Implementing Cognitive Science and Discipline-Based Education Research in the Undergraduate Science Classroom.

Cognitive science research on learning and instruction is often not directly connected to discipline-based research. In an effort to narrow this gap, this essay integrates research from both fields on five learning and instruction strategies: active retrieval, distributed (spaced) learning, dual coding, concrete examples, and feedback and assessment. These strategies can significantly enhance the effectiveness of science instruction, but they typically do not find their way into the undergraduate classroom. The implementation of these strategies is illustrated through an undergraduate science course for nonmajors called Science in Our Lives. This course provides students with opportunities to use scientific information to solve real-world problems and view science as part of everyday life.

Profesionalismo y mindfulness: beneficios de la terapia cognitiva / Professionalism and mindfulness: Benefits of cognitive therapy

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The 72-year-old grad student.

The work of Bruce Bridgeman touches on a wide range of topics that include masking, saccadic suppression, microsaccades, space constancy, perception, action, and consciousness. In this tribute, I try to introduce some of Bruce's work, while adding some personal stories. I hope this tribute would serve as a pointer for the readership to more of Bruce's pioneering work.

La entrevista en salud mental infantojuvenil (II): el desarrollo psicoafectivo y cognitivo del niño / The psychiatric interview to children and adolescents (II): Psycho-affective and cognitive development of the child

El pediatra de Atención Primaria tiene que conocer los aspectos básicos del desarrollo psicoafectivo y cognitivo del niño, tanto para realizar una exploración de su salud mental como para proporcionar una intervención adecuada. En este artículo se abordan los aspectos más básicos del desarrollo emocional y cognitivo del niño. Para entender su desarrollo, hay que tener en cuenta la interdependencia entre el desarrollo afectivo, cognitivo y motor, y considerar al ser humano de forma integral, como una unidad biopsicosocial (AU)

The primary care pediatrician must know the basics of psycho-affective and cognitive development of the child, in order to perform a scan of his mental health or to provide appropriate intervention. This article addresses the most basic aspects of emotional and cognitive development of the child. To understand their development, we must take into account the interdependence between the affective, cognitive and motor development, and considering the human being comprehensively, as a bio-psychosocial unit (AU)

Effect of a metacognitive training program of mentalist skills / Efecto de un programa de entrenamiento metacognitivo en habilidades mentalistas

Background: Recent researches in Theory of Mind (ToM) relate its development to the development of the metacognitive skills 'planning' 'regulation' and acquisition of 'predictive and causal reasoning.' These studies reveal the importance of metacognitive training in the development of mentalist skills. Method: In the present work, the effects of training were compared in 20 children, aged between 4 and 5 years. Results: Significant within-group differences in the skills of belief attribution and memory attribution were found and a tendency towards significance in the skills of behavior prediction. Significant between-group differences were found in belief attribution, prediction, and memory. Conclusions: Mentalist skills training improve attribution, prediction and memory skills in ToM tasks (AU)

Antecedentes: recientes investigaciones en Teoría de la Mente (ToM) relacionan su desarrollo con el desarrollo de habilidades metacognitivas de 'planificación', de 'regulación', así como con la adquisición del 'razonamiento predictivo y causal'. Dichos estudios señalan la importancia que tiene el entrenamiento metacognitivo en el desarrollo de habilidades mentalistas. Método: en el presente trabajo participaron 20 niños de 4 y 5 años con objeto de comparar los efectos del entrenamiento. Resultados: se han encontrado diferencias significativas «intragrupo» en habilidades de atribución de creencia, de memoria y tendencia a la significación en habilidades de predicción del comportamiento. Asimismo se han hallado diferencias significativas «intergrupo» en atribución de creencia, predicción y memoria. Conclusiones: el entrenamiento en habilidades mentalistas parece incrementar las habilidades de atribución, predicción y memoria en tareas de Teoría de la Mente (AU)

Curso evolutivo de la esquizofrenia y su impacto en la cognición: una revisión de la literatura / The course of the schizophrenia and its impact on cognition: a review of literature

Durante los últimos años ha habido un creciente interés sobre el problema de la cognición en la esquizofrenia. El mayor foco de interés de los investigadores ha descansado sobre la relación del deterioro cognitivo con los síntomas positivos y negativos de la enfermedad así como con la funcionalidad. Sin embargo muy pocos estudios se han centrado, específicamente, en determinar el curso del deterioro cognitivo a lo largo de la evolución de la enfermedad. La mayoría de quienes lo han intentando han empleado una metodología consistente en comparar transversalmente el estatus cognitivo de pacientes en diversos estadios evolutivos de la enfermedad. Solo una minoría ha empleado una metodología longitudinal. Este artículo revisa un total de 31 estudios transversales y 43 longitudinales en pacientes con esquizofrenia. La gran variabilidad de criterios y métodos dificulta enormemente la obtención de conclusiones a partir de los diversos hallazgos. Tras una exhaustiva revisión de la literatura sobre este asunto, los autores aprecian que hay dos tendencias principales: 1) El deterioro cognitivo evoluciona progresivamente a lo largo de la enfermedad (tesis predominante en los estudios de metodología transversal)y 2) El deterioro cognitivo permanece estable una vez que hace aparición (la tesis predominante de los estudios longitudinales). Los autores concluyen que la pregunta sobre la posible evolución del deterioro cognitivo no puede aún ser respondida por la carencia de suficientes estudios longitudinales con metodología rigurosa y suficientemente extensos (AU)

There has been increasing interest about cognition in schizophrenia during recent years. The greater focus of the investigators has been focused greater interest on the relation of cognitive deterioration with positive and negative symptoms, and functionality. However very few studies, if any, have specifically focused on the course of cognition in schizophrenic patients throughout the years. Those who have attempted to answer this question have done so by comparing cross-sectional studies of patients at different stages of their disease. Only a minority have used a longitudinal methodology in their studies. This article reviews a total of 31 cross-sectional and 43 longitudinal studies published in patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The diversity of criteria and methods used significantly limits the conclusions that can be drawn. After a comprehensive review of the literature on this topic, the authors have come to the conclusion that there are two opposite trends: 1) Cognition in schizophrenia follows a progressive decline over the years of evolution of the disease (a conclusion predominant in studies with cross-sectional methodology) and 2) Cognition in schizophrenia remains stable once it appears during the first stages of the disease (a conclusion predominant in longitudinal studies). The authors conclude that the question about the likely decline of cognition in schizophrenia cannot be answered due to the lack of rigorous and thorough follow-up studies (AU)

Autoeficacia en profesores universitarios: cómo desarrollar una escala específica / Self-efficacy among university faculty: how to develop an adjusted scale

El objetivo de este estudio fue mostrar el procedimiento llevado a cabo para desarrollar una escala que midiese la autoeficacia específica en un dominio, por ejemplo, en el personal docente e investigador de la universidad, siguiendo las recomendaciones de la Teoría Social Cognitiva de Albert Bandura. La escala creada considera el triple perfil laboral de los profesores universitarios (docencia, investigación y gestión). Mediante el uso del análisis factorial confirmatorio en una muestra de 166 profesores universitarios, encontramos un ajuste superior en el modelo de tres factores que se corresponden con el triple perfil laboral. Además, hemos encontrado diferencias significativas en la autoeficacia para la investigación en el nivel de formación académica, a medida que el nivel de educación académica aumenta, la autoeficacia también lo hace. Por último, son discutidas las implicaciones teóricas y prácticas, las limitaciones del estudio y las futuras investigaciones (AU)

The aim of this study was to describe the procedure carried out to develop a scale to measure specific self-efficacy in one particular domain, i.e. university faculty, following the recommendations from Social Cognitive Theory by Albert Bandura. The scale that was created considers the triple work profile of university faculty (i.e. teaching, research and management). By using confirmatory factor analyses in a sample of 166 university faculty members, we found a superior fit for the three factor model that corresponded with their triple work profile. Moreover, we found significant differences in research self-efficacy at the level of academic education: as the level of academic education increases, self-efficacy also increases. Finally, theoretical and practical implications, limitations of the study and future research are also discussed (AU)

The entrepreneur from a cognitive approach / El emprendedor desde una orientación cognitiva

The cognitive approach to entrepreneurship is a response to the limitations of the trait approach. Its aim is to explain entrepreneurial behavior through cognitions. The main body of research has studied cognitive elements such as scripts, self-efficacy, cognitive styles and heuristics. Understanding entrepreneurial cognition represents a potential and productive fi eld of research that, to date, has received little attention. In this article, we review and highlight the most important contributions of Cognitive Psychology to the fi eld of entrepreneurship; we point out some of the limitations and suggest new avenues of enquiry (AU)

El enfoque cognitivo del estudio del emprendedor surge como respuesta a las limitaciones de la orientación de los rasgos. Su objetivo es explicar la conducta emprendedora a través de las cogniciones. Entender el pensamiento emprendedor representa un campo de estudio fértil aún no muy explotado. Las principales investigaciones destacan el papel de los scripts, la autoeficacia, los estilos de pensamiento y los heurísticos en la acción de crear una empresa. En este artículo se revisan y se señalan las contribuciones más relevantes de la Psicología cognitiva al campo del emprendimiento, se señalan algunas de las limitaciones y se apuntan nuevas líneas de investigación (AU)

Ralph Cudworth and the theological origins of consciousness.

The English Neoplatonic philosopher Ralph Cudworth introduced the term "consciousness" into the English philosophical lexicon. Cudworth uses the term to define the form and structure of cognitive acts, including acts of freewill. In this article I highlight the important role of theological disputes over the place and extent of human freewill within an overarching system of providence. Cudworth's intellectual development can be understood in the main as an increasingly detailed and nuanced reaction to the strict voluntarist Calvinism that is typified in the thought of his near contemporary William Perkins. At the heart of Cudworth's rejection of Calvinism is the dilemma over whether God is understood primarily in terms of will or justice. In this fleshing-out of the power of consciousness Cudworth moves from an instrumental account of the working of the human mind towards an account of human consciousness that is intrinsic to his definition of human agency.

Toward an alternative evolutionary theory of religion: looking past computational evolutionary psychology to a wider field of possibilities.

Cognitive science of the last half-century has been dominated by the computational theory of mind and its picture of thought as information processing. Taking this picture for granted, the most prominent evolutionary theories of religion of the last fifteen years have sought to understand human religiosity as the product or by-product of universal information processing mechanisms that were adaptive in our ancestral environment. The rigidity of such explanations is at odds with the highly context-sensitive nature of historical studies of religion, and thus contributes to the apparent tug-of-war between scientific and humanistic perspectives. This essay argues that this antagonism stems in part from a deep flaw of computational theory, namely its notion of information as pre-given and context-free. In contrast, non-computational theories that picture mind as an adaptive, interactive process in which information is jointly constructed by organism and environment offer an alternative approach to an evolutionary understanding of human religiosity, one that is compatible with historical studies and amenable to a wide range of inquiries, including some limited kinds of theological inquiry.

Neuroscience and the fallacies of functionalism.

Smail's "On Deep History and the Brain" is rightly critical of the functionalist fallacies that have plagued evolutionary theory, sociobiology, and evolutionary psychology. However, his attempt to improve on these efforts relies on functional explanations that themselves oversimplify the lessons of neuroscience. In addition, like explanations in evolutionary psychology, they are highly speculative and cannot be confirmed or disproved by evidence. Neuroscience research is too diverse to yield a single picture of brain functioning. Some recent developments in neuroscience research, however, do suggest that cognitive processing provides a kind of "operating system" that can support a great diversity of cultural material. These developments include evidence of "top-down" processing in motor control, in visual processing, in speech recognition, and in "emotion regulation." The constraints that such a system may place on cultural learning and transmission are worth investigating. At the same time, historians are well advised to remain wary of the pitfalls of functionalism.

Space-time variations of human capital assets across U.S. metropolitan areas, 1980 to 2000.

This article examines the changing structure of human capital in U.S. metropolitan regions from 1980 to 2000. Data are drawn from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. Intensive empirical investigation leads to three main conclusions. First, forms of human capital in the United States are becoming more oriented to labor tasks that call for cognitive-cultural skills. Second, cognitive-cultural skills are accumulating most intensively in large metropolitan areas. Third, physical or practical forms of human capital are increasingly being relegated to smaller metropolitan areas. That said, important residues of human capital, focused on physical or practical tasks, remain a durable element of the economies of large metropolitan areas. I offer a brief theoretical explanation of these results.

Violence and compassion: a bioethical insight into their cognitive bases and social manifestations.

This article considers the social problem of violence and the alternative of resolution through cooperation and compassion from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience. Violence is a social problem, the manifestations of which have a biological basis reflected in the development of aggression and the neural mechanisms that regulate it. Cooperation and compassion are two forms of behaviour with similar developmental, cognitive and cerebral regulatory bases to the mechanisms activated in violence, even though they result in radically different forms of behaviour. The article examines violence and compassion as two mechanisms that lead to moral action that depends on whether sociocultural contexts are adverse or favourable to human well-being. It concludes that the neuro-cognitive system is a flexible and adaptable mechanism that regulates behaviour directly, according to the sociocultural context in which individuals live. Against that background, the UNESCO Declarations on the culture of peace refer to concepts relating to cognition or the human mind. Cognitive neuroscience therefore provides tools for creating and changing mental concepts that could eventually enable human beings to live together in peace.

Cognitive and learning sciences in biomedical and health instructional design: A review with lessons for biomedical informatics education.

Theoretical and methodological advances in the cognitive and learning sciences can greatly inform curriculum and instruction in biomedicine and also educational programs in biomedical informatics. It does so by addressing issues such as the processes related to comprehension of medical information, clinical problem-solving and decision-making, and the role of technology. This paper reviews these theories and methods from the cognitive and learning sciences and their role in addressing current and future needs in designing curricula, largely using illustrative examples drawn from medical education. The lessons of this past work are also applicable, however, to biomedical and health professional curricula in general, and to biomedical informatics training, in particular. We summarize empirical studies conducted over two decades on the role of memory, knowledge organization and reasoning as well as studies of problem-solving and decision-making in medical areas that inform curricular design. The results of this research contribute to the design of more informed curricula based on empirical findings about how people learn and think, and more specifically, how expertise is developed. Similarly, the study of practice can also help to shape theories of human performance, technology-based learning, and scientific and professional collaboration that extend beyond the domain of medicine. Just as biomedical science has revolutionized health care practice, research in the cognitive and learning sciences provides a scientific foundation for education in biomedicine, the health professions, and biomedical informatics.

Avaliação das habilidades cognitiva e viso-motora em pessoas com Síndrome de Down / Assessment of cognitive and visuomotor habilities in people with Down Syndrome

Este estudo teve como objetivo avaliar habilidades intelectuais e viso-motoras em pessoas com Síndrome de Down (SD), utilizando para isto os testes TONI 3- Forma A e o Bender - Sistema de Pontuação Gradual (B-SPG). Participaram 51 pessoas com a síndrome, ambos os sexos, com idade cronológica variando entre 6 e 24 anos (M=15,3; DP=4,9), oriundos de instituições de educação especial do interior de São Paulo. Os instrumentos foram aplicados individualmente e os resultados indicaram evidência de validade convergente entre os resultados obtidos com o TONI-3-Forma A e o B-SPG. Por meio da prova de correlação de Pearson foram obtidos índices negativos e altamente significativos entre os construtos pesquisados, congruentes com os pressupostos teóricos dos instrumentos utilizados (r=-0,57; p<0,001), demonstrando que os participantes que tiveram mais acertos na medida de inteligência foram os que cometeram menos erros na medida de habilidade viso-motora. Ainda assim, sugere-se que outros estudos sejam realizados com amostras maiores do que a aqui pesquisada, visando à identificação de padrões de desenvolvimento de habilidades cognitivas e viso-motoras nessa população, bem como a possibilidade de que programas de intervenção mais apropriados sejam elaborados para desenvolver o potencial cognitivo apresentado por pessoas com SD.

The present research aimed to evaluate intellectual and visuomotor abilities in people with Down syndrome, by using the TONI 3-A Form test and the Bender test with gradual point scoring system. These tests have been applied individually to 51 people of both sexes, with age varying between 6 and 24 years old (M=15,3; DP=4,9), carrying the syndrome, and deriving from special education institutions of the interior of São Paulo. The tests were applied individually and the results have indicated evidence of convergent validity between the TONI-3-A Form and the Bender results. Through the test of Pearson, negative and highly significant indices of correlation were obtained, being congruent with the constructs (r=-0,57; p<0,001), demonstrating that the participants, who had a better score in measuring intelligence, had been the ones who had made less mistakes in measuring their visuomotor abilities. Even so, it suggests that other studies should be carried out with larger samples of SD than the ones researched here, aiming at identifying development standards of cognitive and visuomotor abilities in this population, as well as the possibility of elaborating more appropriate intervention programs to develop the cognitive potential presented by people with Down syndrome.

Hipnosis y terapias cognitivas / Hypnosis and cognitive therapies

La hipnosis y la terapia cognitiva parecen reflejar, enm principio, dos concepciones muy distintas de la intervención psicológica. Sin embargo, ambas contemplan entre sus objetivos la reorganización de las estructuras cognitivas del clinete. Este objetivo común las hace compatibles y podría permitir a las terapias cognitivas nuevas formas de intervenir en tales estructuras. La hipnosis promueve que el cliente haga por símismo este proceso de reestructuración sin el control racional y consciente, por lo que se pueden modificar estructuras inaccesibles a la conciencia, el lenguaje y, por tanto, al análisis cognitivo

Hypnosis and cognitive therapies may appear as two distant approaches for psychological practice. However, both retain among their aims the reorganization of theclients’ cognitive structures. These common goals make them compatible and allownew intervention pathways for cognitive therapists. Hypnosis stimulates clients to doby themselves a process of cognitive restructuring without monitoring and controllingit. Thus, cognitive structures which are not available through thinking and language can be modified without a cognitive analysis

Principles of cognitive science in education: the effects of generation, errors, and feedback.

Principles of cognitive science hold the promise of helping children to study more effectively, yet they do not always make successful transitions from the laboratory to applied settings and have rarely been tested in such settings. For example, self-generation of answers to questions should help children to remember. But what if children cannot generate anything? And what if they make an error? Do these deviations from the laboratory norm of perfect generation hurt, and, if so, do they hurt enough that one should, in practice, spurn generation? Can feedback compensate, or are errors catastrophic? The studies reviewed here address three interlocking questions in an effort to better implement a computer-based study program to help children learn: (1) Does generation help? (2) Do errors hurt if they are corrected? And (3) what is the effect of feedback? The answers to these questions are: Yes, generation helps; no, surprisingly, errors that are corrected do not hurt; and, finally, feedback is beneficial in verbal learning. These answers may help put cognitive scientists in a better position to put their well-established principles in the service of children's learning.

Clarificación y delimitación de la psicopatología. Respuesta a Villagrán / Clarifying and delimiting psychopathology. An answer to Villagrán

Aprovechando una llamada a la discusión en psicopatología, en este artículo se pretende clarificar y delimitar su concepto, tal y como los autores la entienden. Clarificar su postura y delimitarla frente a otras posiciones hegemónicas, al menos en el orden efectivo de las adhesiones. Se quiere así contribuir, de buen grado y de forma escueta, a la posibilidad de que las posturas queden lo más nítidamente establecidas y, en sucesivos encuentros, si ha lugar, no remachen sobre el mismo clavo de forma contumaz. De ello se deriva, así lo creemos, una aportación directa a la discusión psicopatológica y una mutua aclaración conceptual de las partes, que en cualquier caso debe resultar beneficiosa

In answering a call for debate in psychopathology, about the sense of revising phenomenology, this article tries to clarify and delimit its concept from the authors point of view. As brief and clearly as possible, the authors try to defend their own conception from the dominant positions, asserting the difference between psychopathology and semiology, rescuing the value of psychopathology as a technique and conceiving the psychiatric symptom as a mediation unit, more than a semiotic basic category. Subjective experience is recalled as the empirical ground for psychopathology

Cognitive neuroscience and the law.

Advances in cognitive neuroscience now allow us to use physiological techniques to measure and assess mental states under a growing set of circumstances. The implication of this growing ability has not been lost on the western legal community. If biologists can accurately measure mental state, then legal conflicts that turn on the true mental states of individuals might well be resolvable with techniques ranging from electroencephalography to functional magnetic resonance imaging. Therefore, legal practitioners have increasingly sought to employ cognitive neuroscientific methods and data as evidence to influence legal proceedings. This poses a risk, because these scientific methodologies have largely been designed and validated for experimental use only. Their subsequent use in legal proceedings is an application for which they were not intended, and for which those methods are inadequately tested. We propose that neurobiologists, who might inadvertently contribute to this situation, should be aware of how their papers will be read by the legal community and should play a more active role in educating and engaging with that community.