青少年元记忆能力发展的认知研究

元记忆是个体所具有的与自己的记忆活动有关的信念及监控系统 ,其发展研究包括元记忆知识的习得与发展、元记忆监控能力的发展等。 2 0年来的研究表明 :青少年元记忆能力的发展具有年龄阶段性和关键期 ,年龄和教育训练是其两个重要影响因素。但该领域研究还存在理论概括性不高、被试代表性不强和比较缺乏多因素实验研究等问题。其未来的研究中宜采用多因素实验设计 ,不断提高研究的系统性和生态学效度     

Cognitive ability in virtual reality: Validity evidence for VR game‐based assessments

Virtual reality (VR) technology may provide unique benefits for assessing individual characteristics, in contrast with traditional assessments. This study examined validity evidence for the use of VR game (VRG) scores to indicate specific cognitive abilities. Participants completed three VRGs, three computer‐based assessments (CBAs), and additional scales. To evaluate convergent validity, VRG scores were compared with CBA scores. For divergent validity, VRG scores were compared with five factors of personality based on the Five Factor Model. For criterion‐related validity, VRG scores were compared with academic achievement (i.e., grade point average). Findings generally provided support that the VRG scores are related to certain spatial reasoning subdimensions of cognitive ability. However, further research is needed to examine the qualities of VRGs as assessment tools.     

Role of prior knowledge in implicit and explicit learning of artificial grammars

Artificial grammar learning (AGL) performance reflects both implicit and explicit processes and has typically been modeled without incorporating any influence from general world knowledge. Our research provides a systematic investigation of the implicit vs. explicit nature of general knowledge and its interaction with knowledge types investigated by past AGL research (i.e., rule- and similarity-based knowledge). In an AGL experiment, a general knowledge manipulation involved expectations being either congruent or incongruent with training stimulus structure. Inconsistent observations paradoxically led to an advantage in structural knowledge and in the use of general world knowledge in both explicit (conscious) and implicit (unconscious) cases (as assessed by subjective measures). The above findings were obtained under conditions of reduced processing time and impaired executive resources. Key findings from our work are that implicit AGL can clearly be affected by general knowledge, and implicit learning can be enhanced by the violation of expectations.     

When Stronger Knowledge Slows You Down: Semantic Relatedness Predicts Children's Co‐Activation of Related Items in a Visual Search Paradigm

A large literature suggests that the organization of words in semantic memory, reflecting meaningful relations among words and the concepts to which they refer, supports many cognitive processes, including memory encoding and retrieval, word learning, and inferential reasoning. The co‐activation of related items has been proposed as a mechanism by which semantic knowledge influences cognition, and contemporary accounts of semantic knowledge propose that this co‐activation is graded—that it depends on how strongly related the items are in semantic memory. Prior research with adults yielded evidence supporting this prediction; however, there is currently no evidence of graded co‐activation early in development. This study provides the first evidence that in children the co‐activation of related items depends on their relational strength in semantic memory. Participants (N = 84, age range: 3–9 years) were asked to identify a target (e.g., bone) amid distractors. Children's responses were slowed down by the presence of a related distractor (e.g., puppy) relative to unrelated distractors (e.g., flower)—suggesting that children co‐activated related items upon hearing the name of the target. Importantly, the degree of this co‐activation was predicted by the strength of the target–distractor relation, such that distractors more strongly related to the targets slowed down children to a larger extent. These findings have important implications for understanding how organized semantic knowledge affects other cognitive processes across development.     

Children's expectations and episodic reports over 12 weeks: Influences on memory for a specially designed pediatric examination

This investigation extended work on the linkage between knowledge and remembering by exploring the relation between generic and episodic memory representations. Thirty 6-year-old children experienced a mock physical examination with some expected components omitted and other unexpected actions included. Immediately and again after 12 weeks, the children reported the event, answered questions about what usually happens in an examination, and rated their confidence in aspects of their reports. They remembered more typical than atypical present components, that is, those included in the examination, and, over time, falsely reported more typical than atypical actions. The children produced intrusions of expected-but-omitted medical features at the delay but with lower confidence ratings than they provided for correctly recalled items. Performance on a source monitoring task was associated with aspects of the children's confidence ratings for intrusions. The findings provide evidence that the relation between episodic and generic representations is dynamic and suggest that the capacity to differentiate between them contributes to the development of accurate eyewitness memory.     

Translating External Knowledge to Team Creativity in Turbulent Environments: The Role of Absorptive Capacity and Knowledge Integration

In seeking to understand factors contributing to team creativity in dynamic environments, we explored the role of external knowledge search on team creativity through absorptive capacity and knowledge integration. We tested our hypotheses with a sample of 96 teams involving 421 employees in China. Results demonstrated that external knowledge search related positively to team creativity, fully mediated by both absorptive capacity and knowledge integration. In addition, environmental dynamism played a moderating role in the relation between external knowledge search and absorptive capacity, as well as in the relation between external knowledge search and knowledge integration. We discussed the implications of these findings for research and practice.     

Mistakes on display: Incorrect examples refine equation solving and algebraic feature knowledge

Although findings from cognitive science have suggested learning benefits of confronting errors (Metcalfe, 2017), they are not often capitalized on in many mathematics classrooms (Tulis, 2013). The current study assessed the effects of examples focused on either common mathematical misconceptions and errors or correct concepts and procedures on algebraic feature knowledge and solving quadratic equations. Middle school algebra students (N = 206) were randomly assigned to four conditions. Two errorful conditions either displayed errors and asked students to explain or displayed correct solutions and primed students to reflect on potential errors by problem type. A correct example condition and problem-solving control group were also included. Studying and explaining common errors displayed in incorrect examples improved equation-solving ability. An aptitude-by-treatment interaction revealed that learners with limited understandings of algebraic features demonstrated greater benefits. Theoretical implications about using examples to promote learning from errors are considered in addition to suggestions for educational practice.     

The Aesthetic Import of the Act of Knowledge and its European Roots in Merab Mamardašvili

What Mamardašvili meant by “process of knowledge” is not an all-embracing vision of reality accomplished “once-and-for-all”; it is not a step by step procedure of deduction; rather it is an anti-dialectical reconstruction of a constellation of signs put together over and over again by the subject by an act of non-premeditated genius. It is a kind of aesthetic act that makes the sense appear, like a vertical cut in the sequential line of space and time.     

Discussions

Summary  In their paper, ‘When are thought experiments poor ones?’ (Peijnenburg and David Atkinson, 2003, Journal of General Philosophy of Science 34, 305-322.), Jeanne Peijnenburg and David Atkinson argue that most, if not all, philosophical thought experiments are “poor” ones with “disastrous consequences” and that they share the property of being poor with some (but not all) scientific thought experiments. Noting that unlike philosophy, the sciences have the resources to avoid the disastrous consequences, Peijnenburg and Atkinson come to the conclusion that the use of thought experiments in science is in general more successful than in philosophy and that instead of concocting more “recherché” thought experiments, philosophy should try to be more empirical. In this comment I will argue that Peijnenburg’s and Atkinson’s view on thought experiments is based on a misleading characterization of both, the dialectical situation in philosophy as well as the history of physics. By giving an adequate account of what the discussion in contemporary philosophy is about, we will arrive at a considerably different evaluation of philosophical thought experiments.

For I am convinced that we now find ourselves at an altogether decisive turning point in philosophy, and that we are objectively justified in considering that an end has come to the fruitless conflict of systems. We are already at the present time, in my opinion, in possession of methods which make any such conflict in principle unnecessary. What is now required is their resolute application. (Schlick, ‘The Turning Point in Philosophy’, 1930/1959, p. 54).