Metacognition reconsidered: Implications for intervention research

Metacognitive training techniques have been used successfully to improve children's problem-solving skills. The concept of metacognition needs further refinement, however, if it is to continue to be useful as an explanatory construct. Specifically, we argue that more attention needs to be paid to how metacognitive abilities are acquired, how this knowledge could be used to help improve the performance of children with learning difficulties, and how metacognition may be related to other self-evaluation processes.This paper was completed with support from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Grant HD05951), and from the Department of Education (Grant 00840068). We would like to express our appreciation and thanks to Joseph Campione and to Annemarie Palinscar, who patiently listened to, and frequently commented upon, the ideas presented in this paper.     

闵一得小考二则

谢正强闵一得,原名苕敷,字补之,一字小艮,号懒云,又自称闵真仙、发僧际莲氏。浙江吴兴(今浙江省湖州市)人。自幼体弱,九岁犹艰于行,于天台桐柏宫谒高东篱为师习导引术,遂皈龙门,命名一得。壮年有经世志,尝服官滇南,于鸡足山谒鸡足道者黄守中,得传龙门西竺心宗斗法。晚年隐乌程县金盖山,主持教务,弘扬道法。“自当代名公卿相及缁流羽士,以及胥吏仆舆,钦其道范,纳交受业者,实繁有徒”。①《金盖心灯》载:“其教人也,有体有用,有本有末,笃于实行,不事神奇,大旨以修身寡过为入门,穷理尽性至命为究竟,省察涵养为彻始彻终功夫”。②闵一得隐居金盖…     

Preferences in quadrangles reconsidered

Through about 130 years of the history of experimental aesthetics, preferences of figures have been summarized in representative values such as the golden ratio. Researches especially in the golden-section hypothesis overshadowed the basic and profound problem of how people's individual preference would be decided. In the present study I returned to simple quadrangles, and investigated each person's subjective preferences by a production method, recording eye movements, and having qualitative interviews. Two basic scanning patterns on quadrangles emerged through the analysis of eye movements, and more complicated patterns were made by various combinations of these two. The distribution of subjects' preferred proportions showed that squares and square-like quadrangles were chosen most frequently, although the average of height/width ratios came close to the golden ratio in most quadrangle types. The results of interviews revealed various characteristics of decision processes of preferred shapes in the subjects. A discussion is provided on dealing with the golden ratio, and the importance of studying subjects' processes of preferences is proposed for the future of empirical aesthetics.     

Foundations of psychoanalysis reconsidered

Grünbaum's approach to psychoanalysis suffers from several difficulties. It imposes a standard of logical reductionism and methodological purity that not only violates the nature of psychoanalytic knowledge, but imposes an invalid standard of verification and scientific confirmation. It utilizes a brand of dichotomous reasoning that forces psychoanalytic propositions into artificial positions that do not reflect the actuality of analytic practice. It imposes a standard of verification that is impossible for psychoanalysis, along with all forms of psychological knowledge, to reach. It visualizes psychoanalysis as encompassing only one form of knowledge of human psychic life, forcing it into a model that eliminates other aspects of the psychoanalytic process, so that psychoanalysis is subjected to criticism only on one dimension among several--a kind of psychoanalytic straw man. The psychoanalysis that is so impaled often is difficult for the psychoanalytic practitioner to recognize. To the extent that Grünbaum's skillful and highly informed criticism of the philosophical bases of psychoanalysis encounters these difficulties, the value of his argument falls short of providing a useful basis for advancing psychoanalytic knowledge and particularly for promoting the quest for pertinent standards of validation within psychoanalysis.     

Neural correlates of consciousness reconsidered

It is widely accepted among philosophers that neuroscientists are conducting a search for the neural correlates of consciousness, or NCC. Chalmers (2000) conceptualized this research program as the attempt to correlate the contents of conscious experience with the contents of representations in specific neural populations. A notable claim on behalf of this interpretation is that the neutral language of "correlates" frees us from philosophical disputes over the mind/body relation, allowing the science to move independently. But the experimental paradigms and explanatory canons of neuroscience are not neutral about the mechanical relation between consciousness and the brain. I argue that NCC research is best characterized as an attempt to locate a causally relevant neural mechanism and not as an effort to identify a discrete neural representation, the content of which correlates with some actual experience. It might be said that the first C in "NCC" should stand for "causes" rather than "correlates."     

The self and recollection reconsidered: how a ‘failure to replicate’ failed and why trace strength accounts of recollection are untenable

Hirshman and Lanning ( 1999 ) ‘failed to replicate’ findings reported by Conway and Dewhurst ( 1995 ). There were, however, critical differences in design between the two sets of experiments. For example, Hirshman and Lanning used a within‐subject design and a short retention interval, whereas Conway and Dewhurst used a between‐subjects design and longer retention intervals. We demonstrate in a new series of experiments that the Conway and Dewhurst findings do replicate when the correct design is used and, moreover, we show that the design differences in Hirshman and Lanning's experiments account for their findings. Finally, we develop an account in terms of the self that can explain the complex pattern of findings, a pattern which lies beyound the scope of simple trace strength models of memory. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The informative functions of research procedures: Bias and the logic of conversation

Conversational rules of everyday communication are applied to the interaction between experimenters and subjects. According to these rules, contributions to a communication should be informative, relevant, true, and unambiguous. It is assumed that subjects determine the pragmatic meaning of instructions and questions on the basis of these rules and the provided context. In contrast to most natural settings, standardized experimental procedures rarely allow for an interactive determination of pragmatic meaning and often preclude feedback as a corrective device. As a consequence, subjects are required to rely heavily on general rules, and even subtle cues may become informationally loaded. The information extracted from context cues may often not be intended by the experimenter. Thus subjects may infer more than they are supposed to, resulting in discrepancies between the experimenter's intended and subjects' inferred meaning of the instructions. If researchers are not sensitive to the information provided by verbal and non-verbal context cues, their interpretation of research results may be based on biased data. Evidence from different research domains is reported to support the presented assumptions and their implications for bias avoiding strategies are discussed.     

Light intensity in the rod-and-frame test reconsidered

Abstract.— Previously collected data (Nyborg, 1972) on the perception of the vertical in the Rod-and-Frame Test (RFT) were reanalysed according to the method of signed errors presented by Nyborg (1974). Regression analysis showed no systematic relationship between light intensity and frame dependence and that the effect of light intensity on the perception of vertical in the RFT in general is negligible, thus confirming the conclusions drawn originally.     

Human embryonic stem cell research and the discarded embryo argument

Many who believe that human embryos have moral status are convinced that their use in human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research can be morally justified as long as they are discarded embryos left over from fertility treatments. This is one reason why this view about discarded embryos has played such a prominent role in the debate over publicly funding hESC research in the United States and other countries. Many believe that this view offers the best chance of a compromise between the different sides in this debate. This paper focuses on what seems to be the most plausible argument for this view about discarded embryos. It shows that this argument is unsound regardless of how one understands the claim that embryos have moral status. It also discusses the implications of this conclusion for attempts to use this argument as a basis for public policy.