that the next time you go over there you are in a much better position to retrieve that information that you thought you could retrieve easily. But when you pretended that you were teaching the information you saw that that was not the case.

Bonni: [00:07:43] One of the things that I know is really important to your work is what we should be thinking about as faculty when students are not doing well what's what's the what's the paradigm that we should have and what are some of the challenges that we have with getting our heads wrapped around that?

Saundra: [00:07:58] Yes well I think a lot of faculty have the same problem that I had the first 30 years of my career when if I had a student who flunked my first two Organic Chemistry exams if they came to me and said well what should I do.

Saundra: [00:08:14] And they thought that they were on their way to becoming a brain surgeon. I would ask well what's your backup plan here. I didn't think that they would be able to be successful but now I think that we really need to take heed to the wonderful work that Carol Dweck a cognitive psychologist out of Stanford has done on mindset and the idea that you have a certain amount of intelligence that you're born with. She calls that a fixed mindset.

Saundra: [00:08:43] The other view is that you can grow your intelligence with your actions. And so you can literally make yourself smarter so you could have an IQ test score of 70 when you're third grade but then have one 10 120 when you're 10th grade. If you learn those things are tested on an IQ test.

Saundra: [00:09:03] And so I think that it's important for us as faculty to recognize that students who may be failing our courses measurably are not failing because they are not capable but they are failing because they don't have strategies to successfully master the information. And that was new to me because I really did think that there were certain students who were smart enough to excel in the physics the philosophies the economics of the world.

Saundra: [00:09:36] And then there were other students who were put on the planet to do something else other than those that I consider those very challenging disciplines. And I now no longer believe that at all.

Saundra: [00:09:46] I think that all students have the ability to excel but many of them need to be explicitly taught the learning strategies which the successful students have learned at some point along the way. It might have been in elementary school. There are now some students who have a study skills course in middle school and high school where they learn these strategies.

Saundra: [00:10:09] But I think it's important for us to recognize that it's very easy to teach students at any level I've worked with undergraduate students graduate and professional school students and these very simple strategies for example previewing the material that's going to be covered in class before you go to class.

Saundra: [00:10:27] Reviewing what happened in class as soon as class is over so that you can make sure that you're starting that process of moving the information from short term memory where it went after you'd heard it for the first time in class into long term memory where you're going to be able to retrieve that information and use it later on.

Saundra: [00:10:47] And when students are taught these simple strategies which by the way most of us faculty including myself don't really have the language to explain in detail to students but once we acquire that language and discuss it with students students are able to to really appreciate it and implement it.

Saundra: [00:11:05] And I've seen students scores go from 30 28 on the first two Tests to 80s and 90s on tests after that. One young man in chemistry had a 42 on his first test and he got hundreds on everything after that.

Saundra: [00:11:18] And that was very eye opening to me and that's one of the things that I would like most faculty to recognize that we don't have to tell students dropped the course. We can help them get the learning strategies that will help them excel even if they've been failing miserably.

Bonni: [00:11:34] I'm hearing two themes from you. I'm hearing the importance of us helping our students recognize this but I'm also hearing we've got to recognize that ourselves as faculty that we have a tendency to put labels on students they're capable they're not capable of that.

Bonni: [00:11:50] That this mindset can actually help us free our students from the trap that we will sometimes put them in. What was something that changed her mind about it? What do you remember as a powerful force that got you to start thinking that you might be wrong about the capabilities of some of your students?

Saundra: [00:12:06] Yes. Well and it was actually at LSU when I started teaching students these very simple strategies moom taxonomy teaching students about Bloom's Taxonomy is also a very powerful tool which I did not do for the first 30 years of my career because I had learned Bloom's Taxonomy as a construct for us as faculty to use to target our teaching to target our assessments.

Saundra: [00:12:32] But I never taught it to students. But then when I got to LSU they were teaching it very successfully the students. And so then I started explaining students from sexology and they immediately got it. In fact the most common reaction I would get is wow I wish I had known about this in high school.

Saundra: [00:12:50] And so it was a way to help them view what they had been doing just straight memorization memorizing formulas memorizing definitions and seeing how that was not getting the level of learning especially in the STEM courses because I work with a lot of them students of the chemistry professor.

Saundra: [00:13:09] But that wasn't getting them to the analysis - the application - even the evaluation that they needed to be where they were failing at those levels because they never even knew that those levels existed. All they knew to do was to memorize information.

Saundra: [00:13:26] And so when I started teaching students parents and students started coming back to me telling me that they were making straight A's on these exams where they'd been flunking the course before that really got my attention and it helped me to understand that there really is something here.

Bonni: [00:13:44] Some of the people who were listening may not have heard of Bloom's Taxonomy although I know a lot of a lot of people have but but why don't you just give a sentence or two on on what it is but also what happens when we move up in Bloom's Taxonomy what how our teaching transforms and then how our learning transforms.

Saundra: [00:14:00] Wonderful yes. Yes. The cognitive scientist Benjamin Bloom back in 1957 worked with a group of educators and they tried to analyze the types of activities that go on in learning and so they came up with Bloom's Taxonomy.

Saundra: [00:14:20] The it's been revised now and I'll just give you the revised levels but the base is remembering so straight memorization and then up from that is understanding and the way I explain it to students is if you're remembering you've memorized definitions formulas ways of doing problem forbade them.

Saundra: [00:14:40] But if you understanding if somebody says well how would you explain that in your own words or can you explain this to your 80 year old grandmother or your eight year old nephew you could do that if you at understanding and then the next level is applying.

Saundra: [00:14:53] Where now you can answer questions you've never seen before you can work problems you've never seen before because you understand the concepts and the information and then the next level is analyzing where at this level you could take any concept and break it down into simpler concepts.

Saundra: [00:15:13] So if I were to ask you to give a three minute mini lecture on Buffer solutions for example in chemistry you could tell me about the need to have weak acids as opposed to strong acids. You could tell me about the common ion effect. The Henderson-Hasselbalch equation. Because now you can analyze these concepts and see what's underlying them.

Saundra: [00:15:32] Then the next level is evaluating. So you could look at two ideas two theories two ways of approaching something and evaluating whether one is more likely to be effective than another.

Saundra: [00:15:45] And then at the top is creating where now you can come up with your own ideas your own theory your own ways of approaching things. And now let me say that I am well aware that when Bloom developed this - Bloom and colleagues - he didn't really see it as a hierarchy.

Saundra: [00:16:03] And there are a lot of educators who really don't like to see it presented as a hierarchy. And I understand that but I like to present it to students as a hierarchy because I want them to understand that having some knowledge for most people is prerequisite to understanding and doing more complex tasks.

Saundra: [00:16:24] And so if students understand Bloom's Taxonomy then most of them one of the questions I ask after going over Bloom's Taxonomy. Ask them to think back to their high school experience and let me know if what the highest level was. They typically have to operate in high school to make A's and B's in their classes.

Saundra: [00:16:44] And the most common responses I get are ones and twos and there are the occasional threes and fours but mostly ones and twos and them though when I asked them since most of the students that I talk with have been in college for a while in fact I really urge us as faculty to have learning strategies talk with our students after they've gotten to develop that from the first exam or quiz.

Saundra: [00:17:10] Because before they get that most of them don't think that they have any need for this information because they've done well in high school and they memorizing has served them very well so I recommend that we do it after the students get the results back from the first test. So they've already been in college for a while.

Saundra: [00:17:28] So then I asked them knowing now what you know about Bloom's Taxonomy. What's the lowest level you think you need to consistently operate to make the A's in college that you are totally capable of making and they will tell me for five or six years in many cases because those students who have to do independent projects recognize that now they have to create their own processes.

Saundra: [00:17:53] And so it allows students then to move to higher levels by using strategies that will help them to master the content to go through the activity of paraphrasing the information to look at the problems that they haven't seen before. So we have to move into those higher order thinking skills that they would not even know existed without having a discussion about Bloom's Taxonomy.

Bonni: [00:18:22] I've had a lot of people critique Bloom's Taxonomy as well. And one of the things I've heard people say is that if if we're just spending an entire classes on remembering and understanding that we're doing a disservice in terms of motivation because when we get to creating that's often where people can have that spark of reason why this particular discipline might be of interest.

Bonni: [00:18:48] And then we might see that we're lacking. Gosh well if I'm goin to be capable of creating and going down this path that is I can now see is so intriguing to me it's a mystery to unravel to be able to do something less then I can go backward and go well if I was going to do that then I would need to be able to remember this understand. Apply this.

Bonni: [00:19:08] So I've heard people argue to sort of flip it on its head a little bit and start with creating and then we kind of fill in the gaps. There's just one way of someone resolving their own critique with it. But I think ultimately we know these are really complex things we're trying to do to change our students own mindsets and then also help them with their learning. Talk a little bit then about motivation because motivation is such a key factor for our students.

Saundra: [00:19:32] OK. Yes but I want to go back to what you said about the instruction. It's a very very important point because I often hear also that the fun is actually in the creating and I do think that every situation is different.

Saundra: [00:19:45] And so it is important for the professor or the instructor to determine if we can start at creating in this particular situation and then have students walk back to understanding what they need to remember.

Saundra: [00:19:58] But I find it very often that if we start at the higher levels then students get so frustrated because they can't create because they don't have the basic knowledge that it really does kill the motivation.

Saundra: [00:20:14] And so I find that more often starting with the basic information that they can master and then moving them up the ladder as opposed to starting at the higher levels that I think we will lose fewer students if we do it that way. Not always because there are certain disciplines for example art or certain creative disciplines where students can come up with a very good product without understanding the basic concepts behind what they're doing and they can walk it back. So I think it's important to look at every situation individually.

Bonni: [00:20:53] I wonder if it isn't isn't necessarily about me as your student creating, but just to know what's possible. I think about chemistry because that is something, Saundra, I'm afraid to admit that's one of my... I might know close to nothing about.

Bonni: [00:21:07] If I had had a professor like you who could just show me what's possible... I don't have to be able to do it. I don't have to be able to create but just to share what is possible. What are chemists thinking about? What are they creating? What are they experimenting with? To light that spark for me before memorizing concepts that I don't understand the relevance of them. I guess that's more of of where I think we can really do a better job for our students.

Saundra: [00:21:34] You're absolutely right because so many of the people who are inspired to do science is because they know that there's the next great drug to treat a disease now that it has no treatment and this is what chemists do. This is what scientists do. And many of them are motivated by the idea that I will be able to create something and then they're motivated to do what many people think are the more mundane tasks of just memorizing the information. Absolutely right.

Bonni: [00:22:05] That's something I'm working on right now with I teach introduction to business class quite often and it's one of the things I've been critical of in my own teaching is that the examples that I have given in that class in the past just in the beginning when we talk about entrepreneurship I will tend to give examples of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of the world.

Bonni: [00:22:25] And oftentimes names that students would have heard of but I've been really challenged by many of the guests on the podcast to look at the stories that I share. And then any recommended reading or articles or examples I need to have more people of color in there and I know that that's the area of weakness. So now it's been fun.

Bonni: [00:22:43] I've actually heard about a need to order the book but a really good book of women of color who are entrepreneurs that have thought yes here's just one way to get some more diverse examples so that people who look at creating - now they're obviously not going to be creating their own businesses from the start. But to show them what's possible and then I want them to see people that look like them and not only the white guys that are the famous entrepreneurs.

Saundra: [00:23:09] But that's so important on so many levels. I was just speaking at a university in California and I spoke with an African-American young lady who is a chemistry major. And so she is a biochemistry major.

Saundra: [00:23:23] And she said that she on her own did a lot of research about Ernest Everett Just who is a famous African-American biologist and she said that she knew that she needed to create a role model that she could look up to to serve to motivate her to know what is possible.

Saundra: [00:23:43] So you are absolutely right that whenever we can bring those into courses it really helps students and I'm going to say it not only helps the students of color but it also helps to shape the opinions and attitudes of the other students about what people from all different groups can accomplish.

Saundra: [00:24:03] Because we see so many negative stereotypes out there about so many different groups of people that when you can see provide those examples of very successful persons from all different backgrounds then it has a very big impact on majority students in addition to the under-represented minority students. Absolutely.

Bonni: [00:24:24] I know you have something to share now about how this all relates to motivation because if we don't have that piece we are still in trouble.

Saundra: [00:24:31] Exactly. Yes. Well in fact there are two chapters in the book on motivation is one where students can do to motivate themselves and then what faculty can do to motivate students. And one of the things I find.

Saundra: [00:24:44] And not just I find but the research indicates that the one of the most important things in determining how much effort someone is going to put toward a task is the efficacy ideas that you have if you think that you can be successful then you will expend energy trying to do it or trying to do it.

Saundra: [00:25:07] But if you think that there's no way you're going to be successful then you're not motivated to spend any energy on that. And so I find that teaching students these very specific learning strategies teaching them about metacognition which I have found is really really effective in helping students start to analyze their own thinking and the definition is more involved than just simply thinking about your own thinking.

Saundra: [00:25:35] But when I talk with students that's the way I presented and they're intrigued by the word metacognitive metacognition and metacognitive learning skills are learning strategies in a way that they know that when we talk about study skills very often we say we're going to teach students study skills.

Saundra: [00:25:52] But I find that their eyes glaze over if we're just talking about study skills but they're interested in metacognition and so when we talk with them about how they can really think about their own thinking they can analyze that thought process.

Saundra: [00:26:06] They can determine if they're just memorizing information or if they are trying to think of new ideas even if they are doing consciously doing retrieval practicing retrieval of information as opposed to not doing that. Those are things that really increase the belief in students that if they do these things then it might make a difference because they see that it's very different than what they were doing before.

Saundra: [00:26:33] And so then when they try these strategies and they work and they do better and then they're more motivated to continue to do it. And so that's a big part of motivation. But I it's Linda Nilson who said that in the academy it is our job to essentially create the motivation in our classrooms.

Saundra: [00:27:00] So basically she's saying that unlike most of us who say that well as I said motivated students these students would be doing very well and with no success is that in the academy we can create that motivation. I think part of it is what you were saying earlier showing students examples of possibilities what things can happen in our disciplines and that's a really big part of it.

Saundra: [00:27:25] Now James Raffini wrote a book 150 Ways to Increase Intrinsic Motivation in the Classroom. It's a wonderful book and he wrote it for the K-12 audience. But I find that the strategies of the 150 the strategies that are there for direct the high school students are very very applicable for college students also.

Saundra: [00:27:52] And he talks about five different things that are very important for addressing motivation. And one of them is that students like anyone wants to feel that you're successful you'll be successful when you are trying to attempt. One is that people like to have fun with what they're doing. People want to be part of a team effort.

Saundra: [00:28:15] And so there are environments that we can set up in our classes where students are working together in teams. You've probably seen this put students in teams and give them a task and they just take off. And so those are some of the ways that I think we can given the what we know about motivation increased the motivation in our classes.

Bonni: [00:28:35] Before we go to the recommendations segment I know that you have one final piece of advice that we don't want to leave this whole discussion with and that is is there a right way or a wrong way to do this.

Saundra: [00:28:48] I'm so glad you asked that. There is absolutely no right or wrong way to do this. Now I always say though that there are some prerequisites and one I think the most important one is that you have to believe you have to believe that it is possible for a student who is flunking the test of course one week to ace the the subsequent exams or evaluation tool assessment tools.

Saundra: [00:29:19] If we teach them those learning strategies and as you heard earlier I did not initially believe that but I think it's so important because we believe it's possible when we can help students believe that it's possible.

Saundra: [00:29:34] And when we can instill a sense of hope and belief in students then they will do things that they would not do otherwise. So we have to believe that it's true. The next thing is we really do have to have the language to explain to students very explicitly what these learning strategies are.

Saundra: [00:29:52] And there's an excellent resource. They are becoming a master student and we can have a link to that. But there are a number of learning strategies. The website for the learning center at LSU has lots of assessments and workshops that students can take to get more insight into Even things as simple as how they take a multiple choice test how do you take an essay test and I think we have time I'll just give you one quick tip that so many students have found so helpful.

Saundra: [00:30:22] A multiple choice test the way most people approach that is they read the question and then they read the possible answers and try to select the correct answer from the possible answer.

Saundra: [00:30:34] But a more efficient and effective way to do that is to just read the question and then before you look at any of the possibilities determine what the answer is. And then when you look at the possibilities you're looking for the answer that you have already determined is the correct one. And the reason that works so much better is in a multiple choice test. All of the incorrect answers are known as distracters.

Saundra: [00:31:01] And so they are there to distract you from the correct answer. But if you know the correct answer is and then you're looking for that you're much more likely to be successful on multiple choice test. And so it's important for faculty to know what these strategies are to be able to teach them to students.

Saundra: [00:31:19] And I think the final thing that is a prerequisite is not letting students give up when they have done very poorly because many students have seen lots of students who when they flunked their first test they decided that oh I must not be very smart.

Saundra: [00:31:37] I had a young lady in Honors Chemistry who had made a low D on the first Test in chemistry the first test and calculus and she told me that she was talking to her mother and they had both decided that maybe she was high school smart but not college smart no.

Saundra: [00:31:53] And this is what happens to a lot of students. And so I think we as faculty have to believe that when we teach students the strategies that all students can excel.

Bonni: [00:32:05] Thank you so much. I think I intuitively had tried to have students think about that in terms of multiple choice but I'm going to go look at that strategy a little closer because I think that's one that I can definitely use in my teaching.

Bonni: [00:32:17] This is the point in the show where we each get to share some recommendations. And I just wanted to mention that we were connected via the ACUE which is pronounced ACUE and that is a organization that has a course to help us faculty in our professional development and specifically there is an interview that I want to recommend people go listen to you have you talking further about strategies to teach students how to learn. So I'm going to link to that in the show notes and just want to thank Jeff and the other people there for introducing us and getting you on the show.

Bonni: [00:32:52] And my other recommendation is something completely different and that is that we are getting into the somewhat stressful time of the semester for many of us and my husband Dave put together a holiday gifts for leaders post and I mean the link to that in the show notes.

Bonni: [00:33:12] And there's a couple that I really want to call out there toward the bottom of his e-mail or the the link I'll be posting to. And this sounds silly but there's a wonderful handy head massager which looks like a torture thing but it actually just massages your scalp really nice because I know when I've been looking at the computer for too long and doing too much grading my I get my scalp gets really tense and it's a really really good one to get some good stress relief that way.

Bonni: [00:33:40] And then there's the there's a book all these has That's funny titles but there's a book called Yoga for Wimps: Poses for the Flexibly Impaired and it's very prescriptive you flip through the Table of Contents and say you know do I have lower back pain. Do I have neck pain. Do I have in there. They're all very easy stretches that you could do in your office and or you know a home office or anything like that that just help us target key areas we want to be more relaxed we want to reenergize ourselves it's a really fun fun way to do that too.

Bonni: [00:34:12] So I'm going to be again linking to Dave's post and specifically suggest that you scroll all the way bottom to the bottom to the categories for health. There is Yoga for Wimps, There's the head massager and there's actually a stretching book too that's a really good one too. So those are my recommendations I know you have some for us as well.

Saundra: [00:34:30] Yes well there are a couple of books I mentioned already Becoming a Master Student by Dave Ellis. And there's a book that came out in 2013 the New Science of Learning: How to Learn in Harmony with your Brain. That was written by Terry Doyle and Toad Zakrajsek. And that is a book that is very easy to read. And students love it and it helps them really connect the effect of learning strategies with what exactly is happening in their brain.

Saundra: [00:35:01] And I would like to recommend that and the link again to the Learning Center at LSU which has a lot of information but I came across a wonderful article that came out just last August was in October but it's how the stress of racism affects learning.

Saundra: [00:35:21] And I mean I knew about the idea but the actual research that shows that the constant stress that many of our students are under because of the micro aggressions that we talk about really can significantly impact learning. This came out October 11th in the New Yorker. And these authors were saying that this is possibly one of the causes of the achievement gap that has not been been really looked at before. And I found the article fascinating and so I'd like to recommend that people take a look at that.

Bonni: [00:36:00] Well Saundra, I am so glad that we got connected and you have so much wisdom I hope this is just your first of many visits to the show because it's been such a pleasure getting to know you through this and getting to learn from them.

Saundra: [00:36:11] Yes and I would love to come back and I guess my parting words to faculty out there would be I spent the first 30 years of my career not knowing anything about it. But the last 13 have been so much fun because of my knowledge of this information and how I'm helping so many more students. And so I really encourage you to jump in to this area because it really is very very satisfying and gratifying.

Bonni: [00:36:38] Thank you for motivating us today.

Saundra: [00:36:41] Well thank you Bonni.

Bonni: [00:36:43] What a great opportunity it was to have Saundra on today's episode. And what a great opportunity it was to have all of you listening. Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed.

Bonni: [00:36:55] If you would like to make a comment about today's episode add in your own insights or other suggestions. You can do that at teachinginhighered.com/132.

Bonni: [00:37:07] And you also can subscribe to an email list that I do each week where you get the show notes with all the links of the stuff that Saundra and I talked about coming into your inbox automatically without remembering how to go to that show notes so you can do that at teachinginhighered.com/subscribe and when you subscribe you get a free guide with the ed tech essentials those are 19 tools that help you integrate teaching and with your pedagogy and also with your productivity. You can do that at teachinginhighered/subscribe as a reminder. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you next time.

Teaching in Higher Ed transcripts are created using a combination of an automated transcription service and human beings. This text likely will not represent the precise, word-for-word conversation that was had. The accuracy of the transcripts will vary. The authoritative record of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcasts is contained in the audio file.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teach Students How to Learn - Teaching in Higher Ed

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Bonni: [00:00:00] Dr. Saundra McGuire discusses how to teach students how to learn. On today's episode number 132 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Production Credit: [00:00:13] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential. Bonni: [00:00:22] Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Attention is how the mind prioritizes. The brain's attention circuits stay busy throughout our waking hours, directing on a millisecond-by-millisecond basis where our limited cognitive resources are going to go, monitoring the information that floods into our senses, and shaping conscious experience. Attention is one of the most mysterious and compelling topics in cognitive science. Years of research on the subject are now paying off handsomely in the form of recent advances in our understanding of how these mechanisms work, on both theoretical and physiological levels. And the more we learn, the more we realize that these findings aren't just important for theory-building -- they offer myriad practical applications that can help people function more effectively across all aspects of life. Teaching and learning is one area where attention research is especially useful for helping us get better at what we do.

In my book Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology, I foreground attention as the starting point for everything designers of college-level online learning experiences should know about human cognition. Without attention, much of what we want students to accomplish -- taking in new information, making new connections, acquiring and practicing new skills -- simply doesn't happen. And thus, gaining students' focus is a necessary first step in any well-designed learning activity, whether online or face-to-face.

But how does this principle play out in a contemporary learning environment littered with tempting distractions -- the smartphones that accompany students to class, social networks that let us reach out to friends around the clock, the sites for games, media, and shopping that beckon every time we open our browsers? It's especially concerning given how overly optimistic people tend to be about their ability to juggle different tasks. As psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simon eloquently explain in The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us, human beings are notoriously bad at knowing what we can handle, attention-wise. Essentially, we lie to ourselves about what we notice and what we know, believing that we take in much more that we actually do.

For our students, this adds up to a serious drain on learning. And as learning environments become more complex, it is a drain they can't afford. Consider, for example, some forms of blended learning in which students master foundational knowledge outside of class, usually through online work, then spend class time on focused application and interaction with instructors and classmates. A tightly scheduled and synchronized system like this can work beautifully, but doesn't allow much margin of error for wasted time and scattered focus.

So what can we do about this situation? One strategy is to educate students about the limits of attention and just how much they miss when they choose to multitask. This, however, is easier said than done. Incorporating a learning module on attention is straightforward enough, but what would it take for such a module to be effective? First, it would need to be brief and to the point, reinforcing just a few crucial take-home messages without a great deal of history, theory or other background more appropriate to a full-length course in cognition. At the same time, quality control would be a major concern, especially for the module to be usable by an instructor without academic training in cognitive psychology. Just Googling for materials on attention brings up at least as much pseudoscience as reputable work, and without this solid scientific grounding, a module on the dangers of multitasking could easily devolve into a "Reefer Madness"-style experience, more laughable than persuasive.

Keeping these caveats firmly in mind, I've worked with my instructional designer colleague John Doherty to create a free-standing, one-shot online learning module called Attention Matters that instructors can drop into existing courses as an extra credit or required assignment. Besides being scrupulous about the science, John and I prioritized interactivity and use of the multimedia capabilities of online learning -- enabling us to show students, not just tell them, what distraction can do to performance in different contexts. Too many online learning activities consist essentially of glorified PowerPoint slides, so although there is a certain amount of text within our module, we put most of the emphasis on media, demonstrations, self-assessment and discussion.

As an example, we used a demonstration we called the "Selective Reading Challenge" to show students how attention mechanisms constantly filter incoming information, and also, how little we remember of information we don't attend to. The demonstration consists of a page of text, alternating lines of bold and regular typefaces. Students are instructed to pay attention to only the bold lines, ignoring everything else, then proceed immediately to the next page. In the "to be ignored" text, we hide a few stimuli that may break through to awareness -- a couple of common names (Michael, Emily, Stephen, Christina), that if they belong to you, will probably pop out, as well as a few attention-grabbing emotional terms (911, murder). After completing the "selective reading," students are invited to go back review the entire page of text -- bold and regular -- to see what they missed, and what they (likely) don't remember at all even though it was well within the field of vision.

Other demonstrations illustrate the dramatic slowdown in processing that takes place when we multitask among competing activities. We present an online version of the classic "Stroop effect" to illustrate how distraction -- even from other mental processes going on at the same time -- can make a simple activity slow and inaccurate. The task involves naming the colors of a sequence of multicolored words -- not a difficult task, except when the words are themselves color names. red, green, blue, and so on - that contradict the colors they are printed in. Lastly, we pulled in several video clips from around the Web to drive home the multitasking point. One shows a prank "driving test" in which unsuspecting students were told to text while navigating a practice course, with predictably disastrous results. Another classic clip called "The Amazing Color Changing Card Trick," created by psychologist Richard Wiseman, dramatically illustrates how attending to one part of a scene causes us to miss major developments going on in practically the same location.

These videos, activities and demonstrations form the anchor for brief, impactful student learning activities throughout the module. Students respond to discussion prompts asking them whether the demonstrations worked on them as predicted, and what they may mean for everyday attention. They also complete self-quizzes with feedback that target the different learning outcomes for each part of the module. At the end, they revisit what they have learned in a brief self-reflection and survey on attitudes and beliefs about attention and its importance for learning.

Attention Matters is an exciting project, offering us the opportunity to apply cognitive science in a novel and - we hope - useful way. The project also has a research component, through which we will be gathering data on student attitudes and beliefs about their own attentional capabilities, as well as on the frequency of different multitasking behaviors in their own lives.

There's another important side to Attention Matters, and that has to do with the collaboration between an instructional design expert and a Subject Matter Expert, or SME. Much has been written about the virtues of instructional design experts' pairing up with SMEs, and yet, such collaborations remain fairly rare within higher education. We hope that this project demonstrates the real benefits to be gained - perhaps motivating others to take the plunge.

It's still too early to know what the long-term impacts of Attention Matters are going to be, or to predict exactly what we might discover about student attitudes and behaviors around multitasking. But I do foresee that as seismic change continues to occur in higher education, we will see more educators entering similar new territory - collaboratively creating focused, technologically delivered learning modules that live outside of traditional courses and use learning theory and cognitive science as the basis for design. And in our case, we may be able to add to our arsenal of strategies for getting students to become better stewards of their own attention.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Essay calls for professors to start teaching students about distraction and attention

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It's time for professors to move beyond complaining about how students are distracted by social media, writes Michelle Miller. Faculty members need to teach about why attention matters.

# data[].attributes.body
Add to MP108 Week 5 Module

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
RED, you should say "Blue."
As soon as the words appear on your screen, read the list as fast as you can. When you have finished, click on the "Finish" button. The time it took you to read all of the words will be shown. If you want to try the same set of words, click on the "reload" button of your browser. If you want to continue with the experiment, click on "Continue Experiment."

Go to the first test.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
RED, you should say "Blue."As soon as the words appear on your screen, read the list as fast as you can. When you have finished, click on the "Finish" button. The time it took you to read all of the words will be shown.

# data[].attributes.headline
Harvard Bias study--similar to the stroop effect

# data[].attributes.subject
Harvard Bias study--similar to the stroop effect

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Log in or register to find out your implicit associations about race, gender, sexual orientation, and other topics!

Or, continue as a guest by selecting from our available language/nation demonstration sites:

GO!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Log in or register to find out your implicit associations about race, gender, sexual orientation, and other topics! Or, continue as a guest by selecting from our available language/nation demonstration sites: GO!

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3iPrBrGSJM&t=91s

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Get a daily email featuring the latest talk, plus a quick mix of trending content.

By subscribing, you understand and agree that we will store, process and manage your personal information according to our Privacy Policy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Adam Grant: The surprising habits of original thinkers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How do creative people come up with great ideas? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant studies "originals": thinkers who dream up new ideas and take action to put them into the world. In this talk, learn three unexpected habits of originals -- including embracing failure.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Peter Cathcart Wason proposed a form of the following task, which is failed by 90 percent of people who attempt it (though users of this website have a better track record). Try the task yourself, and see how others responded. Then read the answer and explanation, and try a real-life version.

There are four cards, each of which has a number on one side and a color on the other. The cards lie on a table with the following faces showing: 3, 8, green, blue. The task is to identify which cards need to be turned over in order to test the truth of the following proposition: "If one of these cards has an even number on one side then its other side is green." Which cards would you turn over, without turning over any cards unnecessarily?

Take Our Poll
Click Here to See Answer and Explanation

The correct answer is that you must turn over only the 8 card and the blue card. Here is an explanation for each of the cards:

3 card: does not need to be turned over, because it is not even, so it cannot trigger the stated proposition

8 card: even, so it must be turned over, because if the other side is not green, then the proposition is not true

green card: many people choose this card, but it does not need to be turned over, because if the other side is odd, then the proposition is not tested, and if the other side is even, that is consistent with the proposition, but it does not prove or disprove the truth of the proposition

blue card: does need to be turned over, because if the other side is even, then the proposition is not true

A Real-Life Scenario
The Wason task is difficult in part because it tests abstract logical reasoning. Many people perform better on a similar test based on a real-life scenario. Say that you work in a bar, stopping underage people from drinking. Your job is to test this rule: "If someone is drinking alcohol, then that person must be age 18 or older." From where you are standing, you can observe four people: a person drinking soda (you can't see how old they are); a person drinking beer (you can't see how old they are); a 30-year-old person (you can't see what they're drinking) and a 16-year-old person (you can't see what they're drinking). Which of these four items must be checked in order to make sure the rule is being followed? For this task, your "cards" would look like this:

Logically, this task is identical to the first one. However, most people find it easier to figure out which cards need to be checked: the beer and the teenager.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Peter Cathcart Wason proposed a form of the following task, which is failed by 90 percent of people who attempt it (though users of this website have a better track record). Try the task yourself, and see how others responded. Then read the answer and explanation, and try a real-life version.

# data[].attributes.body
Cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of remembering, and venerable tricks of the mentalist's trade to transform our understanding of human memory.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sorry, we just need to make sure you’re not a robot. For best results, please make sure your browser is accepting cookies.

# data[].attributes.body
The importance of VISUALIZATION in memory

# data[].attributes.body
Draw a penny

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to practice effectively...for just about anything - Annie Bosler and Don Greene

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Jul 1.

Published in final edited form as: Psychol Rev. 2016 Jul;123(4):349-367. doi: 10.1037/rev0000033

Abstract

Learned helplessness, the failure to escape shock induced by uncontrollable aversive events, was discovered half a century ago. Seligman and Maier (1967) theorized that animals learned that outcomes were independent of their responses-that nothing they did mattered - and that this learning undermined trying to escape. The mechanism of learned helplessness is now very well-charted biologically and the original theory got it backwards. Passivity in response to shock is not learned. It is the default, unlearned response to prolonged aversive events and it is mediated by the serotonergic activity of the dorsal raphe nucleus, which in turn inhibits escape. This passivity can be overcome by learning control, with the activity of the medial prefrontal cortex, which subserves the detection of control leading to the automatic inhibition of the dorsal raphe nucleus. So animals learn that they can control aversive events, but the passive failure to learn to escape is an unlearned reaction to prolonged aversive stimulation. In addition, alterations of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex-dorsal raphe pathway can come to subserve the expectation of control. We speculate that default passivity and the compensating detection and expectation of control may have substantial implications for how to treat depression.

Keywords: Learned Helplessness, Dorsal raphe nucleus, Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex, Depression, Hope

In the early 1960s, Richard Solomon and his students at the University of Pennsylvania wanted to know how prior Pavlovian fear conditioning would influence later instrumental learning. To find out they restrained dogs in a hammock and the dogs got 64 mild-moderate electric shocks to their back paws, each shock heralded by a tone. Twenty-four hours later the dogs were placed in a shuttlebox and were supposed to learn to escape shock by jumping a short barrier between the two chambers. The two-factor theory of avoidance learning predicted that turning on the fear-inducing tone in the shuttlebox would generate fear and accelerate jumping. But to the experimenters' annoyance, they could not test this because the dogs often failed to escape altogether in the shuttlebox and passively waited the shock out ( Leaf, 1964; Overmier & Leaf, 1965).

We arrived at Penn as first year graduate students in 1964. We thought that a profound failure to escape was the phenomenon and we began to try to understand it. After fifty years of research we believe we finally do understand it and this paper presents the evolution and destination of our theory.

From the beginning we thought the phenomenon looked like helplessness, as first suggested by Overmier and Seligman in 1967. But what, we puzzled, could helplessness consist of? How did it come about? How could we test for it?

Defining Helplessness

The intuitive notion of helplessness entails, we reasoned, the belief that nothing one does matters. This decomposes into objective and subjective helplessness. More formally, an animal is objectively helpless with respect to an important outcome (O) such as shock offset if the probability of (O), given a response (R) is not different from the probability of (O) given the absence of that response (notR). When this is true of all responses, objective helplessness exists.

But being subjectively helpless is another matter. We theorized that helplessness was cognitive and that it was learned. The animal must "detect" the lack of contingency as defined above and so must have "expected" that in the future shock would be independent of its responses. This was a radical suggestion for the 1960s. The learning theories of that era held that organisms could only learn associations or pairings, for example a response paired with shock strengthened this association (acquisition) or a response paired with no shock weakened this association (extinction). The rationale for the narrow associationistic view stemmed from behaviorists' shunning cognitions in animals and it seemed that the integration of two conditional probabilities-the probability of shock given a response integrated with the probability of shock in the absence of that response and then generalized across all responses-must be highly cognitive. Importantly we called the theory "learned" helplessness, rather than "conditioned" helplessness, because integrating these two conditional probabilities did not seem compatible with the associationistic premise that both Pavlovian conditioning and instrumental learning held dear. Emblematic of the tension between learning theory and cognitive theory was an encounter at the Princeton conference in which we first laid the theory out to the major learning theorists ( Maier, Seligman & Solomon, 1969): Richard Herrnstein, a prominent Harvard Skinnerian, retorted, "You are proposing that animals learn that responding is ineffective. Animals learn responses; they don't learn that anything."

Operationalizing Learned Helplessness

The triadic design to be described operationalizes this definition of objective and subjective learned helplessness. In order to know that it is the non-contingency between responding and shock and not the shock itself that produces later passivity, the non-contingency has to be isolated from the shock. So three groups are needed. One group gets escapable shock (ESC) where shock offset is contingent on the animal's response. So in the original stressor controllability experiment ( Seligman & Maier, 1967), this group of dogs learned in the hammock to press a panel with their noses to turn off each shock. The second group is yoked to the ESC group. In this initial experiment, on each trial the yoked group subjects received the average duration of shock that the ESC group produced on each trial. However, in most subsequent experiments described below the yoking was done on each trial for each pair of subjects (ESC and yoked), so that the 2 groups receive exactly the same duration, intensity, and pattern of shocks, but for the yoked subjects their responses have no effect on the shock. In this inescapable shock group (INESC) shock offset and all of the animal's response are non-contingently related. A third group (0) gets no shock.

The next day the animals are tested in a very different environment - shuttlebox escape - and the well-replicated result was that two-thirds of the animals from the INESC group failed to learn to escape, whereas 90% of the animals in both the ESC and 0 groups easily learned to escape. Importantly the ESC and the 0 group learned to escape equally well. We concluded from this result that the animals in the INESC group had learned in the hammock that shock offset was independent of their responses and when shock occurred the next day in the shuttlebox they expected that its offset would once again be independent of responding. This expectation undermined their trying ("response initiation") to escape. The fact that the escapable shock group did not do better than the zero group and that the main effect was that the inescapable group did worse than both other groups strongly influenced our belief that helplessness had been learned. It should be noted that at almost exactly the same time Weiss (1968) used a similar paradigm to study the effects of coping on ulcer formation.

In one variant Maier (1970) found that the passivity was not a superstitiously acquired response. The contiguity-minded learning theorists countered the cognitive account by claiming that in the hammock, shock offset occasionally was paired with not moving in the INESC group and this "superstitiously" reinforced the association of not moving with shock offset. Hence in the shuttlebox the animals engaged in not moving and eventually shock went off - further strengthening the superstitious no-movement-shock-off association. So Maier ran a special escapable shock group in the hammock: For this group shock went off when the animal held still, explicitly reinforcing not moving-one step better than superstition. The cognitive theory predicted that these animals would not sit still in the shuttlebox since they had learned that they could control shock; whereas the associationistic theory predicted that they would show the competing response of "helplessness." This was a crucial test of contiguity versus cognition and Maier found that this escapable shock group easily learned to escape in the shuttlebox by jumping the barrier. Hence we discarded contiguity accounts of helplessness.

This work led us to define a dimension that we called control over outcomes, with control being present whenever the probability of (O), given a response (R) is different from the probability of (O) given the absence of that response (notR). Clearly, the escapable subjects have control over an aspect of the aversive event (when each shock terminates), and the inescapable subjects do not. This was exactly why we used the triadic design and included the escapable subjects as a control group because it isolated the element of uncontrollability-if failure to escape in the shuttlebox was caused by learning uncontrollability, then this failure should not occur if uncontrollability is removed but shock stays constant. That is, we assumed that uncontrollability is the active ingredient in producing passivity, and that escapable subjects were later normal because they lacked this critical learning ingredient. The escapable group was thus really included as a control group.

We must mention that running dog experiments was a harrowing experience for both of us. We are both dog lovers and as soon as we could we stopped experimenting with dogs and used rats, mice, and people in helplessness experiments, with exactly the same pattern of results. The next section provides a brief summary of this early work.

Animals

Research with animals quickly switched from dogs to rodents, but using the same triadic design that compares exactly equal ESC, yoked INESC, and no shock. Behavioral work focused on two issues. The first issue was whether the later effects of IS are limited to the induction of passivity in tasks such as the shuttlebox. To summarize briefly, a wide range of other behavioral changes followed INESC including reduced aggression, reduced social dominance, reduced food and water intake, exaggerated attention to external cues, reduced preference for sweet tastes, potentiated fear conditioning, slowed fear extinction, neophobia, anxious behavior on measures such as juvenile social exploration, potentiated opioid reward, exaggerated stereotypy to stimulants, and others. Importantly, none of these occurred if the shocks were escapable (see Maier & Watkins, 2005, for a review). Clearly, some of these outcomes can be related to passivity but others cannot. Many of these other behaviors seem indicative of anxiety, by which we mean fear out of proportion to an existing threat-potentiated fear conditioning, reduced fear extinction, neophobia, reduced juvenile social exploration, avoidance of open arms on an elevated maze, etc. In this paper for simplicity, we will refer to this suite of changes as "passivity/anxiety," but we emphasize that we are interested in all of the changes separately-but not for the purpose of the present theorizing.

The second issue concerned testing the learned helplessness hypothesis against a variety of alternative ideas that were developed to explain why the experience of INESC leads to later failure to learn to escape in a different environment and whether control/lack of control is the critical underlying dimension (summarized in Maier & Seligman, 1976). Most of these investigations were focused on why INESC produces consequences such as failure to learn to escape, not why ESC did not do so. Indeed, the ESC group was typically omitted as this was not deemed of interest. In one important exception, Volpicelli, Ulm, Altenor, and Seligman (1983) using a triadic design found that the ESC group was much superior to the zero group and the INESC group. During later inescapable shock, the ESC group which had first learned to bar press to escape shock continued to run in a shuttlebox during long duration inescapable shock. This learned "mastery" effect foreshadows the main findings of the neuroscientific work below, in which first learning about escapable shock inhibits the default response of passivity. The work of R. L. Jackson and T. Minor was an exception. They argued that INESC produces later behavioral changes because it produces intense fear during the INESC session. With ESC however, the organism has a "safety signal" in that proprioceptive and other feedback from the escape response is followed by a shock-free interval of time. Indeed, these stimuli are as far away from the next shock as possible, and such stimuli do become conditioned inhibitors of fear ( Maier, Rapaport, & Wheatley, 1976). This was argued to greatly reduce the total fear experienced during the session, and therefore no later behavioral "symptoms" ( Jackson & Minor, 1988; Minor, Trauner, Lee, & Dess, 1990; Weiss, 1971). Note that by this view there is no learning about uncontrollability or controllability, just Pavlovian processes and fear. As support, the addition of external stimuli such as a light or a tone occurring immediately after each INESC prevented the occurrence of later failure to learn to escape ( Minor et al., 1990; Weiss, 1971).

The early 1970s witnessed the first research directed at understanding the neural basis of these phenomena. Of course, these investigations could use only the neuroscience tools then available, and for the most part they involved either the systemic or intracerebroventicular administration of various receptor agonists and antagonists, and a role for a number of receptors and their endogenous ligands (e.g., acetylcholine, norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, and adenosine) was suggested ( Anisman, Remington, & Sklar, 1979; Glazer, Weiss, Pohorecky, & Miller, 1975; Petty & Sherman, 1979). Given the nature of these studies no particular circuitry or structures could be implicated. However, the work of J. Weiss was an exception. He and his colleagues showed that INESC depletes norepinephrine (NE) in the region of the locus coeruleus (LC), a brainstem cell cluster that provides NE to most of the forebrain. Locus coeruleus NE neurons express alpha-2 receptors on their soma and dendrites, and these are inhibitory autoreceptors. Thus, NE within the locus coeruleus restrains the activity of locus coeruleus neurons, and so depletion of NE within this structure actually increases the activity of NE neurons, and Weiss had shown this to be important in the development of learned helplessness, a phenomenon he called behavioral depression (see Weiss & Simson, 1988, for review). However, it was never entirely clear how or why increased activity of these neurons would produce the passivity or anxiety. In sum, by the mid-1980s, there were nascent neurochemical views, but their detailed mechanism(s) of operation were necessarily murky given the tools that were then available, and their relationship to behavioral explanations unclear.

Humans

From this point on, we each went off to do other things. Seligman began to study humans exclusively. The human work went in three directions.

First, guided by the original theory, the learned helplessness procedures were replicated in apparently analogous human settings (e.g., Hiroto & Seligman, 1975). In the triadic design, for example, one group of college students received loud noise that could be escaped by button pressing, a second group was yoked, and a third group received nothing. Then they went to a human shuttlebox in which moving the hand from one side to the other turned off the noise. As with dogs and rats, most of the people from the yoked group failed to escape in the shuttlebox, whereas people from the escapable group and the zero group escaped well in the shuttlebox. Importantly the same pattern in the shuttlebox emerged when preceded by solvable and unsolvable anagrams (and no anagrams) instead of loud noise. In these studies, subjective unsystematic reports occasionally revealed that people from the inescapable group said that "nothing worked so why try?"

The second direction that Seligman took explored and manipulated the explanations people made for the causes of their failure to escape in the inescapable group ( Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978; Alloy, Peterson, Abramson, & Seligman, 1984). In the "attributional reformulation" of learned helplessness, Abramson et al. (1978) claimed that inescapability itself was not sufficient to produce anything more than momentary helplessness. Rather, the explanations that subjects made of the causes of their helplessness predicted the time course and the extent of helplessness. Subjects who attributed their helplessness to permanent causes (e.g., these problems will always be unsolvable) would show long-term helplessness in that situation. In contrast subjects who attributed their helplessness to temporary causes (e.g., only verbal puzzles are unsolvable) would not show helplessness later in that situation. Subjects who attributed their helplessness to pervasive factors (e.g., most problems are unsolvable) would show passivity across situations, whereas subjects who attributed helplessness to local factors (e.g., this problem is unsolvable) would only show helplessness in the original situation. These predictions were tested and largely borne out ( Alloy et al., 1984).

The third endeavor that Seligman pursued was the possibility that learned helplessness was a laboratory model of clinical depression ( Seligman, 1974; Simson & Weiss, 1988). In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association Third Edition ( DSM-III; American Psychiatric Association, 1980), and Fourth Edition ( DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994), major depressive disorder was diagnosed by the presence of at least 5 of the following 9 symptoms:

Learned helplessness in the laboratory - combining the animal and human experimental results - produced eight of the nine symptoms, with the only exception being suicide and suicidal thoughts-an unlikely symptom to be produced in the laboratory by mild aversive events. Not only did inescapable shock and noise produce the symptoms of depression, but the converse occurred as well: Depressed people, who had not received inescapable events, behaved in the laboratory as if they had-showing passivity in the shuttlebox and giving up on cognitive problems ( Klein, Fencil-Morse, & Seligman, 1976; Klein & Seligman, 1976; Miller & Seligman, 1976). Overall learned helplessness by mapping into the symptoms of depression seemed like a plausible laboratory model.

After 2000, Seligman went in two further new directions: First he began to work on "Positive Psychology," the study of the causes and consequences of positive events ( Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), among them having control as opposed to being helpless. Second, he began to work on "prospection," the study of mental simulations and evaluations of possible futures, in contrast to the study of memory (the past) and perception (the present) ( Seligman, Railton, Baumeister, & Sripada, 2013). As it turns out both these new directions are relevant to the unraveling of learned helplessness and we will return to positive psychology and prospection at the end of this paper.

Maier essentially switched fields, retrained, and went into neuroscience. As a neophyte neuroscientist he felt that issues of learned helplessness were too complicated to approach and he studied a variety of other phenomena. He eventually returned to learned helplessness and its neural basis. It is this body of work that illuminates uncontrollability much better than the original theory.

Here are the mechanisms that were assumed by the original theory:

First: DETECT: Animals DETECT the dimension of controllability and uncontrollability. (This was also called the dimension of contingency and non-contingency).

Second: EXPECT. Animals that DETECT uncontrollability EXPECT shock or other events to be once again uncontrollable in new situations and this undermines trying to escape in new situations.

This paper examines these two premises in the light of the neural evidence accumulated over the last two decades. We preview the new theory and its conclusions now to help the psychologically-minded reader go through the systematic neural evidence that follows.

First: PASSIVITY/ANXIETY. Aversive shock, among its other neural actions, activates serotonergic (5-HT) neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN). The dorsal raphe nucleus sends 5-HT projecting neurons to numerous regions including the periaqueductal gray, striatum, and extended amygdala. 5-HT released in the periaqueductal gray and striatum acts at 5-HT receptors to inhibit active escape behavior, while 5-HT released in the amygdala acts at receptors to potentiate fear/anxiety. The intense activation of the dorsal raphe nucleus by shock sensitizes these neurons and this sensitization lasts for a few days and results in poor escape (passivity) and heightened anxiety. The excitation of the dorsal raphe nucleus is necessary and sufficient for passivity and heightened fear, these being mediated by 5-HT released in regions that proximately control their expression. The detection of uncontrollability is not necessary nor is it sufficient for passivity. This is caused by prolonged exposure to aversive stimulation per se.

Second: DETECT and ACT. When shock is initially escapable, the presence of control is DETECTed. This is accomplished by a circuit involving projections from the prelimbic region of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (the PL) to the dorsal medial striatum (the DMS), and back. After detection of control, a separate and distinct population of prelimbic neurons are activated that here we call ACT. These neurons project to the dorsal raphe nucleus and inhibit the 5-HT cells that are activated by aversive stimulation, thus preventing dorsal raphe nucleus activation and thereby preventing sensitization of these cells, eliminating passivity and exaggerated fear. So it is the presence of control, not the absence of control, that is detected by prelimbic medial prefrontal circuits, leading to consequent prelimbic-mediated inhibition of stress-responsive brainstem structures such as the dorsal raphe nucleus. When these circuits are inactive the organism reacts passively and fearfully if the aversive event is prolonged.

Third: EXPECT. After the prelimbic-dorsal raphe nucleus ACT circuit is activated a set of changes that require several hours occurs in this pathway and involves the formation of new proteins related to plasticity. This is now a circuit that EXPECTS control. If the rat has previously had control, now even inescapable shock or other uncontrollable stressors activate this prelimbic- dorsal raphe nucleus pathway, which they would not otherwise do. Inescapable shock now activates the sensitized prelimbic- dorsal raphe nucleus pathway, which now operates as an EXPECT circuit. So, inescapable shock is not being detected as uncontrollable, but it is being responded to as if it were controllable. This bias to respond as if the shock was escapable we shall call an EXPECTATION of control. However, it should be clearly understood that this EXPECTATION may not be a cognitive process or entity as psychologists tend to view them. It is a circuit that provides an expectational function, in the sense that it changes or biases how organism's respond in the future as a consequence of the events that occur in the present.

The Neural Circuitry of Learned Helplessness

We now go through the neural circuitry dataset in detail using the PASSIVITY/ANXIETY, DETECT, ACT, and EXPECT terminology both to make the argument more easily understood and because we believe that it is a useful translation from the neural level of analysis to the psychological level of analysis. We are aware that any such translation is merely a hypothesis that can be tested and falsified.

By the mid-1990s it seemed that the neuroscience tools that had become available might allow a more detailed understanding of how the brain produces the behavioral consequences of uncontrollable aversive events. As noted above, a variety of neurotransmitters and receptors had already been implicated, but how the sequelae of inescapable shock are actually caused was obscure.

We state inclusion/exclusion criteria for any adequate neural learned helplessness study at the outset. A study must meet two criteria. First, control over the stressor must be manipulated to determine whether any neural change measured is indeed a consequence of the uncontrollability/controllability of the event. Otherwise, the measured change could be a simple consequence of the stressor per se. There are numerous consequences of exposure to an aversive event that are, in fact, not modulated by control ( Helmreich et al., 1999; Maier, Ryan, Barksdale, & Kalin, 1986; McDevitt, et al., 2009; Woodmansee, Silbert, & Maier, 1993). Thus, it is not enough to compare only inescapable shock and non-shocked controls. In the research to be described below, rats are the subject and the response that the ESC subjects can perform to terminate each shock is the turning of a small wheel located on the front of the chamber. Of course, once having established that a particular outcome that follows a particular stressor is indeed a function of controllability, the triadic design may not then be needed in further studies designed to explore the mechanisms by which the incontrollable stressor produces behavioral outcomes. Second, the initial stressor must occur in an environment very different from the test environment since one of the hallmarks of learned helplessness is trans-situationality. When common cues are shared between the first environment and the test environment, processes such as fear conditioning could mediate the behavioral change. For example, there are a large number of reports under the label "biological mechanisms of learned helplessness" that have delivered inescapable gridshocks while the subjects are constrained to one side of a shuttlebox, and then escape learning is tested in that very same shuttlebox. Poor test shuttlebox escape learning could be mediated by fear conditioning to the shuttlebox environment, since freezing is a prominent fear response. Indeed, Greenwood, Strong, and Fleshner (2010) have shown this to be the case. In their studies, manipulations that reduce fear conditioning reduce the shuttle escape deficit when the prior inescapable shocks were administered in the shuttlebox, but not when they were administered outside the shuttlebox.

Passivity/Anxiety and the Dorsal raphe nucleus

It is, of course, difficult to know where to start in a search for the circuitry that mediates learned helplessness. Maier and his colleagues began by reasoning backwards from the behavioral sequelae of inescapable shock. As already noted, many of the behavioral consequences seemed to be captured as either inhibited fight/flight (poor escape, reduced aggression, reduced social dominance) or exaggerated fear/anxiety (decreased social investigation, potentiated fear conditioning, neophobia). By the mid-1990s there was quite a bit known about the neural circuitry that regulates fight/flight and fear/anxiety, and so this information could be used. Most behaviors and emotions are mediated not by a particular structure but rather by a circuit, so the idea was to identify structures that were the most proximal mediators of fight/flight and fear/anxiety, that is, the most efferent part of the circuit closest to the behaviors themselves. The most proximate mediator of fight/flight seemed to be the dorsal periaqueductal gray (dPAG), while the extended amygdala (bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, BNST, together with the amygdala proper) mediated fear/anxiety.

Serotonin (5-HT) and the Dorsal raphe nucleus

So it seemed as if the subjects that received inescapable shock later behaved as if they had inhibited dorsal periaqueductal gray function and exaggerated amygdala/BNST function. There is a structure-the dorsal raphe nucleus - that projects to both, inhibiting one and potentiating the other when it itself is activated. Activation of this structure might then recapitulate the behavioral pattern produced by inescapable shock. The dorsal raphe nucleus sends 5-HT projections to both the dorsal periaqueductal gray and to the amygdala, with 5-HT released in the dorsal periaqueductal gray inhibiting its function and 5-HT in the amygdala potentiating its function (see Graeff, Guimarães, De Andrade, & Deakin, 1996 for review).

Clearly, then, if inescapable shock were to produce a powerful activation of the dorsal raphe nucleus 5-HT neurons and lead to the release of 5-HT in structures such as the amygdala and dorsal periaqueductal gray, then this structure would hold the potential to be a crucial node in any learned helplessness circuit. It would also have to be true that escapable shock does not activate the dorsal raphe nucleus. Of course, it was necessary to investigate whether inescapable shock does not just activate it in some nonselective way, but rather that inescapable shock activates specifically 5-HT neurons. 5-HT containing cell bodies are largely localized to the raphe nuclei, with the dorsal raphe nucleus being the largest and providing much of the 5-HT innervation of forebrain and limbic structures. However, only roughly 1/3 of dorsal raphe nucleus neurons contain 5-HT, and so simply showing generalized activation is not enough. To approach this issue Grahn et al. (1999) labeled 5-HT cells in the dorsal raphe nucleus with an antibody directed at 5-HT. Then, subjects received escapable shock (ESC), yoked inescapable shock (INESC), or no shock, and the expression of markers for neural activation was examined (e.g., the expression of the protein product of the immediate-early gene c-fos) using immunohistochemistry specifically in the cells known to be 5-HT cells. Thus, she was able to show that inescapable shock activated the neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus that contained 5-HT, and exactly equal escapable shock did not.

The technique of in vivo microdialysis allows the measurement of the levels of 5-HT in discrete brain regions in real-time in live, awake, behaving animals. The results were dramatic. Figure 1 shows the levels of 5-HT within the dorsal raphe nucleus during escapable and inescapable shock. The level of 5-HT within the dorsal raphe nucleus is a measure of dorsal raphe nucleus 5-HT neuronal activity since 5-HT is released within the dorsal raphe nucleus by axon collaterals when the neurons fire. First, baseline levels were measured before the stressors began. Both inescapable shock and escapable shock led to a rapid and large release of 5-HT. This elevated level of 5-HT within the dorsal raphe nucleus was maintained even after the session ended for the inescapable subjects. However, 5-HT dropped precipitously as the escapable subjects learned the instrumental wheel-turn escape response, even though the shocks continued. (We will ask below what made the 5-HT drop as the escapable subjects learned to escape.) Importantly, activation of dorsal raphe nucleus 5-HT neurons also occurs robustly during other essentially uncontrollable stressors such as social defeat ( Amat, Aleksejev, Paul, Watkins, & Maier, 2010).

The failure to escape produced by inescapable shock occurs for some number of days (see below for discussion of time course), but the elevation in 5-HT within regions such as the amygdala does not persist for this period of time. How could elevated 5-HT within the amygdala be responsible for behaviors such as passivity and increased anxiety when 5-HT elevations do not persist until testing? A little more information about the dorsal raphe nucleus helps. Receptors of the 5-HT1A subtype are expressed on the soma and dendrites of 5-HT cells within the dorsal raphe nucleus. These are inhibitory autoreceptors - 5-HT binding to these receptors inhibits 5-HT neuronal activity. This 5-HT comes from axon collaterals from neighboring 5-HT cells within the dorsal raphe nucleus. Thus, the activation of a dorsal raphe nucleus 5-HT neuron can lead to the inhibition of its neighbors, and so dorsal raphe nucleus 5-HT activity is under self-restraint. Interestingly, these receptors are desensitized or downregulated by high levels of 5-HT. Thus, 5-HT released within the dorsal raphe nucleus during the strong dorsal raphe nucleus 5-HT activation produced by inescapable shock could desensitize these receptors, leading to a loss of the normal inhibitory restraint on these cells, thereby sensitizing them. Indeed, this is precisely what happens ( Rozeske et al., 2011). Inescapable shock, but not exactly equal escapable shock, desensitizes these receptors so that dorsal raphe nucleus5-HT neurons are sensitized for a number of days and to a remarkably large extent. For example, inescapable shock reduces later social investigation of a juvenile, a putative measure of anxiety ( Christianson, Paul, et al., 2008)). Placing a juvenile into an adult's rat cage, as is done in this test, produces no increase in 5-HT activity at all in control subjects. However, the mere presence of a juvenile leads to a large increase in 5-HT within the amygdala in a subject that has experienced inescapable shock, but not escapable shock previously ( Christianson et al., 2010). Of course, the desensitization of 5-HT1A receptors is not permanent, and recovers to normal within 3 days ( Rozeske et al., 2011). Importantly, behavioral sequelae of IS such as escape deficits and anxiety also persist for just this period of time ( Maier, 2001).

Dorsal raphe nucleus Activation is Necessary and Sufficient for Passivity/Anxiety

The fact that uncontrollable stressors differentially activate and sensitize dorsal raphe nucleus 5-HT neurons does not mean that this process is either necessary or sufficient to produce the passivity and anxiety that follows inescapable shock. Three strategies have been adopted to determine necessity.

Blockade of the dorsal raphe nucleus activation produced by inescapable shock. Here, activation of the dorsal raphe nucleus during inescapable shock was prevented by either lesion ( Maier et al., 1993; Will et al., 2004) or microinjection of pharmacological agents that prevent dorsal raphe nucleus 5-HT activation ( Maier, Grahn, & Watkins, 1995; Maier, Kalman, & Grahn, 1994). These treatments all prevented inescapable shock from producing its usual poor escape and heightened anxiety, and these subjects behaved as did non-shocked controls.

Prevention of the desensitization of 5-HT1A receptors on dorsal raphe nucleus5-HT neurons produced by inescapable shock. Here an antagonist to the 5-HT1A receptor was microinjected into the dorsal raphe nucleus during inescapable shock, and as above these subjects behaved later as if they had not received the inescapable shock.

Blockade of 5-HT receptors in the dorsal raphe nucleus target regions during later testing. The argument is that failure to escape and increased anxiety occur because excessive 5-HT is released in critical target structures such as the amygdala during behavioral testing. Thus, blocking the receptors to which the 5-HT binds should eliminate the passivity and increased fear that typically occurs after inescapable shock. Indeed, microinjection of 5-HT2C antagonists directly into these structures does block the passivity and increased anxiety ( Christianson et al., 2010; Strong et al., 2011).

Sufficiency of Dorsal raphe nucleus Activity for Passivity/Anxiety

With regard to sufficiency, simply activating the dorsal raphe nucleus by microinjecting agents into the dorsal raphe nucleus that activate 5-HT neurons should produce the same passivity and anxiety as does inescapable shock. Although there is less work directed at this issue, this appears to be the case. Direct activation of the dorsal raphe nucleus by microinjection of the GABA antagonist picrotoxin or the benzodiazepine receptor antagonist beta-carboline both produce the typical behavioral outcomes that are produced by inescapable shock ( Maier, Grahn, Maswood, & Watkins, 1995; Short & Maier, 1993).

Learning: How and What does the Dorsal raphe nucleus Know?

The work above indicates that dorsal raphe nucleus 5-HT neurons are selectively activated if the shock is inescapable, and that this activation is necessary and sufficient to produce passivity and anxiety. But the key question is why the dorsal raphe nucleus responds only if the shock is inescapable. The most obvious option is that the dorsal raphe nucleus DETECTS the uncontrollability of the shock. To do so the dorsal raphe nucleus would have to extract the conditional probability of the shock offset given that the wheel turn or some other escape response occurs, and the conditional probability of the shock offset occurring in the absence of those responses, and compare these two probabilities. When the probabilities are equal the shock is uncontrollable. However, to do this, the dorsal raphe nucleus would require inputs informing it whether the motor responses have occurred and whether the shock is present or not, but the dorsal raphe nucleus does not receive these types of somatomotor and somatosensory inputs.

The next possibility is that the dorsal raphe nucleus receives greater excitatory inputs during inescapable than during escapable shock, thereby leading to more activation with inescapable shock. Indeed, a number of inputs to the dorsal raphe nucleus during stress have been discovered, but none provide more excitatory input during inescapable shock than during escapable shock. For example, recall that Weiss and his colleagues ( Weiss & Simson, 1988) found that inescapable shock activates locus coeruleus norepinephrine (NE)-containing neurons. These project to the dorsal raphe nucleus, and consistent with the Weiss work, blockade of NEreceptors in the dorsal raphe nucleus with a microinjected antagonist during inescapable shock eliminated the passivity and anxiety ( Grahn et al., 2002). However, both escapable and inescapable shock produced exactly equal levels of locus coeruleus NE activation ( McDevitt et al., 2009). That is, although locus coeruleus input to the dorsal raphe nucleus was required for learned helplessness, both inescapable and escapable shock led to equivalent inputs to the dorsal raphe nucleus . Moreover, a similar pattern was found for several other inputs to the dorsal raphe nucleus occurring during the shock. So, the conclusion is that the dorsal raphe nucleus does not receive any heightened excitation from inescapable shock relative to escapable shock.

Learning: The Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex does DETECT and EXPECT

In sum, a number of inputs to the dorsal raphe nucleus, using a number of different transmitters, was necessary to produce learned helplessness behaviors, but these inputs did not discriminate inescapable from escapable shock. If inescapable shock produces a much greater activation of dorsal raphe nucleus 5-HT neurons than does escapable shock, but both provide equivalent excitatory input, then there is only one obvious possibility left-the presence of control must somehow inhibit dorsal raphe nucleus 5-HT neurons that would otherwise be activated by shock per se without regard to controllability. The computational complexity of detecting the presence of control suggests a cortical process, and the dorsal raphe nucleus receives virtually all of its cortical input from the prelimbic region (PL) of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) ( Peyron, Petit, Rampon, Jouvet, & Luppi, 1997; Vertes, 2004). Importantly, electrical stimulation of the neurons that descend from the prelimbic area to the dorsal raphe nucleus inhibits dorsal raphe nucleus neuronal activity. Although these descending neurons are glutamatergic and so excitatory, they synapse preferentially on GABAergic interneurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus that inhibit the 5-HT cells (see Figure 2 for a cartoon). This arrangement leads to the hypothesis that escapability (control) is DETECTed by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex then ACTs to inhibit shock-induced dorsal raphe nucleus activation. The dorsal raphe nucleus is a site of convergence that sums inputs from a number of structures themselves activated by shock ( Figure 3). One idea is that these different inputs encode different aspects of aversive events, and so the more that are activated the more serious the threat. The dorsal raphe nucleus is important because it has this integrative function, and in turn projects to structures that are the proximate mediators of passivity/anxiety, our shorthand for the various behavioral and mood changes that follow inescapable shock. Thus, the dorsal raphe nucleus plays a role with respect to passivity somewhat analogous to that of the central nucleus of the amygdala in mediating fear. However, the dorsal raphe nucleus 5-HT neurons are under the inhibitory control of the prelimbic region of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and the detection of escapable shock activates this top-down inhibition of the dorsal raphe nucleus. We will return to a discussion of how this detection is accomplished.

Does the ventromedial prefrontal cortex actually regulate dorsal raphe nucleus activity and passivity as specified by this model ( Figure 3)?

First, does the presence of escapable shock, but not inescapable shock, activate ventromedial prefrontal cortex neurons that project to the dorsal raphe nucleus? It would be easy to administer escapable shock, yoked inescapable shock, or no shock treatment and then determine whether the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is selectively activated by the escapable shock. However, most of the cells in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex have nothing to do with projections to the dorsal raphe nucleus, and so more is needed to indicate that the specific ventromedial prefrontal cortex pathways that project to the dorsal raphe nucleus are activated by escapable shock. To answer this question Baratta et al. (2009) microinjected a retrograde tracer into the dorsal raphe nucleus. Retrograde tracers are taken up by axon terminals within the dorsal raphe nucleus and transported back to the neuronal cell bodies. This labels all cell bodies in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex that project to the dorsal raphe nucleus. Baratta et al. (2009) then later administered escapable shock, inescapable shock, or no shock. It was then only necessary to determine whether the cells that were labeled as projecting from the ventromedial prefrontal cortex to the dorsal raphe nucleus were activated, which was done by examining within these labeled neurons the expression of markers of neuronal activation such as the immediate-early gene c-fos. Indeed, escapable shock but not exactly equal inescapable shock, increased c-fos protein in the labeled projecting neurons.

Second, is activation of this pathway necessary for escapable shock to reduce dorsal raphe nucleus activation and block the passivity and anxiety usually produced by inescapable shock? To answer this question Amat et al. (2005) inactivated the ventromedial prefrontal cortex-to-dorsal raphe nucleus pathway during the experience of escapable shock, inescapable shock, or no shock. This was done by microinjecting a pharmacological agent into the prelimbic area that inhibits the glutamatergic pyramidal neurons that project to the dorsal raphe nucleus (see Figure 4). The results were dramatic. Although the subjects with control learned the escape response perfectly, this learning was no longer protective -the dorsal raphe nucleus was activated as if the tailshocks were actually inescapable, and the subjects showed the passivity and heightened anxiety typical of exposure to inescapable shock. That is, inactivating the ventromedial prefrontal cortex-to-dorsal raphe nucleus pathway turned an animal with control into an animal without control.

Third, is activation of this pathway sufficient for control to reduce dorsal raphe nucleus activation and block the passivity typically produced by inescapable shock? That is, does the organism actually need to escape at all, or is the mere activation of this pathway during the shock enough? To answer this question Amat, Paul, Watkins, and Maier (2008) activated this pathway directly with a microinjected pharmacological agent during the experience of inescapable shock. Now the dorsal raphe nucleus was inhibited as if the stressor was escapable, which it was not, and passivity was prevented. That is, activating the ventromedial prefrontal cortex-to-dorsal raphe nucleus pathway turned an animal without control into an animal with control.

Detection of control

So the presence of control activates descending inhibition of shock-induced dorsal raphe nucleus activation and thereby blocks passivity and anxiety. However, this does not mean that control is necessarily detected by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in isolation, or by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex at all. Control could be detected by a different circuit, with this information then conveyed over to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

The clue to how Maier and his students proceeded with this issue came from the literature on the neural mechanisms underlying appetitive instrumental learning-for example a rat learning to press a lever for food. The history of psychology witnessed a debate as to whether instrumental learning involves the formation of a Stimulus-Response habit or instead a Response-Reinforcer expectancy. Neuroscience research indicates that each can take place and each involves different neural systems ( Balleine & O'Doherty, 2010). One system, called the "act/outcome" system, is sensitive to the contingency between response and reinforcer. Contingency is "the difference between the probability of obtaining a target reward (r) given that a specific action (a) is performed and the probability of gaining the reward in the absence of the action" ( Liljeholm, Tricomi, O'Doherty, & Balleine, 2011, p. 2474). The act/outcome system leads to "flexible" learning, and it is sensitive to contingency changes in the reward. A second system, the "habit" system, is a mere habit that is not sensitive to contingency but only to the temporal pairing between response and reward, and it produces inflexible learning that is not sensitive to changes in the contingency of the reward ( Balleine & Dickinson, 1998). Importantly, the act/outcome system involves a corticostriatal circuit consisting of the prelimbic area within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the posterior dorsal medial striatum (DMS), while the habit system has no prefrontal cortical involvement, but instead involves the sensorimotor cortex and the dorsal lateral striatum (DLS). Thus, lesion, NMDA receptor blockade, and inactivation of either the prelimbic area or the dorsal medial striatum prevents contingency sensitive act/outcome learning. Responses can be learned, but only the habit system is then used, and so the learning is insensitive to contingency ( Shiflett & Balleine, 2011).

Interestingly, this definition of instrumental contingency is identical to the definition of control that Maier and Seligman (1976) provided, although Maier and Seligman were referring to shock rather than food. Maier and Seligman defined control as being present whenever the conditional probability of the outcome (shock termination) after some response is different from the conditional probability of the outcome in the absence of that response, an identical formalism that provided for contingency in the appetitive instrumental learning literature 40 years later.

All this suggested that perhaps DETECTion of control over shock is done by a circuit involving the prelimbic area and the dorsal medial striatum, just as is instrumental appetitive contingency learning. As would be predicted, Amat et al. (2014) found that escapable shock, but not inescapable shock activates the contingency-sensitive dorsal medial striatum, but not the habit-oriented contingency-insensitive dorsal lateral striatum. The impact of inactivating the dorsal medial striatum during the experience of escapable and inescapable shock was even more intriguing. First, inactivating the dorsal medial striatum did not interfere with the learning and performance of the escape response. This suggests that the rats could use the "dumber" habit system to acquire and perform the escape response. Dramatically, even though the escapable subjects performed the controlling escape response perfectly, this was not protective against passivity/anxiety later. So when the habit system and not the contingency-sensitive system is used, detecting control seems to be absent. That is, the dorsal raphe nucleus was activated as if the shocks were uncontrollable and passivity/anxiety followed. Thus, it is not turning the wheel and actually escaping the shock by wheel turning that is necessary to prevent later passivity, but rather the detection of escapability by the prelimbic-dorsal medial striatum act/outcome system. As this conclusion also predicts, inactivating the dorso lateral striatum and the habit system did not reduce the protective effects of escapability. It might be noted that the precise mechanism by which the prelimbic-dorsomedial striatum circuit does the "detecting" is not known.

In sum, the prelimbic region of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is involved in two separable functions-the DETECTion of control in a circuit with the dorsal medial striatum and then ACTing to inhibit the dorsal raphe nucleus (see Figure 5). Is it the same prelimbic neurons that are involved in both detection of contingency and ACTing on this information by transmitting it to the dorsal raphe nucleus and inhibiting it? To answer this question M. Barratta (unpublished) in Maier's group microinjected one color retrograde tracer in the dorsal medial striatum and a differently colored retrograde tracer into the dorsal raphe nucleus. These tracers were transported backwards along the neurons to the cell bodies of the neurons in the prelimbic area that project to these structures. If the same prelimbic neurons project to both regions then both colors should be present in the same cell bodies in the prelimbic area. There was no colocalization at all, indicating that these are separate populations of prelimbic neurons. Thus, DETECT escapability and ACT to pass this information that then inhibits the dorsal raphe nucleus are subserved by different populations of ventromedial prefrontal cortex cells and so are truly different functions.

Immunization and EXPECTation

Initial exposure to escapable shock prevents or reduces the passivity/anxiety induced by later inescapable shock, a phenomenon we called immunization ( Maier et al., 1969). Two features of immunization are essential. First, it is quite enduring, but perhaps not permanent. Second, it is trans-situational and so inescapable shock in one situation blocks the passivity/anxiety caused by even stressors that do not involve shock in different situations. For example, Amat et al. (2010) reported that experience with escapable shock blocked the passivity in shuttle escape and also blocked the reduced social investigation (anxiety) produced by social defeat occurring seven days later. Social defeat involves placing the experimental subject together with a larger and aggressive dominant subject. The experimental subject inevitably loses and adopts defeat postures, and so there is a strong element of uncontrollability. Here there is no shock at all, no restraint, the defeat is conducted on a different floor of the building by different experimenters, and yet escapable shock immunized against the effects of defeat. As would be expected, social defeat also increased dorsal raphe nucleus 5-HT activity, and this increase was prevented by the prior escapable shock ( Amat et al., 2010).

Why does the inescapable shock (or defeat) fail to activate dorsal raphe nucleus 5-HT neurons and thus produce the typical passivity/anxiety if the organism has first experienced control over shock? Given the circuitry above, perhaps the uncontrollable shock (or defeat) now activates the prelimbic-to dorsal raphe nucleus inhibitory pathway, even though without the prior immunizing experience of escapable shock it would not do so. To determine whether this is the case, Baratta et al. (2009) microinjected a retrograde tracer in the dorsal raphe nucleus in order to label prelimbic neurons that project to the dorsal raphe nucleus. Recall that escapable shock but not inescapable shock activates these labeled cells, as assessed by examining activation markers such as c-fos in these labeled neurons. Dramatically, inescapable shock now does activate these cells as if the inescapable shock was escapable shock - if the organism had experienced immunizing control seven days earlier! Furthermore, when these prelimbic neurons were inactivated during the inescapable shock via the microinjection of inhibitory pharmacological agents, immunization no longer occurred ( Amat, Paul, Zarza, Watkins, & Maier, 2006).

Thus, the experience of escapable shock (control) produced a specific and persistent change in the prelimbic-dorsal raphe nucleus circuit that led to the inhibition of the dorsal raphe nucleus and prevented passivity in response to even uncontrollable stress. The obvious possibility is that the activation of this pathway that occurs during escapable shock is sufficient to produce the persistent change. To test this idea Amat et al. (2006) activated this pathway directly by microinjecting a pharmacological agent with no actual escapable shock present, but this did not produce the persistent pathway change or produce immunization. They then reasoned that perhaps it is the joint activation of this pathway and the occurrence of the shock that is critical. To test this, the prelimbic-dorsal raphe nucleus pathway was activated pharmacologically during the occurrence of inescapable shock, the uncontrollable form of the stressor. Remarkably, now immunization occurred. That is, inescapable shock produces immunization as long as the prelimbic pathway is activated during shock.

How can this be understood? It is known that without prior escapable shock activation of the prelimbic-dorsal raphe nucleus ACT pathway requires the detection of control by the prelimbic-dorsal medial striatum DETECT circuit. We suspect that it also requires the presence of a potent aversive event, as there would be no reason to inhibit the dorsal raphe nucleus if there were not an aversive event present. This assertion could be tested, although the appropriate experiment has not yet been done. Plasticity, or increased connectivity between neurons at a synapse, typically occurs when both are activated together, as they say, "neurons that fire together wire together". Thus, the joint occurrence of shock and control might induce increased connectivity so that later just the presence of the shock, without control, is sufficient to activate the pathway. Recent evidence supports this idea: 1) The development of persistent increases in connectivity requires the production of new proteins in the cells in question, and blockade of new protein synthesis in the prelimbic area after the escapable shock experience prevents immunization ( Amat et al., 2006). That is, even though the subjects exert control and the prelimbic area is activated, immunization only happens if new proteins can be formed. Importantly, control still blunts the impact of the stressor being experienced, but longer-term immunization is eliminated; 2) The production of particular proteins, called plasticity proteins, is required for long term-increases in connectivity. Increases in these particular proteins (e.g., phosphorylated extracellular signal-regulated kinase) are indeed induced in the prelimbic region of theventromedial prefrontal cortex by escapable shock ( Christianson et al., 2014); 3) Inhibitors of just these plasticity proteins prevent immunization when microinjected in the prelimbic area ( Christianson et al., 2014); and 4) Direct electrophysiological measurement of projecting prelimbic neurons indicates that escapable shock, but not inescapable shock increases their excitability ( Varela, Wang, Christianson, Maier, & Cooper, 2012). We conclude from this that the prelimbic-dorsal raphe nucleus ACT pathway can be modified over several hours after the joint experience of control and aversive stimulation, to respond to stressors in general as if they were controllable, and this is compatible with the idea that this altered pathway subserves the EXPECTation that shock will be controllable in new aversive situations. Thus, the same prelimbic-dorsal raphe nucleus pathway that operates as ACT can later operate as EXPECT.

Amygdala

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex projects to many structures other than the dorsal raphe nucleus. The amygdala is especially interesting in this regard. The role of the amygdala in fear and conditioned fear is well known. Briefly, the association between a stimulus predicting shock and the shock forms in basolateral regions of the amygdala. From there the information passes to the central nucleus of the amygdala, which in turns projects to the regions that control the behaviors and physiological responses that are the symptoms of fear ( Davis, Rainnie, & Cassell, 1994; LeDoux, 2003; Maren & Quirk, 2004). For example, the central nucleus of the amygdala projects to regions of the periaqueductal gray that produce freezing, a behavioral component of conditioned fear. Both the prelimbic and the infralimbic region of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex project to parts of the amygdala. Of special note, the infralimbic region sends excitatory glutamatergic projections to a region of the amygdala known as the intercalated cell region. The cells in this region are GABAergic and project to and inhibit the central nucleus of the amygdala ( Berretta, Pantazopoulos, Caldera, Pantazopoulos, & Pare, 2005). Thus, stimulation of the infralimbic region should inhibit fear expression, and it does ( Sierra-Mercado, Padilla-Coreano, & Quirk, 2011). Since the prelimbic-dorsal medial striatum circuit DETECTS control, and since the prelimbic communicates with the infralimbic region of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, Baratta et al. (2007) wondered whether the experience of control over an aversive event might reduce later fear in a different situation. Thus, subjects were exposed to escapable shock or yoked inescapable shock in the wheel-turn apparatus and given fear conditioning in standard conditioning chambers seven days later. Inescapable shock potentiated later fear conditioning, a well-known phenomenon ( Rau, DeCola, & Fenselow, 2005). It would not have been surprising if initial control merely prevented this potentiating effect, but it did more than that: Instead prior escapable shock actually retarded fear conditioning and facilitated fear extinction. This indicated an EXPECTation of control over shock. Moreover, these effects of prior control depended on the ventromedial prefrontal cortex ( Baratta, Lucero, Amat, Watkins, & Maier, 2008), showing that this structure exerts top-down inhibition of more than just the dorsal raphe nucleus, and the limits of this arrangement await further exploration.

Neurobiology of Human Control

Although there is a long history of research investigating the controllability dimension in humans, studies using methods that allow the measurement of neural activity are quite recent and few in number. A number of studies employing painful stimuli have found that providing control, or inducing perceived control, reduces the experienced intensity of the painful stimulus. Moreover, perceived control in these pain studies increases ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity ( Salomons, Johnstone, Backonja, & Davidson, 2004). In the only relevant triadic design of which we are aware, Kerr, McLaren, Mathy, and Nitschke (2012) used exposure to snake videos to subjects with snake phobias. Each trial began with an anticipation period of variable duration in which a cue signaled that a snake video or a neutral fish video might follow. A second cue indicated whether the subject would or would not have control over whether the video would occur on that trial. After a variable period of time a target then occurred and the subject was instructed to press it as rapidly as possible. The video or a fixation point then appeared. On a controllable trial subjects were told that if they responded fast enough the fixation point rather than the video would appear, but if they were too slow they would see the video. On uncontrollable trials the subjects were told that no matter of how quickly they pressed, the video and the fixation point would each occur half the time, but subjects were asked to press as fast as possible anyway. However, the speed required on controllable trials was adjusted so that the subjects succeeded about half the time in avoiding the video, and so the actual frequencies on the uncontrollable trials was equated to this frequency. Thus, the controllable and uncontrollable trails were exactly yoked, as in animal studies. As expected, perceived control over the snake presentation reduced anticipatory anxiety on snake trials. Importantly, there was one condition that selectively excited ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity - snake controllable trials. Control did not increase ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity on neutral fish trials, even though the subjects pressed. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity was higher on controllable snake trials than in any of the other conditions. Finally, there was a negative relationship between ventromedial prefrontal cortex and amygdala activity on snake trials. These findings provide some support for generalizing the animal data reviewed above to humans.

Contrasting Psychological and Neural Explanations of Learned Helplessness

We believe that the neural explanations strongly inform the psychological explanations. We suspect that the learned helplessness work now provides a good, generalizable example of the complementarity between neural and psychological explanations. In the present case, the detailed knowledge concerning neural processes enabled the testing and major revision of the original psychological theory of learned helplessness-refinements that could not have happened without knowing the neural circuitry (examples below). On the other hand, the neural work would likely never have been done without the original behavioral work and psychological theorizing. Recall that the phenomenon that began this line of work was that exposure to aversive Pavlovian fear conditioning leads to later failure to learn instrumental escape/avoidance responses ( Leaf, 1964). It was behavioral work and psychological theorizing that led to the isolation of behavioral control/lack of control as being the key feature of the Pavlovian conditioning that led to the failure to learn, and without this work there would not have been neuroscientific research directed at understanding the mechanisms that underlie controllability effects. The neuroscience circuitry work then clarified numerous issues (see below), but then translation back to psychological concepts also seems useful. As will be discussed below, the translation back to the psychological level enables the neuroscience work to potentially inform clinical practice.

Hypothesis Testing

First, Maier's group was able to test hypotheses that did not seem testable at the psychological level. The psychological theorizing concerning learned helplessness flowed from the triadic design that compared subjects with no control and those with control. The basic result was that the subjects without control later revealed passivity and a number of other behavioral changes, while those with control did not and appeared to be similar to non-shocked controls. Given this pattern we inferred that detecting and expecting a lack of control was the active ingredient. The non-difference between the zero group and the escapable shock group led us to believe that organisms expected controllability as the basic "default option". Alternatively, it has been argued (e.g., Minor, Dess, & Overmier, 1991) that the reverse could be true, that stressors per se have deleterious effects, and that these effects could then be blocked when control was added as the active ingredient. However, it was difficult to separate these two possibilities with behavioral experiments, and the idea that uncontrollability was learned remained the dominant view.

The neural work allowed the testing of whether control is the active ingredient and lack of control is the default option, rather than the other way around as the psychological theory claimed. There are several key points. The neural evidence strongly suggests that activation and sensitization of the dorsal raphe nucleus leads to the passivity and anxiety characteristic of learned helplessness. Of course, inescapable shock produces a greater activation of the dorsal raphe nucleus than does controllable shock. But there were two obvious possibilities as to why: Is this differential activation because inescapable shock provides more excitatory input to the dorsal raphe nucleus than does escapable shock, or is it because escapable shock provides more inhibitory input to the dorsal raphe nucleus? Either would produce differential activation of the dorsal raphe nucleus by inescapable versus escapable shock and of course, both could be true. But the neural data are clear. Inescapable shock does not provide more excitatory input-both forms of shock produce equal excitation of the dorsal raphe nucleus. However, when shock is escapable this is DETECTed by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex-dorsal medial striatum circuit, and then the ventromedial prefrontal cortex ACTs, sending inputs to the dorsal raphe nucleus that inhibit it, thereby turning off the activation produced by shock per se. That is, there is nothing in the brain that is selectively turned on by a lack of control, only something that turns things off when there is the presence of control. So, aversive events per se (either controllable or uncontrollable) excite the dorsal raphe nucleus, but control over stress actively turns this off.

The reader may wonder why then in all the initial helplessness experiments the previously nonshocked group and the previously escapably shocked group performed equally well in shuttlebox escape. Recall that passivity/anxiety is explained by 5-HT accumulation during the testing in projection regions of the dorsal raphe nucleus that mediate these behaviors. If control leads to sensitization of the prelimbic-dorsal raphe nucleus pathway (EXPECT), then 5-HT activity should be inhibited from the start during shuttlebox escape testing in this group, but not in the non-shocked controls. It is easy to see why the inescapably shocked group should perform more poorly than controls-the dorsal raphe nucleus 5-HT neurons are sensitized in these subjects at the start of testing and so the aversive stimulus in the shuttlebox test (the gridshock) would lead to large and rapid 5-HT activation and consequent passivity/anxiety. But, if control leads to EXPECT (sensitized prelimbic-dorsal raphe nucleus inhibition), why should the escapably shocked subjects not perform better than controls that had not been previously stressed and so do not have EXPECT? The answer likely lies in an accidental feature of shuttlebox escape learning-it is learned very rapidly. Indeed, rodents escape with almost asymptotically fast latencies by the second or third trial (e.g., Grahn, Watkins, & Maier, 2000). This is likely because running is elicited as a species specific defense response ( Bolles & Fanselow, 1980) on the very first trials. It is important to understand that 5-HT in response to aversive stimulation accumulates gradually across trials, and so the non-shocked controls learn control before 5-HT levels that could induce passivity have accumulated in regions such as the dPAG and striatum. This DETECTion of control, would, of course, inhibit the dorsal raphe nucleus. Even if there were a slight difference in 5-HT, the shuttle response is learned so rapidly that there is a ceiling effect. This argument would suggest that in tasks in which the non-shocked control is not at ceiling a difference between the previously escapably shocked and non-shocked controls might emerge, and this appears to be the case ( Baratta et al., 2007).

A second theoretical advance came from the neural circuitry: We know that the part of the brain that DETECTs control is a circuit formed by the prelimbic area of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the dorsal medial striatum. When this system was inactivated so that control/lack of control information could not be detected and subjects were exposed to escapable shock or inescapable shock, the rats reacted to the shock as if it were inescapable - both in terms of passivity/anxiety and of neurochemistry. The data showed that all the animals, regardless of whether they had an escape response that they learned perfectly, acted later as if the stressor had been inescapable. That is, if the control detecting circuit was taken off line, all animals acted as if the shock was inescapable whether the animal actually was able to escape the shock or not. This suggests that if the DETECT control circuit is absent the animal invariably reverts to the default of helplessness following exposure to any prolonged stressor.

The neural circuitry also allowed the test of a competing theory of learned helplessness. It had been argued that the feedback from the escape response becomes a Pavlovian inhibitor of fear, a safety signal that reduces the total fear experienced and that it is this excess fear-if unreduced - that produces passivity (see above). There is no question that the presence of safety signals that predict a period of time free from shock can reduce the behavioral impact of aversive events. With knowledge of the underlying neural circuitry it became simple to ask whether safety signals blunt the impact of stressors via the same or a different mechanism. As discussed above, the escape response exerts its behavioral effects by activating ventromedial prefrontal cortex top-down inhibition of brainstem and limbic stress-responsive structures. It is straightforward to ask whether the protective effects of safety signals also requires the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and the answer is no. For example, ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions eliminated the ability of behavioral control to blunt the passivity and fear caused by inescapable shock, but these lesions did not even reduce the passivity and fear blunting impact of safety signals ( Christianson, Benison, et al., 2008). Instead, safety signals had their impact via the insular cortex and insular cortex lesions eliminated the protective effects of safety signals. However, insular lesions did not reduce the passivity blunting effects of having an escape response, thereby demonstrating a double dissociation ( Christianson, Benison, et al., 2008). Thus, control cannot be reduced to safety. This does not mean that safety signals are not stress-blunting, nor that safety signals do not have clinical uses, but only that stressor control and safety signals exert their effects via different neural mechanisms.

Another theoretical advance provided by the neural circuitry concerns understanding how experiences of control alter how organisms respond to future events. If the rats first experience is with escape the organism is immunized and reacts to subsequent stressors in new situations as if they are escapable. This suggests that the rat EXPECTs that shock will be escapable in the new situation and that plasticity in the prelimbic-dorsal raphe nucleus subserves this expectation and inhibits the dorsal raphe nucleus, thus blocking learned helplessness.

In addition to theory testing, knowledge of the underlying circuitry explained a number of learned helplessness phenomena that were simply mysteries at a psychological level. Here are two examples.

What Did Original Learned Helplessness Theory Get Right and What Did It Get Wrong?

On the positive side, we found that as the original theory claimed, organisms are sensitive to the dimension of control, and this dimension is critical. However, the part of the dimension that is detected or expected seems now to be the presence of control, not the absence of control. It also appears that the passivity and increased anxiety that follows uncontrollable stressors for several days is not produced by any expectancy at all, but rather is an unlearned reaction to prolonged aversive stimulation that sensitizes a specific set of neurons. Importantly, the presence of control aborts this process. However, expectancy does play a role, but it does in the immunization process. Here, an expectancy of control does blunt the impact of subsequent stressors. Clearly, the neurobiological data are at odds with the theory we held fifty years ago. When we first found that dogs given inescapable shock later failed to learn to escape in a shuttlebox, but that dogs given exactly equated escapable shock later escaped normally, the ideas that we developed were shaped by thinking of what might be most adaptive for dogs, rats and people. We reasoned that active coping is generally best because this would minimize exposure, and so we assumed that organisms would initially expect control to be possible. If the stressor proved to be uncontrollable, organisms would then learn this and expect it to be true in related situations in the future, with this expectation of uncontrollability undermining trying active coping. However, the neural basis of inescapable and escapable shock effects does not support this general schema. Instead, the presence of control seems to be the active ingredient, leading to the inhibition of threat-induced changes in limbic and brainstem structures.

Perhaps this counterintuitive arrangement becomes more intelligible if one considers our phylogenetic ancestors. In primitive organisms threats engage defensive reflexes ( Walters & Erickson, 1986). However, these reflexes are energy intensive, and so if unsuccessful it might be adaptive to inhibit them and conserve energy for use in physiological adjustments that promote survival, such as altering the responsivity of the immune system to be better able to fight any infection or wound that might occur after an attack ( Frank, Watkins, & Maier, 2013). Primitive organisms do not have the sensory apparatus to detect threats at a distance, nor do they have a complex behavioral repertoire that can be used for what we are calling behavioral control. That is, adverse events for primitive organisms are generally uncontrollable by their voluntary behavior, and such organisms do not need mechanisms to detect controllability. Thus, the "successfulness" of defensive reflexes is likely related to the duration of the existing threat-if it is prolonged then conservation/withdrawal would be adaptive with energy being shifted to physiological adjustments to threat. It is important to note that 5-HT is phylogenetically very old ( Hen, 1993). Moreover, 5-HT has, from the beginning, been involved in controlling and shifting the balance and flow of energy (see Andrews, Bharwani, Lee, Fox, & Thomson, 2015, for review).

As organisms became more complex, they could detect and identify threats at a distance. And so they developed rich behavioral and cognitive skills that could be used to cope with threats. Control became possible even against threats that persist over time. Clearly, if such control will work this is the best course because it will minimize injury and harm. For complex organisms behavioral control can be possible over threats that are repeated, intermittent, and so persist across time. Thus, conservation/withdrawal and other energy adjustments set in motion by the continuation of threat should be inhibited.

Thus, when encountering a threat we envisage the following scenario. First, defensive behavior will be elicited. The aversive event would activate structures such as the dorsal raphe nucleus. This is a cumulative process with 5-HT building over time, and if the transmitter reaches some threshold in target structures, defensive behaviors become inhibited and energy flow is shifted. However, if control is possible this is detected and leads to the inhibition of this process so that active responding can continue. In addition, plasticity is induced in the prelimbic-to dorsal raphe nucleus circuit so that the system is biased to initially react to aversive events as if they are controllable, thereby prolonging the duration of active responding.

Unresolved Issues

At the level of basic neural circuits, there are several important unresolved issues. The data suggest that there are two important circuits within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex engaged by control that mediate the protective effects of control-a prelimbic-dorsomedial striatum pathway and a prelimbic-dorsal raphe nucleus pathway. The prelimbic-dorsomedial striatum circuit detects control (DETECT) when control is present, and then activates the prelimbic-dorsal raphe nucleus pathway (ACT) to then blunt the behavioral effects of stress. Since Baratta (2015) has shown that the prelimbic neurons that participate in these two circuits are quite discrete, there has to be a pathway from somewhere in the prelimbic-dorsomedial striatum circuit that projects to and activates the prelimbic neurons in the prelimbic- dorsal raphe nucleus pathway, and this pathway is as yet unknown. The "gold standard" discovery of this pathway will require measuring the activity of the prelimbic neurons in each pathway separately, with the critical result being that activity in the prelimbic-dorsomedial striatum pathway precedes activity in the prelimbic- dorsal raphe nucleus pathway. This requires a method that allows the experimenter to know that a prelimbic neuron that is being recorded is in one of these two pathways (most prelimbic neurons are in neither), and which one. This further requires the experimenter to be able to activate or inhibit each pathway selectively. The experiments described earlier in this paper that activated or inhibited prelimbic neurons did so non-selectively, as they involved microinjecting excitatory or inhibitory drugs that would act on all prelimbic neurons.

Thus, the existing neural evidence although strong, it is not conclusive. However genetic/molecular tools are now available that allow these gold standard experiments, and they are underway in the Maier laboratory.

At the psychological level, there are several other loose ends.

As a general statement, neural processes in the prefrontal cortex become narrowed by stress ( Arnsten, 2015). Thus, the fact that in an aversive situation the brain seems to detect control as the active ingredient rather than a lack of control, does not mean that the brain cannot detect lack of control in other types of circumstances, such as uncontrollable food or unsolvable cognitive problems, or even loud noise. That is, the findings that we have reviewed do not imply that the brain does not have circuitry to detect non-contingency between events that include actions and outcomes. Rather, it may be that this processing can occur, but is not deployed in situations that are highly aversive such as the original helplessness experiments. So it is important to distinguish between what the brain does under a given set of conditions, and what the brain is capable of under different conditions. This possibility is in need of further research.

Speculations

The neural circuitry explains and predicts phenomena that are not explained or predicted at the psychological level. There are three main takeaways from the neural circuitry that might inform thinking about therapy and psychopathology. The first is that the default response of higher organisms to prolonged bad events seems to be passivity and heightened anxiety and that this is caused by the activation of the dorsal raphe nucleus. The second is that top-down higher cortical processes from the ventromedial prefrontal cortex inhibit this default response. The passivity and heightened anxiety symptoms of learned helplessness map quite well into symptoms of depression ( Seligman 1975; Weiss, Simson, Ambrose, Webster, & Hoffman, 1985) and perhaps those of posttraumatic stress disorder ( LoLordo & Overmier, 2011). The third has to do with the well-established enduring effects of cognitive interventions ( Cuijpers et al., 2013). Here we have reviewed research that indicates that the experience of behavioral control over a stressor also has an enduring impact, and have suggested that this occurs because that experience induces plasticity in ventromedial prefrontal cortex neurons that project to midbrain and brainstem stress-responsive structures, leading to their later inhibition. It is tempting to suggest that cognitive therapies operate via the same mechanism. Assuming that learned helplessness models these phenomena, we now speculate on the implications of the neural circuitry particularly for the treatment of depression.

The first blush reaction is that we should measure these structures in humans, and then excite the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and inhibit the dorsal raphe nucleus, pharmacologically, electrically, trans-magnetically or psychologically in therapy. So for example one might ask if the dorsal raphe nucleus is highly excited during deep depression and if it becomes less excited as depression wanes either in time or in therapy. One might ask if medial prefrontal cortical activity inhibits the dorsal raphe nucleus when therapy or medication is successful. One might even look at the effect of medications and of trans-magnetic stimulation of dorsal raphe and medial prefrontal cortical structure during the course of depression. But a set of cautions should temper these speculations. A variety of psychological processes lead to increased ventromedial prefrontal cortex activation as measured by fMRI and also blunt the impact of stressors. However, this does not mean that these processes do so by activating the crucial PL-dorsal raphe nucleus pathway. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a large and complex structure encompassing cell types releasing a variety of transmitters and neuropeptides. Moreover, neurons in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex participate in numerous circuits with neurons in other brain regions, and the functions served by these circuits are likely unrelated, except that they share cells in a large piece of heterogeneous geography. The prelimbic neurons that are involved in the prelimbic-dorsomedial striatum and Prelimbic- dorsal raphe nucleus pathways represent an extremely small percentage of the cells in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and would not contribute measurably to a BOLD signal in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Thus, measuring a global ventromedial prefrontal cortex fMRI signal will not remotely imply activation of the control-related critical prelimbic neurons. It might seem that the dorsal raphe nucleus might be usefully imaged, but the dorsal raphe nucleus is a small structure, with roughly 25,000 5-HT cells in the rat and 150,000 in humans. Furthermore, the critical dorsal raphe nucleus5-HT neurons that are involved in mediating the effects of uncontrollable stress and that are inhibited from the prelimbic by control are restricted to the caudal dorsal raphe nucleus ( Grahn et al., 1999), maybe 8,000 neurons in the rat and 50,000 in the human. This is too small a number of cells by at least an order of magnitude to be imaged currently.

With regard to therapy, ventromedial prefrontal cortex dysregulation and impaired top-down inhibition of stress responsive limbic and brainstem structures have often been noted (e.g., DeRubeis, Siegle, & Hollon, 2008; Hartley & Phelps, 2010; Koenigs & Grafman, 2009; Rive et al., 2013; Shin & Liberzon, 2010). There is a growing and complex literature concerning the impact of therapies such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) on neural function that cannot be reviewed here. However, there are reports that CBT alters ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity and reduces negative emotion relative to wait-listed controls (e.g., Goldin et al., 2013).

Reappraisal of situations seen as catastrophic is central to CBT and there is now a large literature that explores the brain regions that might be involved. In reappraisal research subjects make some stimulus or event seem less negative or anxiety arousing (e.g., "imagine that the snake is not poisonous and cannot get at you"). Subjects that are able to successfully reduce negative reactions show reduced amygdala activity and increased activity in lateral and dorsal regions of the prefrontal cortex ( Beauregard, Lévesque, & Bourgouin, 2001). Importantly Urry et al. (2006) noted that these regions of the prefrontal cortex do not project to the amygdala, but they do project to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. She found that when subjects reduced negative emotional reactions successfully, there was a strong negative correlation between amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity. This and a variety of other evidence led Ray and Zald (2012) to conclude,

These investigators either implicitly or explicitly describe emotion regulation as the deployment of top-down "cold" cognitive control region of the prefrontal cortex to down regulate bottom-up "hot" reactive processes involving the subcortical limbic regions like the amygdala. Failures in the successful deployment of prefrontal cortex top-down cognitive control mechanisms or overactive bottom-up amygdala processes have been proposed to contribute to several forms of psychopathology (p. 487).

Reappraisal as a tool of therapy is behavioral control. It blunts the impact of a negative event, and likely involves top-down inhibition from the ventro to lower structures. Whether the ventromedial prefrontal cortex activation produced by reappraisal involves the specific pathways that are critical to mediating the impact of behavioral control awaits future research. This encourages speculation that CBT engages the same top-down protective circuitry that has been isolated in the study of behavioral control. After all, CBT teaches cognitive tools that can be used to reduce destructive negative thoughts and emotions. That is, they are taught that there are things that they can do -control.

Why Versus Whither

Given our caution about the multifarious functions and structures of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, it has not escaped our notice that one such function is prospection, the representation of possible futures ( Seligman et al., 2013). In their review of prospection research Gilbert and Wilson (2007) conclude "An extensive body shows that prefeeling depends critically on the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and that people with damage to this area find it difficult to predict the hedonic consequences of future events" (p. 1352).

Notice that the top-down process from the prelimbic to the dorsal raphe nucleus captures the notion of EXPECTing that future bad events will be controllable. This circuit is about the future and it buffers against, but does not annihilate, the default reaction of the dorsal raphe nucleus. A default of helplessness eventually overcome by the experience of mastery over aversive events is compatible with the ontogeny of the human species: beginning life in a state of almost utter helplessness and only gradually learning to control bad events.

The possibility that the prelimbic- dorsal raphe nucleus circuitry involves prospection points to a class of psychological interventions that should be useful and to another class of psychological interventions that should be less useful. This is at the heart of our most speculative thoughts.

The default reaction to past and present bad events may be concurrent passivity and heightened anxiety. These cannot be undone directly or annihilated. They can, however, be inhibited by top-down cortical, control. Treatment can only buffer against past and present events with moves that produce control over bad events in the future: These are therapy's end-runs around bad events. We speculate that it is expectations of a better future that most matter in treatment. Psychotherapy might usefully spend less time on what is likely default and spend more time on what are likely the "end-runs" of DETECTing and then EXPECTing control.

"Why?" is a question that psychotherapy often asks. Perhaps a better question is "whither?" An exhaustive discussion of therapeutic moves that focus on understanding and undoing past and coping with present events as opposed to building buffers for the future is beyond the scope of this paper. So we will only give a few examples. Consider the class of therapy moves in which the patient reviews a past trauma in order to gain insight into its causes or to have catharsis about it. The dorsal raphe nucleus default reaction to trauma suggests that this is an uphill battle that will likely fail. The circuitry suggests that there is not much that can be achieved merely by confronting, understanding and reliving the trauma.

This uphill battle about confronting the past is not the province only of psychodynamic therapy, but it is also common in CBT. Re-appraisal, in general, re-interprets a past or present bad event. All of the following are other examples of a prima facie past focus (see Dobson, 2010 for details): discussion of post-event processing and attendant rumination; discussion of memory biases like selective filtering (where the patient only attended to a negative part of something that happened and ignored the positive parts); behavior chain analysis (where the patient looks at all the steps that led up to a bad outcome, such as an eating or drinking binge, and considers how those steps set him up to 'fail'); and functional analyses (determining antecedents, behaviors, & consequences).

Similarly many moves in CBT (see Dobson, 2010 for details) focus prima facie on coping with the present. So therapists discuss "mind reading" and "catastrophization," to facilitate reappraisal of the attributions and meaning a person is making for an ongoing event. Attentional control and mindfulness similarly emphasize the present. Exposure therapies (and emotion-focused therapies) emphasize the present emotional experience and the patient observes how emotion changes over time when he stays in the situation.

We are quick to note, of course, that in the hands of a skilled and experienced therapist these exercises about the past and the present are typically done with the purpose of changing future behavior, such as better recognizing triggers for past maladaptive responses in order to avoid those triggers in the future or gaining insight into catastrophizing in order to learn how to be more optimistic in the future. Nevertheless, from our circuitry speculation, it is the preparation for the future that is likely to be the most effective ingredient and so it is worthwhile to be explicit about the locus of its effectiveness.

Indeed much of cognitive behavioral therapy is actually future-oriented, even if it is not taught in this way. Problem solving, activity scheduling, crisis response plans, role play in assertiveness training, and what doors open when one door closes, all involve simulating future situations and trying to prepare for those effectively. We note that there actually exists a variant, as yet insufficiently validated, of CBT, called "Future Directed Therapy" ( Vilhauer, 2014).

Perhaps one CBT "whither" vignette may help the clinician: A young man was distressed about the upcoming one-year anniversary of his psychiatric hospitalization. He was afraid he would be distraught on this anniversary and engage in self-harm.

The therapist could tell that he was anxious and depressed about having been hospitalized, and what this meant for his future. He was probably having some distorted thoughts about it (e.g., "this means I'll always be a fuck-up," etc.). The therapist considered using classic CBT moves - inquiring about these automatic thoughts and helping him to reappraise them.

Instead, she played dumb: "Wow, the one-year anniversary. How are you going to celebrate it?" He was initially confused. Celebrate? "Well," she replied, "you've obviously come a really long way since then: You're working again, you're in a great relationship. How would you commemorate that progress, if you wanted to?"

This totally refocused the conversation on future mastery. They also planned ways to prevent self-harm, and they planned the ways that he would capitalize on his progress in the coming year and they explored how he could continue to be in a good place one year from now.

In conclusion, the neural circuitry underlying the phenomenon of learned helplessness strongly suggests that helplessness was not learned in the original experiments. Rather passivity and heightened anxiety are the default mammalian reaction to prolonged bad events. What can be learned is cortical-that bad events will be controllable in the future. The top-down circuitry that descends from the ventromedial prefrontal cortex down to the dorsal raphe nucleus and other structures acts to inhibit this default. We are mindful that in the theory of explanatory style, "hope" consists largely in the habit of expecting that future bad events will not be permanent, global, and uncontrollable, rather they will be temporary, local and controllable ( Seligman, 1991, pp. 48-49). Such expectations are likely the best natural defense against helplessness and we speculate that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex-dorsal raphe nucleus circuit may be usefully thought of as the "hope circuit."

Contributor Information

Steven F. Maier, Email: smaier@psych.colorado.edu, University of Colorado.

Martin E. P. Seligman, University of Pennsylvania

References

1. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 3rd. Washington, DC; 1980. Author. [Google Scholar]

2. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 4th. Washington, DC; 1994. Author. [Google Scholar]

3. Baratta MV.October2015Prefrontal control of resilience to adverse events Society for Neuroscience Chicago, IL [Google Scholar]

4. Beauregard M, Lévesque J, Bourgouin P. Neural correlates of conscious self-regulation of emotion. Journal of Neuroscience. 2001;21:6993-7000. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.21-18-j0001.2001. Retrieved from http://www.jneurosci.org/ [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

5. Bolles RC, Fanselow MS. A perceptual-defensive-recuperative model of fear and pain. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 1980;3:291-301. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0000491X. [Google Scholar]

6. Dobson K. Handbook of cognitive-behavioral therapies. 3rd. New York, NY: Guilford; 2010. [Google Scholar]

7. LoLordo VM, Overmier B. Trauma, learned helplessness, its neuroscience, and implications for posttraumatic stress disorder. In: Schactman TR, Reilly SS, editors. Associative learning and conditioning theory: Human and non-human applications. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2011. pp. 121-151. [Google Scholar]

8. Maier SF. Failure to escape traumatic shock: Incompatible skeletal-motor responses or learned helplessness? Learning and Motivation. 1970;1:157-169. doi: 10.1016/0023-9690(70)90082-2. [DOI] [Google Scholar]

9. Maier SF, Seligman MEP. Learned helplessness: Theory and evidence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 1976;105:3-46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.105.1.3. [Google Scholar]

10. Maier SF, Seligman MEP, Solomon RL. Pavlovian fear conditioning and learned helplessness: Effects on escape and avoidance behavior of (a) the CS-US contingency, and (b) the independence of the US and voluntary responding. In: Campbell BA, Church RM, editors. Punishment. New York, NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts; 1969. pp. 299-342. [Google Scholar]

11. Minor TR, Dess NK, Overmier J. Inverting the traditional view of "learned helplessness.". In: Denny MR, editor. Fear, avoidance, and phobias. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum; 1991. pp. 87-133. [Google Scholar]

12. Petty F, Sherman AD. Reversal of learned helplessness by imipramine. Communications in Psychopharmacology. 1979;3:371-373. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

13. Seligman MEP. Depression and learned helplessness. In: Friedman RJ, Katz MM, editors. The psychology of depression: Contemporary theory and research. New York, NY: Winston-Wiley; 1974. pp. 83-113. [Google Scholar]

14. Seligman MEP. Helplessness: On depression, development, and death. San Francisco, CA: Freeman; 1975. [Google Scholar]

15. Seligman MEP. Learned optimism: How to change your mind and your life. New York, NY: Pocket Books; 1991. [Google Scholar]

16. Simson P, Weiss J. Altered activity of the locus coeruleus in an animal model of depression. Neuropsychopharmacology. 1988;1:287-295. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

17. Vilhauer J. Think forward to thrive: How to use the mind's power of anticipation to transcend your past and transform your life. Novato, CA: New World Library; 2014. [Google Scholar]

18. Volpicelli JR, Ulm RR, Altenor A, Seligman MEP. Learned mastery in the rat. Learning and Motivation. 1983;14:204-222. [Google Scholar]

19. Weiss JM, Simson PG, Ambrose MJ, Webster A, Hoffman LJ. Neurochemical basis of behavioral depression. In: Katkin E, Manuck S, editors. Advances in Behavioral Medicine. Vol. 1. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press; 1985. pp. 233-275. [Google Scholar]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Learned Helplessness at Fifty: Insights from Neuroscience

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learned helplessness, the failure to escape shock induced by uncontrollable aversive events, was discovered half a century ago. Seligman and Maier (1967) theorized that animals learned that outcomes were independent of their responses-that nothing ...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Welcome to the
Center for Critical Thinking
Community Online

Our community invites all to join who want to advance fairminded critical thinking across your work and life. This community is sponsored by The Foundation for Critical Thinking and its donors.

Our community members advance and foster basic concepts and principles in critical thinking.

Membership Benefits

Welcome and Tutorial from the President - Play Video

Access to the entire online library published by the Foundation for Critical Thinking.

Digital access to all the educational materials published by the Foundation for Critical Thinking, - including posters, and laminated cards that you may freely print and use.

Digital access to partial copies of the Thinker's Guide Library.

Digital access to decades' worth of videos and audio files produced by the Foundation for Critical Thinking. This includes classic and rare video footage of Dr. Richard Paul, as well as video footage of other Foundation for Critical Thinking Fellows and Scholars, including Dr. Linda Elder and Dr. Gerald Nosich.

Get current critical thinking news every day in our newsroom. Comment on these articles, share them with your colleagues, and rate them according to their levels of clarity, significance, relevance, and depth.

Read the active blog of the Foundation for Critical Thinking.

Through our ConneCT section,

Communicate and network with any member of the Critical Thinking Café through our internal messaging system.

Post your work products to share with your critical thinking colleagues and friends.

Post your critical thinking research.

Highlight critical thinking articles from our newsroom that you believe to be significant.

Set up your own exclusive forum of critical thinking colleagues, with whom you prefer to communicate.

Choose departments to connect with, including professional departments.

For educators, Post and Share your instructional design strategies and activities with your critical thinking education colleagues, and discuss your classroom trials, tribulations, victories, and challenges.

Access and create job postings in which employers are seeking employees who strive to be increasingly skilled critical thinkers.

Join with up to five other critical thinking colleagues to form Study Groups, held online, in real time, and which you can customize according to your schedules. (Sign up in Study Groups with Members section.)

Learn the foundational tools of critical thinking, as well as how to apply these tools in everyday life and in the professions, through our Critical Thinking Academy. These involve reading and working through written activities. For many of our activities, we offer our specimen answers for you to read after working through them yourself. You may print and share your work with colleagues, friends, family members, and partners. Our academy includes:

The Wheel of Reason (which teaches the Elements or Parts of Thinking).

Criteria Corner (which teaches the Universal Standards or Criteria for Thinking).

The Wall of Barriers (which warns us to pay attention to the intrinsic problems of egocentric and sociocentric aspects of your thinking).

The Triangle of Thinking, Feelings, and Desires (which teaches the conceptual relationships between thoughts, emotions, and desires while targeting thinking as the fundamental key to emotional intelligence and a healthy emotional life).

Reading and Writing Alcove (which teaches close reading and deep comprehension of any text worth reading, while also fostering and developing your writing abilities).

If you are in higher education administration, register as an institutional member so all your faculty and students can learn the tools of critical thinking here. We can work with your institution to offer college level credit for your students at undergraduate and graduate levels.

What We Do with Your Membership Fees

Your membership fees support the work of the Foundation for Critical Thinking, which has been advancing and cultivating fairminded critical thinking in education and society for almost 40 years.

Your membership fees contribute to the following projects and events, among others, under the auspices of the Foundation for Critical Thinking:

Development and coordination of our annual Annual International Conference on Critical Thinking, which is the longest-running annual conference on critical thinking in the world.

Scholarships for deserving teachers and administrators to attend our Aannual International Conference.

Worldwide open Access to our research and assessment tools, as well as many other resources for outreach at CriticalThinking.org, (the official website of the Foundation for Critical Thinking).

The maintenance of the Foundation for Critical Thinking Archives, which begin before the establishment of the Center for Critical Thinking in 1980.

The development of our audio and video library, including classic audio and video footage from the Foundation for Critical Thinking Archives. Much of this material has never been accessible to the public and will increasingly be made available exclusively through the Critical Thinking Community website.

The development of our extensive and unique library of critical thinking print materials housed at the Foundation for Critical Thinking.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Welcome to the Center for Critical Thinking Community Online Our community invites all to join who want to advance fairminded critical thinking across your work and life. This community is sponsored by The Foundation for Critical Thinking and its donors. Our community members advance and foster basic concepts and principles in critical thinking.

# data[].attributes.headline
Metacognitive practices increase students’ ability to determine how to expand their knowledge and transfer that knowledge to new contexts.

# data[].attributes.subject
Metacognitive practices increase students’ ability to determine how to expand their knowledge and transfer that knowledge to new contexts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In simple terms, metacognition is thinking about one's thinking. In an educational context, it is students' awareness and understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses as learners and their ability to adapt accordingly to be more successful learners. Metacognition involves active control over the cognitive processes engaged in learning. Novices tend to think more like experts when they recognize their strengths and weaknesses as learners. Self-monitoring and self-regulation, important metacognitive processes, lead to better goal-setting, planning, implementation of plans, monitoring of progress toward goals and, generally, better adaptation of learning strategies. Metacognitive practices increase students' ability to determine how to expand their knowledge and transfer that knowledge to new contexts. Recent studies show that these practices can be taught and learned. Students should understand that their ability to be self-regulated learners can improve with practice. Metacongnition is applicable to a single class session, a homework assignment, an exam, or an entire course.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
L2L Strategy - Metacognition | Arizona Site

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In simple terms, metacognition is thinking about one's thinking. In an educational context, it is students' awareness and understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses as learners and their ability to adapt accordingly to be more successful learners. Metacognition involves active control over the cognitive processes engaged in learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Low-stakes assignments are forms of evaluation that do not heavily impact students' final grades or other educational outcomes. The purpose of low-stakes assignments is to provide students with an indication of their performance while taking a course and give students an opportunity to improve their performance prior to receiving a final grade, either on an assignment or in a course.

As Vincent Tinto writes in Completing College: Rethinking Institutional Action (2012), "To be effective, assessments must be frequent, early, and formative." At colleges and universities recognized by the National Survey on Student Engagement for their success in promoting student's active engagement in their learning: "Feedback from faculty to students is timely and frequent, as documented both by NSSE data and by interviews with students and faculty members" (Kuh, et al. 2010).

Low-stakes assignments tend to work best when they generate formative feedback regarding where students are in the course, what they are doing well, and where they may need development to ultimately succeed in the class. At DePaul, there is a general expectation that students will be given feedback early in the quarter or term, and low-stakes assignments are a powerful method of doing so.

For students in their first year, whether as freshmen or transfers, such feedback is especially important in order to help them understand the expectations at DePaul. Early feedback also enables faculty to use DePaul's BlueStar system to identify students who may need additional assistance and share that information with the students and their academic advisors.

Benefits of Low-Stakes Assignments

Low-stakes assignments

Give students a realistic idea of their performance early in the term, enabling them to seek appropriate resources as needed

Open up lines of communication between students and their instructors, and may increase students' willingness to ask for help

Provide feedback for instructors on how well students are absorbing information and progressing in their skill development

Allow instructors to direct students to resources if they need further assistance or support

Give students an opportunity to be active participants in the evaluation of their own learning

Increase the likelihood that students will attend class and be active and engaged

Low Stakes-Assignments in Online and Flex Modality Courses

While all classes can benefit from frequent low-stakes assignments, it's especially important in online and Flex modalities. In a face-to-face classroom, instructors may assess student learning in informal ways using nonverbal cues-a puzzled look or an affirming nod, for example. In a online and Flex courses, instructors may have more difficulty picking up these cues from students, especially if they don't always have their cameras on or you're not meeting synchronously. In Flex classes, it can also be more challenging to pick up on nonverbal cues among in-person students if also trying to monitor engagement and participation among remote students at the same time. ​​

D2L Tools for Low-Stakes Assignments

​D2L tools will help you to implement low-stakes assignments in all types of courses and course modalities.

Quizzes are often used for multiple-choice or other objective question types because they can be graded automatically, allowing students to get feedback immediately. For low-stakes assignments, you may want to allow students to review the questions and their answers after they take the quiz. You can set up Submission Views to allow for this. Instructors can also view quiz statistics to see if the class is struggling with a particular concept and review that topic with them.

Discussions

Discussions allow students to share short pieces of writing or other media with you and their classmates. They work well for sharing rough drafts or other early-stage components of larger projects for peer review or for certain journaling assignments.

Submissions

Submission folders allow students to submit work privately to you. You may be used to using Submissions for major assignments like research papers. For shorter, less formal pieces of writing, you can change the Submission Type to "Text" to allow students to type their response directly into D2L rather than uploading a file from their computer.

Examples of Low-Stakes Assignments

Though given less weight, low-stakes assignments may be similar in type and kind to high-stakes assignments: they tend to reflect the kind of work students are going to be expected to do for a final exam, paper, or other summative project.

Components of a Larger Project

When assigning students a writing or research project, break down the elements of the project and use one or more as a low-stakes assignment. Require students to submit their works-in-progress so that they can receive early written feedback and a small grade, which could consist simply of a check or check-minus. Any one (or more) of the following elements could be collected and used as a low-stakes assignment:

Prospectus or proposal

Abstract

Thesis statement

Outline

Annotated bibliography

Specific sections of the final project (e.g., introduction, methods, lit. review)

Early-stage drafts of a paper

Early Drafts and Peer Review

Midway through a writing project, have students bring a full or partial draft of their paper to class and then exchange feedback with a peer. Students will receive valuable feedback that they can use to revise their work.

Try providing students with a rubric to help them give their peers targeted, assignment-specific feedback. Also, consider inviting Writing Center tutors to your class to model how peer review can be conducted effectively.

Mid-Project/Quarter Conferences

Around midterm or during the planning stages of a major course project, ask students to meet with you for conferences. If the class is too large for you to meet with each student individually, assign students to meet with you in groups, or one-on-one with their TA. The conference time might be dedicated to discussing the students' progress towards course goals or providing feedback on a particular project.

To get the most out of your conference time, ask students to complete and bring with them a self-assessment form or project proposal. Alternatively, ask students to write down one question they have about the course, content covered in class, or an assignment they are currently working on. Having a document to reference will keep the conversation on track and help put both you and your students at ease.

Group Work Planning and Reflection

When students are working in groups, require them to submit a statement outlining each group members' responsibilities and/or a timeline that measures their progress. Periodically throughout the group project, ask students to submit short reflections detailing their progress and any areas where they need support.

Weekly Quizzes

For a course where exams are the primary means of summative assessment, give students a quiz at the end of each week with questions based on content covered up to that point. Although the quiz might not count for credit (or might only count for a very small portion of the final grade), it will give students an idea of what they already learned and which concepts they need to spend more time with. Quizzes can be paper-based, conducted during class using Polling or posted online in D2L Quizzes.

Class Problem Solving

In a course where students learn new computational or mathematical concepts, have a problem posted on the board or screen at the start of each class, or in a collaborative document. Students can work individually, in pairs, or in small groups to find the solution. Spend part of class going over the problem as a big group, or review the problem in a short video.

Course Concept Journals

Consider having students keep a regular journal where they can engage with and apply course concepts. For example, in an Introduction to Political Science course, ask students to read the politics section of the New York Times and keep a weekly concept-application journal. For each entry, students should select one article that they read, summarize it, and show how the article demonstrates a theoretical concept discussed that week in class. Review students' journals every other week or so and give each entry brief feedback.

Reading Journals

In a course where students are required to do weekly readings, assign a reading journal. Entries might require students to summarize and respond to the source, or to answer a set of questions provided by the instructor. Students can submit their journal entries through D2L, by handing in hard copies every other week, or by posting them on a course blog.

Short Writing Assignments

Give students a prompt that corresponds to a class reading assignment, concept, or activity and have them turn in a short written response. Return the students' responses with your brief feedback, indicating whether the students are on track or not (a simple "check plus" or "check minus" could be used). In large classes where you might not have time to give individualized written feedback to each student, share and discuss one or two anonymous students responses at the next class meeting or in a D2L News item or weekly introduction.

Discussion Questions

Post open-ended questions designed to promote engagement with the current course content or an upcoming project or assignment. Invite students to ask questions and identify areas of confusion, and answer the questions posted by their peers. See Facilitating Discussions for additional suggestions.

Support for Low-Stakes Assignments at DePaul

University Center for Writing-based Learning (UCWbL)
Discuss how you can incorporate writing in a low-stakes assignment by contacting Matthew Pearson, Director of the UCWbL. You can also invite peer tutors to your classroom to demonstrate effective peer review before having your own students give feedback to one another.

University Libraries
If you're interested in using an element of a research project as a means of giving early feedback to students, connect with a university librarian. University librarians can offer feedback and resources for designing research projects for students.

Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL)
Have a question about integrating discussion forums in your classes? Not sure which platform might be best for setting up a course blog? Contact the CTL for help identifying and implementing a technology tool to help meet your goals.

Further Reading

Angelo, T., & Cross, K.P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc.

Bean, J. C. (1996). Engaging ideas: the professors guide to integrating writing,critical thinking and active learning in the classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Schuh, J.S., and Whitt, E.J. (2010). Student success in college: Creating conditions that matter. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Lang, J. M. (2013). Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Nilson, L. B. (2010). Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Tinto, Vincent. (2012). Completing college: Rethinking institutional action. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Warnock, Scott. (2013). Frequent, low-stakes grading: Assessment for communication, confidence. Faculty Focus. Madison, WI: Magna Publications.

​

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Low-stakes assignments are forms of evaluation that do not heavily impact students' final grades or other educational outcomes. The purpose of low-stakes assignments is to provide students with an indication of their performance while taking a course and give students an opportunity to improve their performance prior to receiving a final grade, either on an assignment or in a course.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
University of Massachusetts Amherst

Torrey Trust, Ph.D. is a Professor of Learning Technology in the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies in the College of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her work centers on the critical examination of the relationship between teaching, learning, and technology; and how technology can enhance teacher and student learning. Specifically, Dr. Trust studies how educators engage with digitally enhanced professional learning networks (PLNs), how emerging pedagogical tools (e.g., HyperDocs), practices (e.g., Making) and technologies (e.g., 3D printers, augmented reality, ChatGPT, generative AI tools) influence learning, how to design and use open educational resources (OERs), and how to find, critically evaluate, and teach with digital tools and apps. Dr. Trust served as a professional learning network leader for the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) for five years, including a two-year term as the President of the Teacher Education Network from 2016 to 2018.

Dr. Trust's research, teaching, and service in the field of educational technology has received noticeable recognition, including the 2016 ISTE Online Learning Network Award, 2017 Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education Outstanding Research Paper Award, 2017 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Instructional Technology SIG Best Paper Award, 2017 ISTE Emerging Leader Award, 2019 AERA Technology as an Agent of Change for Teaching & Learning SIG Early Career Scholar Award, 2020 University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Education Outstanding Teaching Award, 2020 AECT Annual Achievement Award, 2023 MERLOT Classics Award, and the 2023 University of Massachusetts Amherst Distinguished Teaching Award. In 2018, Dr. Trust was selected as one of the recipients for the ISTE Making IT Happen Award, which "honors outstanding educators and leaders who demonstrate extraordinary commitment, leadership, courage and persistence in improving digital learning opportunities for students." www.torreytrust.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This eBook features critical reviews of more than 100 digital tools and apps for teaching and learning. Each page was written and designed by students enrolled in EDUC 390D, 592A, or 692D at the University of Massachusetts Amherst

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
75 digital tools and apps teachers can use to support formative assessment in the classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We’ve compiled an extensive list of 75 digital tools that can help teachers use formative assessment to elicit evidence of student learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I was wrapping up a presentation on memory and learning when a colleague asked, "How do we help students learn in courses where there's a lot of memorization?" He explained that he taught introductory-level human anatomy, and although the course wasn't all memorization, it did challenge students' capacity to retain dozens of new terms and concepts.

The question itself is tricky because most teaching professionals are heavily invested in the idea that learning isn't about being able to regurgitate facts on an exam. We also worry, and with good reason, that emphasizing rote learning steals time and effort away from the deeper thinking that we want students to do. But in my work I've come to realize that memorization deserves some airtime because it is one important route to building content knowledge and expertise. Furthermore, acquiring content knowledge doesn't have to detract from critical thinking, reasoning, or innovation-rather, it can complement all these. Cognitive scientists are making new discoveries all the time about the connections between memory and processes such as drawing inferences, making predictions, and other skills that make up the ability to think like an expert in a discipline.

So what techniques target this specific teaching and learning challenge? We're all familiar with mnemonics such as the first-letter technique-using a word such as RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) or a catchy phrase (Every Good Boy Does Fine) to remember a sequence of information. Mnemonics are one good tool, but what else can we offer?

Learning isn't about being able to regurgitate facts on an exam, but memorization deserves some airtime because it is one important route to building content knowledge and expertise

For starters, we should convey to students (and keep in mind ourselves) that memorization challenges nearly everyone because the mind simply isn't set up to take in reams of disjointed facts. Our memory systems evolved to be picky about what we remember, selecting the information that is most relevant to our goals and discarding the rest. Understanding this helps us and our students have realistic expectations about the level of effort needed to succeed.

It also helps to understand how we create memories for words, because many memorization tasks involve scientific terms, foreign language vocabulary, and the like. How we do this has been hotly debated among researchers, but one view is that we rely on a special piece of mental machinery called the phonological loop that holds speech sounds.

If you've ever muttered a phone number to yourself while you ran around looking for a pencil to write it down with, you've experienced the phonological loop in action. But recycling phone numbers isn't the phonological loop's main reason for existing. Rather, its real job kicks in when we run into a word we haven't heard before. When this happens, the phonological loop grabs onto the sequence of sounds and keeps it fresh while other memory systems set up representations of what the new word means. The catch is that phonological loop capacity varies fairly substantially from individual to individual. This means that words of three, four, or more syllables overwhelm some people's ability to learn new words on the fly.

With these two points in mind-that memory doesn't handle disjointed facts well and new vocabulary hinges on one sometimes-shaky mechanism within memory-here are some ways to help students manage memorization:

Emphasize context and purpose. Ask yourself why students are being asked to memorize these facts in the first place. If students can readily answer that question and if they can picture future situations in which they will use the information, they will be better primed to remember it.

Break down new vocabulary words, especially those that are more than two syllables long. Allow time to rehearse and remember the first couple of syllables before tacking on later ones. Also keep in mind that this process will be easier for some students than others due to wide variation in phonological loop capacity; you may want to design in a "mastery learning" or other individualized approach for vocabulary so that students can move through at their own pace.

Visualize information. For most people, imagery is highly memorable, perhaps because so much of the brain is devoted to visual processing. Memory champions, such as the ones populating the best seller Moonwalking with Einstein, use elaborate visualization strategies to achieve incredible feats of memorization. Similarly, strategies such as the keyword mnemonic work by linking word sounds to images (such as using an image of a cowboy on a horse to remember the Spanish word "caballo," which sounds a bit like "cowboy").

Take advantage of the "Big Three" applied memory principles-testing, spacing, and interleaving. Briefly, these refer to the facts that quizzes are a great way to study and that we do best when we spread out our study sessions and alternate between different topics. Tackling a big memory project such as human anatomy means we need every advantage we can get, and dozens of research studies have supported these three as producing the biggest memory payoff for the time invested.

Avoid the rereading trap. Students tend to fall into passively reviewing material, and in doing so they miss the key advantage of techniques such as testing: retrieval practice. Retrieval practice strengthens memory, but it works only when we actively challenge memory. Flash cards, a favorite student strategy, are fine as long as students use them to actively quiz themselves.

It's okay to expect students to learn the facts and terms needed to become experts in a discipline. With an understanding of memory and some strategies to share, we can make this side of learning productive and maybe even painless-but certainly at least less painful.
Michelle Miller is a professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Northern Arizona University.
Reprinted from The Teaching Professor, 28.9 (2014): 3. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Helping Students Memorize: Tips from Cognitive Science

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Although there is more to learning than regurgitating facts on an exam, memorization is an important route to building content knowledge and expertise.

# data[].attributes.body
00:03 Life is not easy, nor fair. Avoid feeling like a victim. 00:38 Prioritize your values and avoid anything that will jeopardize your soul. 01:19 Define success and work to maintain it. 02:01 Defining ourselves by what we are not leads us to really knowing who we are. 02:39 Avoid negative influences and prioritize meaningful interactions 03:13 Eliminate excess and decrease options to discover what's truly important 03:57 Eliminate who you are not and find yourself where you need to be 04:38 Embrace mistakes, own them, make amends, and move on.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Transforming Medical Education with Microsoft HoloLens

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Best Innovations in Online Learning

From holographs and educational games, to drones and robots, 21st century educators are forging new and amazing trails in technology-enhanced teaching and learning. Virtually Inspired is a place where educators can come for inspiration by perusing each video showcase below to see how creative professionals around the globe are infusing technology with learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Virtually Inspired: Showcasing Online Learning Innovation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From holographs and educational games, to drones and robots, 21st century educators are forging new and amazing trails in technology-enhanced teaching and learning. Virtually Inspired is a place where educators can come for inspiration by perusing each video showcase below to see how creative professionals around the globe are infusing technology with learning.