Social Interaction is a Catalyst for Adult Human Learning in Online Contexts

Learning new information in online contexts has become normal for many students over the Covid-19 pandemic and will likely continue in the future, but what is the best way to learn? If cognitive sciences could specify the optimal format for presenting learning materials, this would advance our understanding of human learning and have benefits for education and society. Online learning can vary in terms of how the material is presented (e.g. live/recorded), but we have only limited data on which is most effective. Here, we examine how young adults (aged 18-35) learn information about unknown objects in a 2x2 design, where learning conditions systematically varied in terms of social contingency (live vs recorded lecture) and social richness (viewing the teacher’s face/hands/slides). Recall was tested immediately and after 1 week delay. Experiment 1 (n=24 participants) showed better learning for live presentation and a full view of the teacher (hands & face). Experiment 2 (n=27 participants, pre-registered) replicated the live-presentation advantage. In both experiments, we found an interaction between social contingency and social richness, indicating that live social interaction with a full view of the teacher provides the optimal setting for learning new factual information. We suggest that being part of a genuine social interaction may catalyse learning, with greater gains than yoked observation of the same student-teacher interactions. Possible cognitive mechanisms underlying these effects include joint attention, formation of shared concepts and (inter-)active discussion. These results will help improve real-world teaching in an online age and motivate us to define the neural mechanisms that underlie social learning.