Learning about learning
November 27, 2010 8:28 PM
Modern learning and cognitive psychology for dummies: any suggestions for resources?
A co-worker wrote an interesting piece, describing some models for how learning and cognitive psychology work. It was filled with "left brain, right brain", and "visual-spatial, audio-sequential" references from about a decade+ ago.
Can anyone recommend some layperson resources for learning about more modern (fMRI-supported) thinking on the cognitive models? Blogs, books, white papers if necessary... anything's fine. Thanks!
A co-worker wrote an interesting piece, describing some models for how learning and cognitive psychology work. It was filled with "left brain, right brain", and "visual-spatial, audio-sequential" references from about a decade+ ago.
Can anyone recommend some layperson resources for learning about more modern (fMRI-supported) thinking on the cognitive models? Blogs, books, white papers if necessary... anything's fine. Thanks!
For a very quick primer, check out the 'Very Short Introduction' series by Oxford Press. "The Brain", "Consciousness" and "Intelligence" are good ones to start with. Digging deeper, I like Steven Pinker's "How The Mind Works" for a layman's introduction. As someone with a degree in Cognitive Science who worked in an fMRI lab for a couple years, I can tell you that while it is a great tool when used carefully, it has been massively over hyped and a lot of research out there that appears very scientific is quite rubbish. As far as model go, there still seem to be about as many models for any given phenomena as there are major research institutions studying it. I can tell you that the left brain / right brain stuff as understood by the general public is woefully off target.
posted by sophist at 11:07 PM on November 27, 2010
posted by sophist at 11:07 PM on November 27, 2010
Oh, for a more developed model specifically you might like "On Intelligence". It is not even close to being the accepted model of intelligence and learning, but I thought it was an interesting take. The cognitive science research I am familiar with tends to focus mostly on very specific and limited areas, such as memory. Any talk of models is pretty rare in cognitive science journals, except to hint that one's research might lend credence to one over another. The modeling tends to fall more in the domain of "computational modeling" and AI side of things. "From Molecule To Metaphor" comes to mind, which is probably the right kind of approach but might not quite be the subject you are looking for.
posted by sophist at 11:23 PM on November 27, 2010
posted by sophist at 11:23 PM on November 27, 2010
Disclaimer: I'm a cognitive psychologist but I don't really keep up with for-lay-audience media that well, so this is off-the-cuff.
Have you seen Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang's book Welcome To Your Brain? If you're looking for blogs, think a lot of people liked Cognitive Daily when it was still operating, so you could go back to that? I'm intrigued by a blog I just found, CogSciLibrarian, but it looks like she updates pretty infrequently.
posted by knile at 2:13 AM on November 28, 2010
Have you seen Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang's book Welcome To Your Brain? If you're looking for blogs, think a lot of people liked Cognitive Daily when it was still operating, so you could go back to that? I'm intrigued by a blog I just found, CogSciLibrarian, but it looks like she updates pretty infrequently.
posted by knile at 2:13 AM on November 28, 2010
Here's a good article with some things to keep in mind regarding the fMRI research. I'm more of a social psychologist with cognitive leanings, but that article represents ideas that have been present in the social psych literature in the past few years as well. And I don't know if the co-worker's piece delved into something like learning styles, but the current focus (in psych) on those doesn't find much support for them, at least not as the research stands.
posted by bizzyb at 8:10 AM on November 28, 2010
posted by bizzyb at 8:10 AM on November 28, 2010
I think the point of the fMRI salmon link is that fMRI isn't as gold-standard as people think. It shows that things are happening. It can't show these are good thing, bad things, itches on the top of the foot, the subject fantasizing about the cute examiner or sunspots.
Not that it isn't useful, but that we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. More work is needed to
And I believe it has pretty much proven that the left-brain, right-brain construct is not entirely useful except in circumstances where the halves are disconnected.
I think what you might try searching for are learning techniques that purposefully combine both types of learning, and what kind of experimentation is being done on effectiveness of teaching, teaching styles and learning.
(IE, if I learn something under duress, its pattern in my brain will be different that the same intellectual content learned under different circumstances. I may even get better raw retention scores with the duress content. But the difference happens when I need to use that knowledge. If I learned "fire hot" because I burnt the shit out of my hand, I may not recognize a situation where "fire hot" could be a solution to a problem, because it is a "danger" pattern in my head, not a "useful" or "useful, but dangerous" pattern.
And so we might find that like cognitive behavioral therapy, an intellectually derived, "fake" positive motivation is better than a real negative motivation. IE, all we have to do is teach students how to fake curiosity, and we will get far better results than current reward-based systems. That, potentially, we needn't waste so much time trying to buy students' engagement if we merely spent a little more time buying their curiosity.)
posted by gjc at 9:22 AM on November 28, 2010
Not that it isn't useful, but that we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. More work is needed to
And I believe it has pretty much proven that the left-brain, right-brain construct is not entirely useful except in circumstances where the halves are disconnected.
I think what you might try searching for are learning techniques that purposefully combine both types of learning, and what kind of experimentation is being done on effectiveness of teaching, teaching styles and learning.
(IE, if I learn something under duress, its pattern in my brain will be different that the same intellectual content learned under different circumstances. I may even get better raw retention scores with the duress content. But the difference happens when I need to use that knowledge. If I learned "fire hot" because I burnt the shit out of my hand, I may not recognize a situation where "fire hot" could be a solution to a problem, because it is a "danger" pattern in my head, not a "useful" or "useful, but dangerous" pattern.
And so we might find that like cognitive behavioral therapy, an intellectually derived, "fake" positive motivation is better than a real negative motivation. IE, all we have to do is teach students how to fake curiosity, and we will get far better results than current reward-based systems. That, potentially, we needn't waste so much time trying to buy students' engagement if we merely spent a little more time buying their curiosity.)
posted by gjc at 9:22 AM on November 28, 2010
I subscribe to ScienceDaily's Mind and Brain news, which is mostly just reinterpretation of journal articles and university press releases but can often lead me to find things in journals I don't otherwise read or would have missed. Futurity is a coalition of university PR offices.
A couple of relevant articles:
Learning From Mistakes Only Works After Age 12
Turn Off TV and Talk to Babies
Hand Gestures Dramatically Improve Learning
To Learn Better, Take a Nap (and Don't Forget to Dream)
Also, I have numerous peer-reviewed journal articles from the past few years pertaining to learning, albeit sometimes very specific types of learning. Memail me if you want the academic equivalent of a mixtape.
posted by knile at 10:26 AM on November 28, 2010
A couple of relevant articles:
Learning From Mistakes Only Works After Age 12
Turn Off TV and Talk to Babies
Hand Gestures Dramatically Improve Learning
To Learn Better, Take a Nap (and Don't Forget to Dream)
Also, I have numerous peer-reviewed journal articles from the past few years pertaining to learning, albeit sometimes very specific types of learning. Memail me if you want the academic equivalent of a mixtape.
posted by knile at 10:26 AM on November 28, 2010
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More seriously though, here (pdf link) is an article that talks about the effect of brain images in persuading scientific reasoning. Just to keep in mind when shown fMRI supported evidence.
posted by ssri at 9:02 PM on November 27, 2010