动作知识的组织与提取及对认知的影响

在认知活动中,动作经验重新激活影响认知加工。本文综述了动作知识的组织和提取机制、动作经验影响认知活动的理论、动作知识对物体和词汇识别、空间知觉、记忆、注意的影响。未来研究可以从不同类型的动作知识对认知的影响、不同语言中动作词汇的认知机制等方面进行探索。     

4～6岁幼儿相似性判断与类别判断的知识效应

采用类别知识的分类学习模式,选取72名4-6岁幼儿作为被试,对相似性判断和类别判断的知识效应进行实验研究。结果表明：（1）相似性判断和类别判断存在知识效应。（2）相似性判断的知识效应存在显著的年龄差异,类别判断的知识效应不存在显著的年龄差异;5岁是知识学习对幼儿相似性判断产生影响的关键时期。（3）相似性判断知识效应的性别差异不显著,类别判断知识效应的性别差异极其显著,男孩更倾向于依据学习概念所强调的属性进行类别判断。     

集体问题解决中的知识、惯例和绩效

在Cohen和Bacdayan发明的两人TTT纸牌游戏的基础上开发了三人TTT游戏,并以此为实验任务,考察了三人集体问题解决活动能否形成惯例,比较了有问题图式组和无问题图式组之间在惯例和绩效上的差异。实验结果表明：（1）三人问题解决能够形成惯例;（2）有图式组的惯例化程度总体上低于无图式组,而其惯例化程度提高的速度则快于后者;（3）无图式组的绩效高于有图式组,但前期差异显著,后期不显著。这些结果将前人基于两人TTT游戏所做的惯例研究进一步拓展到三人情境,证实了三人互动中惯例的生成,为研究涉及更多人互动的真正意义上的组织惯例奠定了基础;阐明了知识,特别是前人在组织惯例研究中所忽视的陈述性知识,对于惯例形成和绩效提升的影响,并揭示了其在组织管理和决策活动中的实际意义。     

On love, hate and knowledge

In this short theoretical paper, I discuss Bion's three relations of love, hate, and knowledge, using Peirce's semiotic theory of relations and Bakhtin's semiotic/philosophical writings. Reading Bion through the prism of these resources allows us to better understand the meaning and ontogenesis of the basic relations and to examine their clinical explanatory value.     

Friends’ Knowledge of Youth Internalizing and Externalizing Adjustment: Accuracy,Bias, and the Influences of Gender,Grade, Positive Friendship Quality,and Self-Disclosure

Some evidence suggests that close friends may be knowledgeable of youth’s psychological adjustment. However, friends are understudied as reporters of adjustment. The current study examines associations between self- and friend-reports of internalizing and externalizing adjustment in a community sample of fifth-, eighth-, and eleventh-grade youth. The study extends prior work by considering the degree to which friends’ reports of youth adjustment are accurate (i.e., predicted by youths’ actual adjustment) versus biased (i.e., predicted by the friend reporters’ own adjustment). Findings indicated stronger bias effects than accuracy effects, but the accuracy effects were significant for both internalizing and externalizing adjustment. Additionally, friends who perceived their relationships as high in positive quality, friends in relationships high in disclosure, and girls perceived youths’ internalizing symptoms most accurately. Knowledge of externalizing adjustment was not influenced by gender, grade, relationship quality, or self-disclosure. Findings suggest that friends could play an important role in prevention efforts.

In pursuit of knowledge: comparing self-explanations, concepts, and procedures as pedagogical tools

Explaining new ideas to oneself can promote learning and transfer, but questions remain about how to maximize the pedagogical value of self-explanations. This study investigated how type of instruction affected self-explanation quality and subsequent learning outcomes for second- through fifth-grade children learning to solve mathematical equivalence problems (e.g., 7 + 3 + 9 = 7 + _). Experiment 1 varied whether instruction was conceptual or procedural in nature (n = 40), and Experiment 2 varied whether children were prompted to self-explain after conceptual instruction (n = 48). Conceptual instruction led to higher quality explanations, greater conceptual knowledge, and similar procedural knowledge compared with procedural instruction. No effect was found for self-explanation prompts. Conceptual instruction can be more efficient than procedural instruction and may make self-explanation prompts unnecessary.     

It pays to compare: An experimental study on computational estimation

Comparing and contrasting examples is a core cognitive process that supports learning in children and adults across a variety of topics. In this experimental study, we evaluated the benefits of supporting comparison in a classroom context for children learning about computational estimation. Fifth- and sixth-grade students (N = 157) learned about estimation either by comparing alternative solution strategies or by reflecting on the strategies one at a time. At posttest and retention test, students who compared were more flexible problem solvers on a variety of measures. Comparison also supported greater conceptual knowledge, but only for students who already knew some estimation strategies. These findings indicate that comparison is an effective learning and instructional practice in a domain with multiple acceptable answers.     

Counter-stereotypic beliefs in math do not protect school girls from stereotype threat

The threat of being negatively stereotyped in math impairs performance of highly qualified females on difficult math tests, a phenomenon known as “stereotype threat”—ST. Perhaps more alarmingly, recent studies based on unselective samples of elementary-, middle-, and high-school students show that ST also operates in girls from the general population. Here we offer first evidence that ST does operate (with large effect sizes) even in middle-school girls who deny the negative gender stereotype. Children’s beliefs about the two genders math ability, therefore, do not necessarily moderate their susceptibility to ST, an important issue that remained unclear so far. This new finding is also of great practical significance: School girls’ counter-stereotypic beliefs cannot be taken as sufficient evidence for deciding whether the struggle against ST is or is not needed. Appropriate interventions should be the default option when aiming for true gender equality in math and science achievements.     

The Relationship between Cultural Values and Political Ideology, and the Role of Political Knowledge

Cultural theory maintains that four worldviews—egalitarianism, individualism, hierarchicalism, and fatalism—can be used to describe people and societies. We examine survey measures of two of those worldviews—egalitarianism and individualism—to understand their relationship with belief systems. Contrary to what one might expect based on the cultural theory literature, we find that people with low levels of political knowledge seem not to have coherent worldviews regarding these issues. In contrast, people with high levels of political knowledge respond to egalitarianism and individualism questions as if they were opposite ends of a single, liberal-conservative continuum, rather than two of four distinct worldviews. We conclude that cultural theory researchers should take account of the influence of political knowledge whenever they investigate worldviews.     

SOSA ON EPISTEMIC CIRCULARITY AND REFLECTIVE KNOWLEDGE

Abstract: Ernest Sosa has done important work on epistemic circularity, epistemic virtue, and reflective knowledge. He holds that epistemic circularity need not be vicious and need not prevent us from knowing that our ways of forming beliefs are reliable. In this article, I briefly explore Sosa's defense of this view and raise some questions about what is required for reflective knowledge.