The quality of first-year dental students' cognitive structures and the factors that influence it.

INTRODUCTION: In health professions education, it is widely recognised that concept mapping helps students organise their knowledge. This study aimed to investigate the quality of first-year dental students' cognitive structures and the factors that influence it. Two approaches (qualitative and descriptive) to analysing student concept maps are described in this article. The qualitative approach emphasises the distinct morphologies (structures) that are considered to indicate the level of understanding. The descriptive approach provides information on the content's richness in terms of concepts and key concepts. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 31 first-year dental students participated in this study. In an introductory session, students drew their first concept map (CM) using Cmaptools software. Then, students created and submitted individualised CMs for four course topics. Qualitative and descriptive approaches to analysing concept maps are valuable because they highlight what students have learned and how they organise and structure knowledge through CMs. To determine students' cognitive structures and explore the evolution of their representations over the four course topics, two examiners analysed the CMs' morphology and content. RESULTS: Students presented various cognitive structures for the same topic. The quality of concept maps seemed to be influenced by the topic, as well as by familiarisation with making CM. CONCLUSION: Concept mapping revealed the organisation of students' knowledge. This study explored the structural (morphology) and content analyses of CMs. The quality of the CMs seems to be affected by the nature of the topic.

Age-related effects on a hierarchical structure of canine cognition.

The current study investigates whether there are statistically independent age-related influences on the canine cognitive structure and how individual factors moderate cognitive aging on both cross-sectional and longitudinal samples. A battery of seven tasks was administered to 129 pet dogs, on which exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were employed to unveil the correlational structure underlying individual differences in cognitive performance. The best-fitting model featured a hierarchical structure with two first-order cognitive domains (individual problem solving, learning) and a second-order common factor. These higher order factors exhibited consistency over a period of at least 2.5 years. External validation linked the common factor positively to discrimination and reversal learning performance, exploration, neophilia, activity/excitability, and training level while negatively to cognitive dysfunction symptoms, suggesting that it is a good candidate for a general cognitive factor (canine g). Structural equation models identified three distinct age-related influences, operating on associative learning, on memory, and on canine g. Health status moderated the negative age-canine g relationship, with a stronger association observed in dogs with poorer health status, and no relationship for dogs in good health. On a longitudinal sample (N = 99), we showed that the direction and magnitude of change in canine g over up to 3 years is affected by various interactions between the dogs' age, communication score, baseline performance, and time elapsed since the baseline measurement. These findings underscore the presence of a general cognitive factor in dogs and reveal intriguing parallels between human and canine aging, affirming the translational value of dogs in cognition and aging research.

Personalized Teaching Questioning Strategies Study Based on Learners' Cognitive Structure Diagnosis.

Personalized education has been a widely shared goal pursued by Chinese and foreign educators. As the primary method of teacher-student interaction, the importance of personalized questioning is self-evident. Due to a lack of technical support, teachers rely on their teaching experience to ask questions without considering the learning situation of learners. This results in teaching questioning being unable to support learners' learning. These questions are relatively shallow and cannot promote the construction and transfer of learners' knowledge. Cognitive diagnostic technology could diagnose learners' cognitive states and provide services for personalized teaching. Therefore, a personalized teaching questioning strategy based on learners' cognitive structure diagnosis was proposed in this study. Firstly, we diagnosed learners' cognitive structure through usability, distinguishability, and stability. Secondly, we discussed the types of questions that teachers should raise when facing learners in different situations. We also discussed the application of personalized teaching questioning strategies. The experiment took place at M Primary School in Ningxia, China, with the participation of one teacher and ninety-seven fourth-grade students. Seven lessons were observed and videotaped across a range of topics. The study revealed that personalized teaching questioning strategies could improve learners' academic performance and subject literacy. They can also increase the number of teacher questioning, change the depth of teacher questioning content, and expand the scope of questioning subjects.

Cognitive Structure of College Students and Teaching Strategies of Ideological and Political Education Under Educational Psychology.

The ideological and political education (IPE) situation is constantly developing and changing. In modern globalization, the ideological education of college students has received great attention. The purpose is to strengthen morality and cultivate people as the basic point of a college education. The principles of educational psychology are adopted to integrate IPE into the whole process of college teaching and help students develop healthily for a long time. First, IPE psychology's concept and subject attribute under educational psychology are expounded. Next, the concept and development of cognitive structure theory are introduced. Moreover, educational constructivist measures are analyzed. Furthermore, the cognitive structure of college students' self-cognition and IPE is interpreted and analyzed using cognitive psychology. Then, a questionnaire is designed to study the influencing factors of political education strategies in colleges. Finally, the questionnaire is collected to summarize the influencing factors and put forward optimization strategies. The results show that using the principles of educational psychology and cognitive psychology to investigate can accurately understand modern college students' self-cognitive structure and ideological and political cognitive structure. The opportunity factor greatly impacts the IPE strategy of college students. More than 97% think that it has an impact, of which more than 51% think that it has a great impact and more than 21% think that it is the decisive factor. Challenge factors greatly impact college students' IPE strategies. More than 97% think they have an impact, of which more than 55% think they have a great impact, and more than 24% think they are decisive factors. It shows that educational psychology is conducive to the progress of political education in colleges and the improvement of college students' ideological and political levels. This exploration provides a new direction for educational psychology research in ideological and political work.

The Emergence of Mathematical Understanding: Connecting to the Closest Superordinate and Convertible Concepts.

This study aimed to examine the specific means and internal processes through which mathematical understanding is achieved by focusing on the process of understanding three new mathematical concepts. For this purpose interviews were conducted with 54 junior high school students. The results revealed that mathematical understanding can be achieved when new concepts are connected to at least two existing concepts within a student's cognitive structure of. One of these two concepts should be the superordinate concept of the new concept or, more accurately, the superordinate concept that is closest to the new concept. The other concept should be convertible, so that a specific example can be derived by changing or transforming its examples. Moreover, the process of understanding a new concept was found to involve two processes, namely, "going" and "coming." "Going" refers to the process by which a connection is established between a new concept and its closest superordinate concept. In contrast, "coming" is a process by which a connection is established between an existing convertible concept and a new concept. Therefore the connection leading to understanding should include two types of connections: belonging and transforming. These new findings enrich the literature on mathematical understanding and encourage further exploration. The findings suggest that, in order to help students fully understand new mathematical concepts, teachers should first explain the definition of a given concept to students and subsequently teach them how to create a specific example based on examples of an existing concept.

Functional Brain Network Analysis of Knowledge Transfer While Engineering Problem-Solving.

As a complex cognitive activity, knowledge transfer is mostly correlated to cognitive processes such as working memory, behavior control, and decision-making in the human brain while engineering problem-solving. It is crucial to explain how the alteration of the functional brain network occurs and how to express it, which causes the alteration of the cognitive structure of knowledge transfer. However, the neurophysiological mechanisms of knowledge transfer are rarely considered in existing studies. Thus, this study proposed functional connectivity (FC) to describe and evaluate the dynamic brain network of knowledge transfer while engineering problem-solving. In this study, we adopted the modified Wisconsin Card-Sorting Test (M-WCST) reported in the literature. The neural activation of the prefrontal cortex was continuously recorded for 31 participants using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Concretely, we discussed the prior cognitive level, knowledge transfer distance, and transfer performance impacting the wavelet amplitude and wavelet phase coherence. The paired t-test results showed that the prior cognitive level and transfer distance significantly impact FC. The Pearson correlation coefficient showed that both wavelet amplitude and phase coherence are significantly correlated to the cognitive function of the prefrontal cortex. Therefore, brain FC is an available method to evaluate cognitive structure alteration in knowledge transfer. We also discussed why the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and occipital face area (OFA) distinguish themselves from the other brain areas in the M-WCST experiment. As an exploratory study in NeuroManagement, these findings may provide neurophysiological evidence about the functional brain network of knowledge transfer while engineering problem-solving.

The Structure of the Concepts Related to Love Spectrum: Emotional Verbal Fluency Technique Application, Initial Psychometrics, and Its Validation.

Love has been thoroughly studied and a variety of definitions as well as types of love have been described in the literature. Given the data presenting natural language of love concept, the aim of the two present studies is to demonstrate a new technique which enables description of the structure of emotion concepts within love spectrum. This technique is based on emotional verbal fluency tasks. The procedure and the coding system used are reported in the article along with the data on reliability and standardization of the emotional verbal fluency technique. Construct validity is demonstrated by correlations of the emotional verbal fluency tasks with semantic and letter verbal fluency tasks, while discriminant validity is shown by correlations with other measures, such as the Triangular Love Scale, the Love Attitudes Scale, and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. The article also presents how the emotional verbal fluency technique can be used in exploring the structure of emotion concepts within love spectrum. This is based on a hierarchical cluster analysis. An examination of connections between semantic clusters identified in the emotional verbal fluency tasks allows describing a structure of the concepts within love spectrum, such as liking, infatuation, love, and show of its differentiation. The presented technique taking into account natural language is of value in assessments of the structure of emotion concepts.

Identification of Cognitive and Social Framework of Tissue Engineering by Science Mapping Analysis.

IMPACT STATEMENT: This study evaluates the cognitive structure and social behavior of tissue engineering (TE) based on a science mapping analysis. Understanding the terms and topics that play a key role in the development of TE can help administrative authorities to better plan funding. Moreover, a better knowledge of collaborative networks in TE and the identification of potential new opportunities for collaboration may enhance synergies in scientific activities to implement future approaches to therapy.

Connecting With Fundamental Mathematical Knowledge Directly: The Organizational Features of Good Mathematical Cognitive Structure.

This paper reported on the study of a good mathematical cognitive structure (GMCS) based on 43 top university students and 82 concepts of Calculus materials, using the social network analysis method. The results indicated that the GMCS has the following organizational features: (1) The mathematical knowledge (MK) in GMCS interconnected widely, especially in MK with a higher connection tightness; (2) Most connections between MK were direct; (3) MK of the basic and higher inclusive level had a greater impact; and (4) There were multiple MK accumulation points connecting others to form subsets. These new findings enrich the results of previous GMCS studies and promotes further exploration of GMCS. In view of this, teachers should pay closer attention to basic and abstract MK and help their students construct various direct connections of the MK in their mind.

Sequential Revision of Belief, Trust Type, and the Order Effect.

Objective To investigate how people's sequential adjustments to their position are impacted by the source of the information. Background There is an extensive body of research on how the order in which new information is received affects people's final views and decisions as well as research on how they adjust their views in light of new information. Method Seventy college-aged students, 60% of whom were women, completed one of eight different randomly distributed booklets prepared to create the eight different between-subjects treatment conditions created by crossing the two levels of information source with the four level of order conditions. Based on the information provided, participants estimated the probability of an attack, the dependent measure. Results Confirming information from an expert intelligence officer significantly increased the attack probability from the initial position more than confirming information from a longtime friend. Conversely, disconfirming information from a longtime friend decreased the attack probability significantly more than the same information from an intelligence officer. Conclusion It was confirmed that confirming and disconfirming evidence were differentially affected depending on information source, either an expert or a close friend. The difference appears to be due to the existence of two kinds of trust: cognitive-based imbued to an expert and affective-based imbued to a close friend. Application Purveyors of information need to understand that it is not only the content of a message that counts but that other forces are at work such as the order in which information is received and characteristics of the information source.

Different Context but Similar Cognitive Structures: Older Adults in Rural Bangladesh.

Most research in cognitive aging is based on literate participants from high-income and Western populations. The extent to which findings generalize to low-income and illiterate populations is unknown. The main aim was to examine the structure of between-person differences in cognitive functions among elderly from rural Bangladesh. We used data from the Poverty and Health in Aging (PHA) project in Bangladesh. The participants (n = 452) were in the age range 60-92 years. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate the fit of a five-factor model (episodic recall, episodic recognition, verbal fluency, semantic knowledge, processing speed) and to examine whether the model generalized across age, sex, and literacy. This study demonstrates that an established model of cognition is valid also among older persons from rural Bangladesh. The model demonstrated strong (or scalar) invariance for age, and partial strong invariance for sex and literacy. Semantic knowledge and processing speed showed weak (or metric) sex invariance, and semantic knowledge demonstrated also sensitivity to illiteracy. In general, women performed poorer on all abilities. The structure of individual cognitive differences established in Western populations also fits a population in rural Bangladesh well. This is an important prerequisite for comparisons of cognitive functioning (e.g., declarative memory) across cultures. It is also worth noting that absolute sex differences in cognitive performance among rural elderly in Bangladesh differ from those usually found in Western samples.

Stereotypical thinking as a mediating factor in the association between exposure to terror and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms among Israeli youth.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The negative impact of exposure to terror on mental health, as well as on the perceptions of each side of the conflict toward the other, is well-documented. However, the association between stereotyping, concomitant with perceived threat, and anxiety, was rarely investigated. The current study examined information processing attributes and exposure to terror as predictors of PTSD symptoms among youth at inter-group conflict, with stereotypical thinking toward a threatening out-group as a possible mediator. DESIGN: Cross-sectional, with exposure to terror, need for cognitive structure (NCS), efficacy at fulfilling the need for closure (EFNC) and self-esteem, predicting stereotypical thinking and PTSD symptoms. METHOD: Ninth graders (N = 263) from two residential areas in Israel, varying in their degree of exposure to terror, responded to a self-report questionnaire tapping the above variables. RESULTS: Stereotypical thinking was found to mediate the association between exposure to terror and PTSD symptoms, but not the association between the NCS and EFNC interaction and PTSD symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: The findings support terror management theory, so that a negative and rigid perception makes it difficult to construct coherent world-view, thus contributing to aggregation of existential anxiety and PTSD symptoms.

The cognitive structure of goal emulation during the preschool years.

Humans excel at mirroring both others' actions (imitation) as well as others' goals and intentions (emulation). As most research has focused on imitation, here we focus on how social and asocial learning predict the development of goal emulation. We tested 215 preschool children on two social conditions (imitation, emulation) and two asocial conditions (trial-and-error and recall) using two touch screen tasks. The tasks involved responding to either three different pictures in a specific picture order (Cognitive: apple→boy→cat) or three identical pictures in a specific spatial order (Motor-Spatial: up→down→right). Generalized linear models demonstrated that during the preschool years, Motor-Spatial emulation is associated with social and asocial learning, while cognitive emulation is associated only with social learning, including motor-spatial emulation and multiple forms of imitation. This result contrasts with those from a previous study using this same data set showing that motor-spatial and cognitive imitation were neither associated with one another nor, generally, predicted by other forms of social or asocial learning. Together, these results suggests that while developmental changes in imitation are associated with multiple - specialized - mechanisms, developmental changes in emulation are associated with age-related changes and a more unitary, domain-general mechanism that receives input from several different cognitive and learning processes, including some that may not necessarily be specialized for social learning.

Exploring relationships of human-automation interaction consequences on pilots: uncovering subsystems.

OBJECTIVE: We attempted to understand the latent structure underlying the systems pilots use to operate in situations involving human-automation interaction (HAI). BACKGROUND: HAI is an important characteristic of many modern work situations. Of course, the cognitive subsystems are not immediately apparent by observing a functioning system, but correlations between variables may reveal important relations. METHOD: The current report examined pilot judgments of 11 HAI dimensions (e.g., Workload, Task Management, Stress/Nervousness, Monitoring Automation, and Cross-Checking Automation) across 48 scenarios that required airline pilots to interact with automation on the flight deck. RESULTS: We found three major clusters of the dimensions identifying subsystems on the flight deck: a workload subsystem, a management subsystem, and an awareness subsystem. DISCUSSION: Relationships characterized by simple correlations cohered in ways that suggested underlying subsystems consistent with those that had previously been theorized. APPLICATION: Understanding the relationship among dimensions affecting HAI is an important aspect in determining how a new piece of automation designed to affect one dimension will affect other dimensions as well.

A epistemologia genética de Piaget e o construtivismo / Piaget's genetic epistemology and constructivism

A Epistemologia Genética defende que o indivíduo passa por várias etapas de desenvolvimento ao longo da sua vida. O desenvolvimento é observado pela sobreposição do equilíbrio entre a assimilação e a acomodação, resultando em adaptação. Assim, nesta formulação, o ser humano assimila os dados que obtém do exterior, mas uma vez que já tem uma estrutura mental que não está "vazia", precisa adaptar esses dados à estrutura mental já existente. O processo de modificação de si próprio é chamado de acomodação. Este esquema revela que nenhum conhecimento chega do exterior sem que sofra alguma alteração pelo indivíduo, sendo que tudo o que se aprende é influenciado por aquilo que já havia sido aprendido. A assimilação ocorre quando a informação é incorporada às estruturas já pré-existentes nessa dinâmica estrutura cognitiva, enquanto que a adaptação ocorre quando o organismo se modifica de alguma maneira de modo a incorporar dinamicamente a nova informação. Por fim, de um pensamento moderno que, buscando a síntese inusitada entre o biológico e o lógico-matemático, parece encontrar seus limites na desconstrução ainda mais inusitada a que tende sistematicamente todo o pensamento na atualidade: a de si mesmo se construindo de modo essencialmente esclarecido.(AU)

The Genetic Epistemology argues that the individual goes through various stages of development throughout his life. The development is seen by the overlap of the balance between assimilation and accommodation, resulting in adaptation. Thus, in this formulation humans assimilate the data they obtain from the outside, but once they already have a mental structure that is not "empty", they must adapt these data to the existing mental structure. The process of change itself is called accommodation. This scheme reveals that no knowledge comes from outside without suffering any change by the individual, and everything that is learned is influenced by what was learned. Assimilation occurs when information is incorporated into pre-existing structures in this dynamic cognitive structure, while the conversion occurs when the organism is changed in some way to incorporate the new information dynamically. Finally, a modern thought that seeking the unusual synthesis between the biological and logical-mathematical seems to find its limits in the deconstruction even more unusual that tends systematically all thought at present: the self developing in a essentially clarified way.(AU)

A epistemologia genética de Piaget e o construtivismo / Piaget's genetic epistemology and constructivism

A Epistemologia Genética defende que o indivíduo passa por várias etapas de desenvolvimento ao longo da sua vida. O desenvolvimento é observado pela sobreposição do equilíbrio entre a assimilação e a acomodação, resultando em adaptação. Assim, nesta formulação, o ser humano assimila os dados que obtém do exterior, mas uma vez que já tem uma estrutura mental que não está "vazia", precisa adaptar esses dados à estrutura mental já existente. O processo de modificação de si próprio é chamado de acomodação. Este esquema revela que nenhum conhecimento chega do exterior sem que sofra alguma alteração pelo indivíduo, sendo que tudo o que se aprende é influenciado por aquilo que já havia sido aprendido. A assimilação ocorre quando a informação é incorporada às estruturas já pré-existentes nessa dinâmica estrutura cognitiva, enquanto que a adaptação ocorre quando o organismo se modifica de alguma maneira de modo a incorporar dinamicamente a nova informação. Por fim, de um pensamento moderno que, buscando a síntese inusitada entre o biológico e o lógico-matemático, parece encontrar seus limites na desconstrução ainda mais inusitada a que tende sistematicamente todo o pensamento na atualidade: a de si mesmo se construindo de modo essencialmente esclarecido