This document discusses the social foundations of learning through neuroscience, technology, and education. It summarizes that lifelong and life-wide learning occurs across social contexts and is culturally embedded. Human social interaction, like joint attention, is important for implicit learning. Teachers' social behaviors and interactions with robots can impact learning. Early language learning requires social interaction, as infants can learn from live but not televised presentations. Learning from media is enhanced through social engagement. Translational research is exploring how social robots and advanced placement courses can increase social interaction and improve learning. The brain measures how human social learning differs from learning from machines. Early brain responses to speech predict later language development. Social factors, identity, emotion and neuroscience can inform

1. Exploring the Social Foundations of
Learning Through
Neuroscience, Technology, and Education
Patricia Kuhl, Ph.D.
Director, Science of Learning Center (LIFE)
Co-Director, Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences
University of Washington, Seattle WA

2. LIFE: Learning in Informal & Formal Environments
www.life-slc.org

3. Life-long and Life-wide Learning:
Social Foundations of Learning
Life-long, from infancy to adulthood
Life-wide, occurring across a wide variety of settings
Life-deep, culturally embedded and intertwined with our value systems

4. Human Social Coordination
(e.g., Joint Visual Attention)
Humans learn implicitly from others
Social eye-gaze predicts learning
Teachers’ social behavior affects learning Teaching robots to follow human gaze

5. Children’s Early Language Learning
Requires Social Interaction
Infants learn foreign-language phonemes and words rapidly from
live exposure, but no learning occurs when television or audio-
only presentation is used
Kuhl et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 2003
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6. Children Can Not Learn Language
from a Television
Infants attend to the lights and colors on a television, but they do
not learn language from the television presentation
Kuhl et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 2003
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7. Joint Media Engagement
 Learning from media is enhanced by social partners
 New research examines children s learning with mentors
 How can multimedia positively impact learning?
Viewing media with parents Language learning from technology?
and/or mentors

8. ‘Social’
Robots
Enhance
Learning
Interdisciplinary
collaboration of
developmentalists
and computer
scientists
Meltzoff, Rao et al,
Neural Networks, 2010

9. Translational Research: “Social”
Robots Interact Using Language
RUBI the robot behaves socially by
turning its head towards children,
giggling when touched, accepting toys
with its pincer, and naming the objects
in Finnish using full sentences
Children in a day-care setting interact with a social
robot
Movellan & Kuhl, work in progress

10. Translational Research Partnership with
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Pea is Co-Lead for the
Video-Plus Workgroup for
Measures of Teacher Effectiveness
• 3,300 Grade 4-10 teachers and their students are
being video recorded, 4 lessons each year coded
and rated, for use in developing measures of
effective teaching and for supporting teacher
professional development resources for building
capacity in school systems
• DIVER video software from the LIFE Center
will identify the roles of social in learning" from
video analysis for use in teacher professional
improvement

11. Designing Advanced Placement (AP)
Courses to Increase Social Interaction

12. Social Belief in “Virtual Other”
 Human vs. Computer
– Science content for 5th grade students
– Students told live person vs. computer agent
– Arousal and attention increase for live
– Learning improves in live
 Brain Measures
– Arousal predicts learning
– Live improves transfer
– Hippocampus, amygdala, reward
system activated in live condition

13. A Learner’s Identity Matters!
Learners as Creators STEM Expertise
Bilingual Identity
Engineering Positioning & Academic Math
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14. Brain Measures of
Human Social Learning

15. Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
The Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, 2011

16. Brain Mechanisms Underlying
Social Learning
Listening to language from a person vs. a machine
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17. Early Brain Measures to Syllables
Predict Language up to 30 Months
Kuhl & Rivera-Gaxiola, Annual Review of Neuroscience, 2008

19. Early learning environment and
brain development
Broca s area: Critical for
language and social skills
SES is related to brain activation in Broca s area
in 5-year-old children
Raizada, Brooks, Meltzoff & Kuhl, NeuroImage, 2008

20. Social Neuroscience: How Does the
Social Brain Affect Learning?
Social interaction, socio-cultural identity, and
emotion affect human learning

21. Informing Policymakers:
Neuroscience and Education
Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of
Education, tours MEG Facility at I-
LABS, July 2010
• In the U.S., States compete for ‘Race to the Top’ awards
• Goal is to ensure all children succeed in school
• U.S. Deparments of Education and Health & Human Services awarded
$60M to the State of Washington in December 2011
• LIFE/I-LABS brain research was highlighted in the announcement
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