The polarity of mental connections.

2006 ◽  
pp. 152-158
Author(s):  
Edward L. Thorndike ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Olga V. Dubkova ◽  

At present, fragments of the Chinese worldview are studied on the basis of theoretical and practical research developed by the Moscow Psycholinguistic School. In Russian and Chinese psycholinguistics, sufficient material has been accumulated to determine the main advantages of the free associative experiment. The problems of identifying stimulus words and interpreting reactions reflecting the Chinese picture of the world are also obvious. The free associative experiment allows us to determine the deep mental connections of the phonetic and graphic appearance of the Chinese word, represented by graphemes different from those of the Russian language, the latter having their own lexical and additional “graphic” meaning. The difficulties in learning languages of different typological systems are associated with the problems of compiling a vocabulary of stimulus words and the possibility of a multivalued interpretation of Chinese recipients’ reactions, reflecting the images of the Chinese consciousness. For this reason, it is unacceptable to transfer the “reification” of fragments of the Russian worldview to the fragments of the Chinese worldview. When compiling a vocabulary of stimulus words, one should take into account the structural and grammatical features of the Chinese word, the structure of Chinese characters and their origin, the frequency in the speech of native speakers, etc. To interpret the reactions of a free associative experiment, in addition to bilingual dictionaries, it is advisable to use various dictionaries of the Chinese language, including etymological ones. Based on the established tradition of analyzing the results of associative experiments, the author typologizes the reactions of Chinese speakers, which allows to establish the dynamics of the Chinese worldview.


1922 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 317-331
Author(s):  
Edward L. Thorndike

As things are now, pupils lack mastery of the elements of algebra. The extent to which this is the case can be understood and appreciated best by the consideration of actual test results. The tasks shown in Table I. were the first twenty-eight of forty making a test for which from 90 to 100 minutes was allowed and which could be done by first rate algebraists in twenty-five minutes without errors save an occasional lapse.2 Few or no complaints were made about insufficient time, and almost all the pupils attempted all of these twenty-eight tasks, and others beyond them. The schools were either private schools with excellent facilities, or public high schools in cities which rank much above the average of the country in their provision for education. In both eases the pupils would, beyond question, be superior to the average of second-year high-school pupils in general intellect and capacity for mathematics. All the pupils had studied algebra for at least one year. Most of them were continuing their study of it at the time the test was given (in October and November and December, 1921).


1994 ◽  
pp. 10-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Young

The ability to make, understand, and use maps is essential for anyone trying to think about the world around them. Children's failure to make and use maps in a meaningful way contributes to the lack of geographic awareness across the country. The "linguistic map" (a graphic representation of the mental connections between words, sensory images, abstract concepts, and value judgments) is proposed as a model for evaluating maps used in educational materials. An evaluation of social studies textbooks found that the maps failed to promote learning at all three levels proposed by the linguistic model: concrete images, abstract analysis, and value evaluation. Problems with the textbook maps are examined and suggestions developed for using maps in educational materials.


2018 ◽  
Vol 141 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Faez Ahmed ◽  
Sharath Kumar Ramachandran ◽  
Mark Fuge ◽  
Samuel Hunter ◽  
Scarlett Miller

Assessing similarity between design ideas is an inherent part of many design evaluations to measure novelty. In such evaluation tasks, humans excel at making mental connections among diverse knowledge sets to score ideas on their uniqueness. However, their decisions about novelty are often subjective and difficult to explain. In this paper, we demonstrate a way to uncover human judgment of design idea similarity using two-dimensional (2D) idea maps. We derive these maps by asking participants for simple similarity comparisons of the form “Is idea A more similar to idea B or to idea C?” We show that these maps give insight into the relationships between ideas and help understand the design domain. We also propose that novel ideas can be identified by finding outliers on these idea maps. To demonstrate our method, we conduct experimental evaluations on two datasets—colored polygons (known answer) and milk frother sketches (unknown answer). We show that idea maps shed light on factors considered by participants in judging idea similarity and the maps are robust to noisy ratings. We also compare physical maps made by participants on a white-board to their computationally generated idea maps to compare how people think about spatial arrangement of design items. This method provides a new direction of research into deriving ground truth novelty metrics by combining human judgments and computational methods.


Author(s):  
Faez Ahmed ◽  
Mark Fuge ◽  
Sam Hunter ◽  
Scarlett Miller

Assessing similarity between design ideas is an inherent part of many design evaluations to measure novelty. In such evaluation tasks, humans excel at making mental connections among diverse knowledge sets and scoring ideas on their uniqueness. However, their decisions on novelty are often subjective and difficult to explain. In this paper, we demonstrate a way to uncover human judgment of design idea similarity using two dimensional idea maps. We derive these maps by asking humans for simple similarity comparisons of the form “Is idea A more similar to idea B or to idea C?” We show that these maps give insight into the relationships between ideas and help understand the domain. We also propose that the novelty of ideas can be estimated by measuring how far items are on these maps. We demonstrate our methodology through the experimental evaluations on two datasets of colored polygons (known answer) and milk frothers (unknown answer) sketches. We show that these maps shed light on factors considered by raters in judging idea similarity. We also show how maps change when less data is available or false/noisy ratings are provided. This method provides a new direction of research into deriving ground truth novelty metrics by combining human judgments and computational methods.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 4565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania Ouariachi ◽  
Chih-Yen Li ◽  
Wim J. L. Elving

Education is a key factor to respond to the threat of climate change, increasing not only knowledge but also encouraging changes in attitudes and behaviors to adopt sustainable lifestyles. Scholars and practitioners in the field of education call for innovative ways of engaging youth—a reason why gamification has gained more attention in recent years. This paper aims at exploring the role of gamification in affecting pro-environmental behavioral change and searching for best practices for educational purposes. For that aim, pro-environmental gamification platforms are identified and analyzed by applying two different frameworks: the Octalysis Framework and the Climate Change Engagement through Games Framework. After scanning 181 cases, a final sample of six is analyzed and two of them are selected as best practices with higher potential to engage users in pro-environmental behavioral change: SaveOhno and JouleBug. Meaning, ownership, and social influence, as well as achievability, challenge, and credibility, are seen as core elements that can increase the success of gamification platforms. In conclusion, the more attributes are enclosed in the gamification design, the stronger physical and mental connections it builds up with participants. Insights from this study can help educators to select best practices and gamification designers to better influence behavioral change through game mechanics.


Author(s):  
Manfred Liebel

In order to gain a concept of childhoods in the Global South, it is necessary to understand the connections between colonialization and childhood. This chapter conceptualizes childhood as a form of being and engages in a discourse on the same. It shows how the history of childhood is closely intertwined with changes in the modes of production and reproduction of societies. Particularly with the development of the capitalist mode of production in the modern European era and the rise of the bourgeoisie to the ruling class. In the first part, this chapter discusses the mental connections between the emergence of the European bourgeois childhood pattern and the colonialization of foreign continents. In this context, it traces the dialectic of education or literacy and power in the colonial and postcolonial relations. In the second part, this chapter explains how, in the 1960s and 70s, the discourse on the colonization of childhood arose and finally was linked with post- and decolonial theories. In conclusion it sheds light on some ambivalences of European-bourgeois childhood constructions with regard to colonialization and decolonization.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-54
Author(s):  
Kyle Miner

Shane Carruth's 2013 film Upstream Colour provides a model for considering identity and subject formation in what Steven Shaviro calls the “network society.” Shaviro argues that our contemporary mode of experience, at least as rendered through popular media, is characterized by “flows of affect” produced to hail us at every turn. Carruth's film offers the possibility that living in the network society means not only that we are subject to such flows, but that individuals are subject to invasive modes of fragmentation and commodification as producers of their own affect (in this case, memory and experience). Building on Shaviro's own definition of a network, I focus on how the mental connections forged between characters represent the nodal connections Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker say characterize network formation and behavior, and how the access rendered over those characters by the primary antagonist (referred to as The Sampler) works as a kind of “protocological control.” I then turn to Deleuze's theorization of the fold to discuss how new modes of subjectivity and relationality are modeled in the characters' phenomenological experience of these mental connections, in which distinctions of personal subjectivity and memory begin to blur and overlap. Finally, I return to Shaviro for implications of this model of experience, and to show how absorption in and by the network poses new possibilities for connection as well as potential for fragmentation and commodification.


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