cognitivism

Cognitivism

Last Week: Behaviourism

Cognitivism

The cognitivist revolution replaced behaviourism in 1960s/1970s as the dominant paradigm.

We recall Chomsky's argument that language could not be acquired purely through conditioning (even though radical behaviourists never argued that), and must be at least partly explained by the existence of internal mental states.

Cognitivism

Cognitivism argues that the “black box” of the mind should be opened and understood.

The learner is viewed as an information processor.

…or a computer

Cognitivism

Mental processes such as thinking, memory, knowing, and problem-solving need to be explored.

Knowledge can be seen as schema or symbolic mental constructions.

Learning is defined as change in a learner’s schemata.

SHOCK – HORROR - DISMAY

There is a great deal of ambiguity in the education literature as to what constitutes Cognitivism, and how it different from Constructivism

What follows is my take on things…

SHOCK – HORROR - DISMAY

There is a great deal of ambiguity in the education literature as to what constitutes Cognitivism, and how it different from Constructivism

What follows is my take on things…

ConstructivismCognitive

ConstructivismCognitivism Proto-Cognitivism

Proto-Cognitivism:Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt - "essence or shape of an entity's complete form"

"The whole is greater than the sum of the parts" is often used when explaining Gestalt theory.

Gestalt Psychology

But it is better stated that the qualities of the whole have additional qualities that that parts do not have, e.g. the four lines on the right have the additional quality of “squareness” that the lines on the left do not.

Gestalt Psychology

Gestaltists see objects as perceived within an environment according to all of their elements taken together as a global construct.

Max Wertheimer

Born April 15, 1880 Died Oct 12, 1943 Born in Prague, Czech

Republic Psychologist Father of Gestalt

psychology

Inspiration

In 1910 he bought a toy stroboscope

He saw two separate and alternating light patterns

He discovered that if the spacing, on-time, and off-time were just right for these lights, his mind would perceive the dual lights as one single flashing light moving back and forth

Phi phenomenon

a perceptual illusion in which a perception of motion is produced by a succession of still images.

Lead to important questions about how perception and the brain works.

Kurt Koffka

Born March 18, 1886 Died Nov 22, 1941 Born in Berlin,

Germany Psychologist Another of the founders

of Gestalt psychology Learning theorist

Theories on learning

Koffka believed that most of early learning is what he referred to as, "sensorimotor learning," which is a type of learning which occurs after a consequence. For example, a child who touches a hot stove will learn not to touch it again.

Theories on learning

Koffka also believed that a lot of learning occurs by imitation, though he argued that it is not important to understand how imitation works, but rather to acknowledge that it is a natural occurrence.

According to Koffka, the highest type of learning is “ideational learning”, which makes use of language.

Born in Jan 21, 1887 Died in June 11, 1967 Born in Reval (now

Tallinn), Estonia Psychologist and

phenomenologist Another of the founders

of Gestalt psychology

Wolfgang Köhler

Problem solving

In 1913, Köhler went to the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands for six years

Köhler observed the manner in which chimpanzees solve problems, such as that of retrieving bananas when positioned out of reach. He found that they stacked wooden crates to use as makeshift ladders, in order to retrieve the food.

If the bananas were placed on the ground outside of the cage, they used sticks to lengthen the reach of their arms.

Problem solving

Köhler concluded that the chimps had not arrived at these methods through trial-and-error (which American psychologist Edward Thorndike had claimed to be the basis of all animal learning, through his law of effect), but rather that they had experienced an insight (also sometimes known as an “aha experience”), in which, having realized the answer, they then proceeded to carry it out in a way that was, in Köhler’s words, “unwaveringly purposeful”.

The bouba/kiki effect

The bouba/kiki effect

The Bouba/Kiki Effect was first observed by German-American psychologist Wolfgang Köhler in 1929.

In psychological experiments, first conducted on the island of Tenerife (in which the primary language is Spanish), Köhler showed forms in the previous slides asked participants which shape was called "takete" and which was called "baluba" ("maluma" in the 1947 version). Data suggested a strong preference to pair the jagged shape with "takete" and the rounded shape with "baluba".

The bouba/kiki effect

In 2001, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Edward Hubbard repeated Köhler's experiment using the words "kiki" and "bouba" and asked American college undergraduates and Tamil speakers in India “Which of these shapes is bouba and which is kiki?”

In both the English and the Tamil speakers, 95% to 98% selected the curvy shape as "bouba" and the jagged one as "kiki", suggesting that the human brain is somehow able to extract abstract properties from the shapes and sounds.

The bouba/kiki effect

Recent work by Daphne Maurer and colleagues has shown that even children as young as 2.5 (too young to read) show this effect.

Ramachandran and Hubbard suggest that the kiki/bouba effect has implications for the evolution of language, because it suggests that the naming of objects is not completely arbitrary.

The bouba/kiki effect

The rounded shape may most commonly be named "bouba" because the mouth makes a more rounded shape to produce that sound while a more taut, angular mouth shape is needed to make the sound "kiki".

The sounds of a K are harder and more forceful than those of a B, as well.

The bouba/kiki effect

The presence of these "synesthesia-like mappings" suggest that this effect might be the neurological basis for sound symbolism, in which sounds are non-arbitrarily mapped to objects and events in the world.

The bouba/kiki effect

Individuals with autism do not show as strong a preference. Where average people agree with the typical result 90% of the time, individuals with autism only agree 60% of the time (Ramachandran, V.S., Oberman, L.M. Evidence for Deficits in Mirror Neuron Function, Multisensory Integration, and Sound-form Symbolism in Autism Spectrum Disorders)

The bouba/kiki effect

Main principles of Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt Principles

Emergence Reification Multistability Invariance Prägnanz

Principle of Emergence

Objects in an images are not recognised by their component parts, but are rather perceived as a whole, all at once.

Principle of Emergence

Principle of Emergence

Principle of Emergence

The dog is not recognized by first identifying its parts (feet, ears, nose, tail, etc.), and then inferring the dog from those component parts.

Instead, the dog is perceived as a whole, all at once.

Principle of Reification

the experienced percept contains more explicit spatial information than the sensory stimulus on which it is based.

Principle of Reification

Principle of Multistability

the tendency of ambiguous perceptual experiences to pop back and forth unstably between two or more alternative interpretations.

Principle of Multistability

Principle of Multistability

Principle of Multistability

Principle of Invariance

the property of perception whereby simple geometrical objects are recognized independent of rotation, translation, and scale; as well as several other variations such as elastic deformations, different lighting, and different component features.

Principle of Invariance

Principle of Prägnanz

we tend to order our experience in a manner that is regular, orderly, symmetric, and simple.

This results in other more basic laws Law of Closure Law of Similarity Law of Proximity Law of Continuity Law of Common Fate

Law of Closure

The mind may experience elements it does not perceive through sensation, in order to complete a regular figure (that is, to increase regularity).

Law of Similarity

The mind groups similar elements into collective entities or totalities. This similarity might depend on relationships of form, colour, size, or brightness.

Law of Proximity

Spatial or temporal proximity of elements may induce the mind to perceive a collective or totality.

Law of Symmetry

Symmetrical images are perceived collectively, even in spite of distance.

Law of Continuity

The mind continues visual, auditory, and kinetic patterns.

Law of Common Fate

Elements with the same moving direction are perceived as a collective or unit.

An Investigation of the spatial perception of time multiplexing during the simulation of motion of objects The project investigated the

physiology and psychology of visual perception, and attempted to explain the illusion in those terms.

The psychology investigation centred on Gestalt Psychology and how the principles in Gestalt psychology co-operate to cause the formation of illusory contours.

I designed an LED Array system whose display characteristics could be varied in software to assist in supporting the proposed theory.

In addition the research appears to have found a way of measuring the persistence of vision of illusory contours for very short periods of time.

Cognitivism:Instructional Design

Kurt Lewin

Born Sept 9, 1890 Died Feb 12, 1947 Born in Mogilno,

Poland Psychologist "founder of social

psychology“ Worked closely with the

Gestalt psychologists

Force field Analysis

provides a framework for looking at the factors (forces) that influence a situation, originally social situations.

Lewin believed the "field" to be a Gestalt psychological environment existing in an individual's (or in the collective group) mind at a certain point in time that can be mathematically described in a topological constellation of constructs.

Action Research

first coined the term “action research” in about 1944. In his 1946 paper “Action Research and Minority Problems” he described action research as “a comparative research on the conditions and effects of various forms of social action and research leading to social action” that uses “a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of planning, action, and fact-finding about the result of the action”.

Instructional Design Active Learning

Instruction must be planned with a clear vision of what the students will do with the content presented. It is critical that students interact with the instructional content and that activities be developed to promote and support open-ended, self-directed learning. Content should never be delivered for memorization, but instead for use as a tool in planned and sequenced activities.

A Cohesive Approach Lewin wrote that a piecemeal approach to guiding learners to accept new

ideas, attitudes, and behaviors is ineffective. Instead, a cohesive approach must be utilized to support changes in cognition, affect, and behavior.

Impact of the Social Environment Lewin theorized that before changes in ideas, attitudes, and behavior will

occur, modifications in a learner's perception of self and his/her social environment are essential. He also argued that it is easier to create change in a social context than individually.

More work on Instructional Design

Instructional Design

Maximise the effectiveness, efficiency and appeal of instruction and other learning experiences.

The process consists of determining the current state and needs of the learner, defining the end goal of instruction, and creating some "intervention" to assist in the transition.

The outcome of this instruction may be directly observable and scientifically measured or completely hidden and assumed.

Robert Mills Gagné

Born in Aug 21, 1916 Died in April 28, 2002 Born in in North Andover,

Massachusetts educational psychologist best known for his

“Conditions of Learning” involved in applying

instructional theory to the design of computer based learning.

The Gagné Assumption

different types of learning exist, and that different instructional conditions are most likely to bring about these different types of learning.

Five Categories of Learning

verbal information intellectual skills cognitive strategies motor skills attitudes

Eight Types of Learning Signal Learning - The individual learns to make a general, diffuse

response to a signal. Such was the classical conditioned response of Pavlov.

Stimulus-Response Learning - The learner acquires a precise response to a discriminated stimulus.

Chaining - A chain of two or more stimulus-response connections is acquired.

Verbal Association - The learning of chains that are verbal. Discrimination Learning - The individual learns to make different

identifying responses to many different stimuli that may resemble each other in physical appearance.

Concept Learning - The learner acquires a capability of making a common response to a class of stimuli.

Rule Learning - A rule is a chain of two or more concepts. Problem Solving - A kind of learning that requires the internal events

usually called thinking.

Gagné’s Nine Events of Instruction

Nine Events of Instruction Gain attention - Curiosity motivates students to learn. Inform learners of objectives - These objectives should form the basis for

assessment. Stimulate recall of prior learning - Associating new information with prior

knowledge can facilitate the learning process. Present the content - This event of instruction is where the new content is

actually presented to the learner. Provide “learning guidance” - use of examples, non-examples, case studies,

graphical representations, mnemonics, and analogies. Elicit performance (practice) - Eliciting performance provides an opportunity

for learners to confirm their correct understanding, and the repetition further increases the likelihood of retention.

Provide feedback - guidance and answers provided at this stage are called formative feedback.

Assess performance - take a final assessment. Enhance retention and transfer to the job - Effective education will have a

"performance" focus.

George Armitage Miller

Born Feb 3, 1920 Age 90 Born in Charleston,

West Virginia Psychologist and

Cognitive Scientist founder of WordNet “Miller’s Magic Number”

Information Processing Theory

TOTE: “Test-Operate-Test-Exit”

an iterative problem solving strategy based on feedback loops test where the system is

currently, then perform some

operation that makes a change,

then retest again, and to repeat this until the

answer is satisfactory, at which point the process is complete and ends (or exits).

Test

Operate

Exit

Information Processing Theory

The following is an example of a simple TOTE: When driving a car and looking for the appropriate turn off.

Test - is this the turnoff? - No Operate - keep driving Test - is this the turnoff? - No Operate - keep driving Test - is this the turnoff? - Yes Exit

Test

Operate

ExitProblem

7 ± 2

Miller’s Magic Number

Miller’s Magic Number

"The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information" (Miller 1956) is one of the most highly cited papers in psychology

He looked at Memory span - which is a long list of items (e.g., digits, letters, words) that a person can repeat back immediately after presentation in correct order.

Miller observed that memory span of young adults is approximately 7 chunks. He noticed that memory span is approximately the same for stimuli with vastly different amount of information .

Charles M. Reigeluth

Elaboration Theory instruction is made out of

layers and that each layer of instruction elaborates on the previously presented ideas. By elaborating on the previous ideal, it reiterates, thereby improving retention Present overview of simplest

and most fundamental ideas Add complexity to one aspect Review the overview and

show relationships to the details

Provide additional elaboration of details

Provide additional summary and synthesis

Reigeluth’s Elaboration Theory

Charles M. Reigeluth The Eight Steps in Elaboration Theory

Organizing Course Structure: Single organisation for complete course Simple to complex: start with simplest ideas, in the first lesson, and then

add elaborations in subsequent lessons. Within-lesson sequence: general to detailed, simple to complex, abstract

to concrete. Summarizers: content reviews presented in rule-example-practice format Synthesizers: Presentation devices that help the learner integrate content

elements into a meaningful whole and assimilate them into prior knowledge, e.g. a concept hierarchy, a procedural flowchart or decision table, or a cause-effect model .

Analogies: relate the content to learners' prior knowledge, use multiple analogies, especially with a highly divergent group of learners.

Cognitive strategies: variety of cues - pictures, diagrams, mnemonics, etc. - can trigger cognitive strategies needed for processing of material.

Learner control: Learners are encouraged to exercise control over both content and instructional strategy. Clear labelling and separation of strategy components facilitates effective learner control of those components.

Constructivism