Learning To Read Words

The ease with which we process the written word belies its complexities and makes it easy to forget that it is a highly skilled behaviour and one that takes time to master. In this paper, I argue that our ability to read words has its roots in our capacity for language. Good progress has been made towards understanding how children discover the systematic relationship between speech sounds and the letters used to represents those sounds, very early in reading development. However, we understand much less about how beginning readers become skilled readers. To understand this, I argue that it is important to view the visual word recognition system within the context of a broader language system, one that incorporates a rich network of semantic and episodic knowledge.     

Resistance to Interference of Olfactory Perceptual Learning

The Psychological Record - Olfactory memory is especially persistent. The current study explored whether this applies to a form of perceptual learning, in which experience of an odor mixture...     

The Development of Cognitive Skills To Support Inquiry Learning

Establishing the value of inquiry learning as an educational method, it is argued, rests on thorough, detailed knowledge of the cognitive skills it is intended to promote. Mental models, as representations of the reality being investigated in inquiry learning, stand to influence strategies applied to the task. In the research described here, the hypothesis is investigated that students at the middle school level, and sometimes well beyond, may have an incorrect mental model of multivariable causality (one in which effects of individual features on an outcome are neither consistent nor additive) that impedes the causal analysis involved in most forms of inquiry learning. An extended intervention with 6th to 8th graders was targeted to promote (a) at the metalevel, a correct mental model based on additive effects of individual features (indicated by identification of effects of individual features as the task objective); (b) also at the metalevel, metastrategic understanding of the need to control the influences of other features; and (c) at the performance level, consistent use of the controlled comparison strategy. Both metalevel advancements were observed, in addition to transfer to a new task at the performance level, among many (though not all) students. Findings support the claim that a developmental hierarchy of skills and understanding underlies, and should be identified as an objective of, inquiry learning.     

Being Empathic: The Role of Motivation to Empathize and the Nature of Target Emotions

The effect of the observer's motivation to empathize and the nature of the target person's emotions on empathy was examined. The study distinguished intellectual empathy, the extent to which the observer takes the target person's perspective, and empathic emotion, the extent to which the observer feels the target emotions. Intellectual empathy was measured via attribution errors that the observer made in attributing the target person's situation, and empathic emotion by the congruence between the emotions of the target person and the observer. The first experiment showed that pleasant emotions and sadness elicited more empathic emotion than did shame and anger. The second experiment revealed that motivation increased intellectual empathy when the target person was sad, and empathic emotion when the target person was happy. Intellectual empathy and empathic emotion appeared to be distinguishable constructs and could correlate under certain conditions.     

Resistance To Change As A Function Of Stimulus-reinforcer And Location-reinforcer Contingencies

Pigeons responded on two keys in each component of a multiple concurrent schedule. In one series of conditions the distribution of reinforcers between keys within one component was varied so as to produce changes in ratios of reinforcer totals for key locations when summed across components. In a second series, reinforcer allocation between components was varied so as to produce changes in ratios of reinforcer totals for components, summed across key locations. In each condition, resistance to change was assessed by presenting response-independent reinforcers during intercomponent blackouts and (for the first series) by extinction of responding on both keys in both components. Resistance to change for response totals within a component was always greater for the component with the larger total reinforcer rate. However, resistance to change for response totals at a key location was not a positive function of total reinforcement for pecking that key; indeed, relative resistance to extinction for the two locations showed a weak negative relation to ratios of reinforcer totals for key location. These results confirm the determination of resistance to change by stimulus—reinforcer contingencies.     

Counselor Applications of Research Findings to Practice: Learning To Stay Current

There is evidence that many counselors currently perceive research as irrelevant to their work, possibly because the present model of training counselors to solve problems is inadequate. The authors point out ways in which applied training can be restructured so that counselors will be better able to apply research findings to their practice.     

Learning with a computer-based advisor

The subject of this paper is the design of a computer-based educational advisory system called LOLA (Leeds On-Line Advisor). Implemented in SMALLTALK-80, LOLA attempts to address some of the problems which arise when students are required to manage their own learning, a decision-making process of importance particularly in tertiary education. LOLA demonstrates how Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques can be incorporated in the design of instructional systems. LOLA provides advice to students about what to study, how and when to study topics. The work was supervised by J.R. Hartley and benefited from many helpful discussions with K. Tait and Professor N. Sheehy.     

How To Do Things with Art

In this article, I argue that speech act theory can be altered to accommodate art objects as evocative illocutionary speech acts that are aimed toward reaching understanding. To do this, I discuss the example of Zen Buddhism's use of the kōan, an aesthetic object that can be seen as evoking a given experience from its auditors for the purpose of reaching understanding on a point that the teacher wishes to make. I argue that such a reading of art as evocative can be merged with hypothetical intentionalism insofar as it recognizes a certain orientation on the part of the auditor to approach art in a certain way. In the case of kōans and other artworks, the approach is one of considering what claim an author may want to convey through the auditor's experience of the artwork.     

The Therapeutic Process with Children with Learning Disorders

Abstract

Clinicians who work with children and adolescents with learning disorders must be aware of the relationship between the learning disorder and the psychopathology the children present. This article offers a conceptual framework, based on psychoanalytic self psychology, to understand the modifications that are necessary in the treatment of this population. The author suggests that, in contrast to other approaches, it is not possible to conceptualize the treatment of these children as having a beginning, a middle, and an end. Rather, the therapeutic process is open-ended and conceived as occurring during a series of moments. The moments may be categorized as concordant, complementary, or disjunctive. During concordant moments a holding environment is created; during complementary moments the transference and countertransference is addressed; and during disjunctive moments the ruptures that inevitably occur during treatment are dealt with.     

Learning overhypotheses with hierarchical Bayesian models

Inductive learning is impossible without overhypotheses, or constraints on the hypotheses considered by the learner. Some of these overhypotheses must be innate, but we suggest that hierarchical Bayesian models can help to explain how the rest are acquired. To illustrate this claim, we develop models that acquire two kinds of overhypotheses--overhypotheses about feature variability (e.g. the shape bias in word learning) and overhypotheses about the grouping of categories into ontological kinds like objects and substances.     

Stimulus Control with Computer Assisted Learning

Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) has been shown to be an efficient learning-teaching procedure. Although there is an extensive educational software tradition using CAL approaches, few of them have demonstrated a better student performance than standard drill and practice methods. The purpose of this study was (a) to evaluate the effectiveness of the Let's Play With... software program, and (b) to evaluate the effectiveness of a prompt (i.e. a blinking object) used in the program. The educational software Let's Play With... was designed to teach basic concepts involving shapes and body positions to preschool students. The software structure follows a behavioral design and uses a stimulus control procedure. The study was carried out with 64 preschool students in the Cadiz (Spain) School District. Statistically significant differences were found between the experimental group and a control group.     

大学生的学习观及其与学习动机、自我效能感的关系

采用大学生学习观问卷、大学生学习动机量表(WMI)、一般自我效能感量表(GSES)及学习效能感量表,选取254名大学生作为被试进行问卷调查,探讨大学生的学习观现状及其与学习动机、一般自我效能感、学习效能感的关系.结果表明:大学生的学习观总体上是倾向于建构性的;文理科学生、本专科学生在学习观的各维度得分上不存在显著差异;大学生的学习观与其内生动机、一般自我效能感、学习效能感存在显著正相关,与外生动机多为显著负相关;学业自我体验与学习过程观是大学生内生动机的有效预测变量,学业自我体验是大学生一般自我效能感和学习效能感的有效预测变量.     

组织学习动力与行为的相关研究

通过对1074名各类企业员工和管理者的组织学习微观动力的测试,从宏观组织层面探讨了组织学习动力与组织学习行为之间的关系。结果表明：组织学习动力与组织学习行为相关显着。其中,组织学习动力中的“组织协调”因素对组织学习行为诸维度呈显着正相关,“交互性”因素对组织学习行为中的合作长远性和合作整体性维度呈显着正相关。     

Verbal Learning Strategies of Adolescents and Adults with the Syndrome of Nonverbal Learning Disabilities

Abstract

Although many psychometric studies of individuals with the syndrome of nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD) have been conducted, one relatively neglected area has been the study of their performance on explicit verbal memory measures. We examined the performance of adolescents and adults with NLD on the California Verbal Learning Test, a measure allowing analysis of self-initiated learning strategies, and compared their performance to age- and Full Scale IQ-matched verbal learning-disabled (VLD) controls. Mean performance of the NLD sample on the semantic clustering index fell one standard deviation below the normative mean, whereas their serial clustering score was within normal limits. Additionally, the serial clustering score for our NLD sample was significantly greater than their semantic clustering score, suggesting that these individuals are more likely to spontaneously employ serial verbal learning strategies as opposed to those that are semantically driven. This difference in serial versus semantic clustering scores was not seen in our VLD controls, who performed equally well, and within normal limits, on both indices.     

治疗附体症立竿见影

2003年11月4日铁岭县蔡牛乡4个男人陪着一个女病人,乘一辆白色面包车于晚上9时来我诊所看病(相距35公里以上)。先下来一人到屋叙述病情:说该病人父亲的“魂”附在病人的身上了,管自己母亲叫老伴,管自己的大姐叫大女儿。问医     

Learning to argue with parents and peers

The infant's first natural response when faced with opposition or when he opposes others' actions is to cry. As this kind of behavior becomes ineffective, the responses of the individuals with which he interacts force him to adopt more conventional — especially verbal — patterns of arguing, leading him to rational argumentation. The purpose of the present paper is to observe progressions in children's earliest verbal arguments and to see how and when they learn to adjust their strategies for different kinds of opponents (peers; parents; other adults). In order to examine the emergence of such persuasive strategies, and their distribution according to the different categories of opponents, systematic audiotape recordings of two Spanish-speaking girls between 2 and 3 years were analyzed. The data suggest that, although there were some differences in how the girls argued with parents versus peers, they were only beginning to adjust their speech to make it appropriate for one or the other type of listener. In general, they resorted to one dominant strategy for all listeners (insist, repeat, cry, scream, ...). Each girl, however, developed a small number of less frequently used strategies that she reserved for a subcategory of opponents. For example, one of them, Nancy, only threatened and insulted peers, while the other, Marisa, only used please and a temporizing strategy with parents. The girls used less adaptive, more agressive strategies (e.g. threats and insults) with their peers. With one exception, all of the girls' moves were self-centered. In fact, the girls had not yet reached the stage of rational argumentation.