ScienceDaily (Aug. 24, 2011) — Canadian researchers have found the first evidence that older brains get more benefit than younger brains from learning information the hard way -- via trial-and-error learning.科学日报（2011年8月24日）加拿大研究人员首次发现，与年轻人相比，老年人从一种困难的学习方式--试误学习--中收获更多。
The study was led by scientists at Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute in Toronto and appears online Aug. 24, 2011 in the journal Psychology and Aging, ahead of the print edition.这项研究由多伦多Baycrest's Rotman研究中心主持，研究结果在线发表于2011年8月24日的《心理学与老龄化》杂志上。
The finding will surprise professional educators and cognitive rehabilitation clinicians as it challenges a large body of published science which has shown that making mistakes while learning information hurts memory performance for older adults, and that passive "errorless" learning (where the correct answer is provided) is better suited to older brains.这个结果将会震惊教育专家和认知恢复医师，因为它与之前发表的大量研究相悖，以前的研究认为在学习中犯错误会损害老年人的记忆表现，被动的“无误”的学习（已提供正确答案）才是更适合老年人的。
"The scientific literature has traditionally embraced errorless learning for older adults. However, our study has shown that if older adults are learning material that is very conceptual, where they can make a meaningful relationship between their errors and the correct information that they are supposed to remember, in those cases the errors can actually be quite beneficial for the learning process," said Andreé-Ann Cyr, the study's lead investigator.“以前的科学研究提倡对老年人进行无误学习。然而我们的研究表明，如果老年人学习一些非常概念的材料，并且能在他们试图记忆的正确信息和他们犯的错误之间建立有意义的连接，那么这些错误对整个学习过程其实是非常有益的。”该研究的首席研究员Andreé-Ann Cyr说道。
Cyr conducted the research at Baycrest as a doctoral student in Psychology (University of Toronto), in collaboration with senior author and scientist Dr. Nicole Anderson of Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute. Dr. Anderson specializes in cognitive rehabilitation research with older adults.伦多大学心理系的博士生Cyr与Baycrest's Rotman研究所的Nicole Anderson博士合作进行了这项研究。Anderson博士专门研究老年人的认知能力恢复。
In two separate studies, researchers compared the memory benefits of trial-and-error learning (TEL) with errorless learning (EL) in memory exercises with groups of healthy young and older adults. The young adults were in their 20s; the older adults' average age was 70. TEL is considered a more effortful cognitive encoding process where the brain has to "scaffold" its way to making richer associations and linkages in order to reach the correct target information. Errorless learning (EL) is considered passive, or less taxing on the brain, because it provides the correct answer to be remembered during the learning process.在两个独立的实验中，研究者在健康的年轻被试和老年被试中比较了试误学习（trail-and-error learing,TEL）和无误学习（errorless learning，EL）的记忆效果。年轻人的平均年龄在20岁左右， 老年人在70岁左右。试误学习被认为是一种更加有效的认知编码过程，在试误学习中大脑能够构建非常丰富的连接和关联以达到正确的目标信息。无误学习（EL）被认为是被动的，大脑的负荷较小，因为它在学习过程提供了供记忆的正确答案。
The researchers presented participants with a meaningful "cue" (e.g. type of tooth). The correct target word (e.g. molar) was shown to learners in the EL condition. In the TEL condition, the cue was presented alone, and participants made two guesses (such as canine, incisor) before the correct target "molar" was shown. After a short while, participants performed a memory test that required them to remember the context in which the words were learned (i.e. were they learned through trial-and-error or not).研究人员向被试呈现了一个有意义的线索（比如，牙齿的类型）。在无误学习中，正确的目标词（比如，臼齿）直接呈现给了被试。而在试误学习中，线索单独呈现，在目标词“臼齿”呈现之前，被试可以猜测两次（例如，犬齿，或者门牙）。随后，被试需要进行记忆测验，回忆出他们学习词汇的背景（也就是说他们是否通过试误进行的学习）。
In both studies, participants remembered the learning context of the target words better if they had been learned through trial-and-error, relative to the errorless condition. This was especially true for the older adults whose performance benefited approximately 2.5 times more relative to their younger peers.在两个实验中，相比无误学习，通过试误进行词汇学习的被试能更好的回忆目标词的背景。这对于老年人更是如此，他们从试误学习中得到的益处是年轻人的2.5倍。
The findings from the Baycrest study may have important implications for how information is taught to older adults in the classroom, and for rehabilitation procedures aimed at delaying cognitive decline -- procedures which rely on knowledge of how to train an aging brain, said Cyr.Cyr说Baycrest的研究有重要的现实意义，它告诉人们应该怎样在课堂上教老年人，也有助于旨在延缓认知能力衰退的恢复治疗--这些治疗需要了解怎样才能有效训练老年人。
The authors say future studies are needed to determine how different study materials and memory tasks impact the effect of errors on memory in aging. This will help to clarify the learning contexts in which errors should be avoided or harnessed.作者认为未来的研究应该着眼于确定不同的学习材料和记忆任务是怎样调节错误对老年人记忆的影响。这有助于厘清在何种记忆背景下错误需要被避免亦或被利用。
The study was funded by a doctoral award and research grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.该研究由一项博士生奖金和由国家科学工程研究委员会提供的研究资金资助。