The Access Paradox in Analogical Reasoning and Transfer: Whither Invariance?

Despite the burgeoning research in recent years on what is called analogical reasoning and transfer, the problem of how invariant or similarity relations are fundamentally accessed is typically either unrecognized, or ignored in computational cognitive science and artificial intelligence. This problematic is not a new one, being outlined by the epistemological learning paradox found in Plato’s Meno. In order to understand the analogical-access problematic, it is suggested that the concept of analogical reasoning needs to be reconceptualized as a subset of a higher order domain including the lexical concept metaphor, isomorphic relation in mathematics, the concept of homology in biology, stimulus generalization in psychology, transfer of learning in education, and transposition phenomena in perception, as all share the problem of how invariance relations are generated and accessed. A solution is suggested based on two specific evolutionary and neurological models, coupled with findings regarding the cognitive importance of knowledge-base. The paper constitutes a reciprocal complementarity theory to a previous paper on metaphor, suggesting the neurological origins and a recon¬ceptualization of what are commonly called analogical and metaphorical reasoning. The paper also introduces a higher order form of analogical reasoning called analogical progression. Implications for research on analogical reasoning are discussed indicating the need for a paradigm shift in analogical reasoning research. The paper concludes with a four-stage model of analogical access

The entrepreneurial process of the entrepreneurs in Germany and the role of experiential learning in this process

Diese Dissertation schlägt vor, Unternehmertum durch die Theorie des Erfahrungslernens nach Kolb (2015) zu fördern. Unternehmertum wird erreicht, wenn es dem Unternehmer gelingt, eine Gelegenheit zu erkennen. Unternehmerische Selbstwirksamkeit, innovatives Verhalten und die Wahrnehmung von Chancen sind die Säulen des konzeptionellen Modells dieser Forschung. Die Schätzungen dieses Modells stützten sich auf Primärdaten, die von Unternehmern in Deutschland erhoben wurden (N=309). Für die Datenanalyse und den Test des hypothetischen Modells wird in dieser Studie das Strukturgleichungsmodell (SEM) verwendet. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die unternehmerische Selbstwirksamkeit einen direkten, positiven Effekt auf das Erkennen von Chancen bei deutschen Unternehmern hat. Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass innovatives Verhalten die direkte Beziehung zwischen unternehmerischer Selbstwirksamkeit und Chancenwahrnehmung vollständige Mediation vermittelt. Der Einsatz von innovativem Verhalten zur hancenerkennung führt zu einer innovativen Gelegenheit und damit zu einem Mehrwert für die Wirtschaft. Um diesen unternehmerischen Prozess zu unterstützen, schlägt diese Studie für jedes Konstrukt des konzeptionellen Modells einen erfahrungsbasierten Lernstil vor. Die aktuelle Studie erklärt empirisch, warum manche Menschen in Deutschland eine Chance erkennen können, andere aber nicht. Auf diese Weise erklärt sie, warum Unternehmer in Deutschland eine höhere Wertschöpfung erbringen als in den Nachbarländern der Europäischen Union. Des Weiteren leistet sie einen Beitrag zur Unternehmer-Ausbildung, indem sie die Theorie des Erfahrungslernens in einen unternehmerischen Prozess einführt, durch den ein Unternehmer lernt, eine Gelegenheit zu erkennen. In diesem Zusammenhang wird versucht zu beantworten, wie Unternehmer lernen können, eine Chance wahrzunehmen

Digital integrated dramatherapy: A feasibility study in women undergoing assisted reproductive technology

BackgroundDramatherapy is a practice of working and playing that uses action methods to facilitate creativity, imagination, learning, insight and growth.MethodsA pilot study of Digital Integrated Dramatherapy, recruiting women from the digital community “Parole Fertili,” undergoing assisted reproductive technology. On the basis of a previous blended experience, a program based on remote sessions was conducted on a dedicated platform.ResultsA total of 22 women participated in the same intervention in three groups. Participants assessed the feasibility and utility of the method, both in the synchronous and asynchronous phases. The group had a fundamental role: the participants were supportive, and therapeutic benefits were due to strengthening and resilience obtained through a dialogue with other women. Using metaphors, the participants could move from the narration of the Assisted Reproductive Technology pathway to creative and corporeal expression.ConclusionThe study showed that a group based on Digital Integrated Dramatherapy might help women face very difficult emotions by promoting creativity and internal resources

Dramatic discourse in poetry.

This thesis is a theoretical and philosophical discussion of the nature\ud of poetic discourse, with a subsequent discussion of pedagogic practice\ud arising from the views expressed, whose effectiveness is illustrated by a\ud subjective selection of protocols. The central claim is that the peculiar\ud nature of poetic discourse is inherently dramatic, since it internalizes\ud 'voices'. Therefore, to achieve a total experience of poetry the reader needs\ud to engage his own schemata in their body/thought entirety. This implies that\ud he has not to limit himself to the 'sounding' of the 'voices' he achieves in\ud the text just within his 'inward ear', but he has to 'embody' them, 'inhabit'\ud them within a 'physical space of representation', letting them inter-act with\ud other readers' embodiments. In so doing, the reader becomes an Acting Reader.\ud The contribution this thesis offers to research on Discourse Analysis\ud and Literary Stylistics consists in recognizing the vocal, 'physical'\ud dimension of poetic texts (a dimension which is often neglected) as a way of\ud achieving a more thorough personal awareness of the poetic experience.\ud Accordingly, I elaborate a principled pedagogic approach to poetic language\ud through the reader's use of drama techniques with the aim to demonstrate how\ud it can be relevant in the teaching of poetry to either Ll or L2 students at\ud both High School and University levels.\ud So that in the theoretical part (Chapters 1-4) I place my rationale\ud against a context of 'new-critic', semiotic, and deconstructionist approaches\ud to literary theory and teaching methodology to demonstrate how they imply only\ud a one-way communication of a pre-established interpretation (Chapters 1-2).\ud Then I describe the first 'two phases' of the reader's activation of\ud 'familiarizing' top-down and 'defamiliarizing' bottom-up strategies in his\ud attempt to authenticate the peculiar structural and semantic arrangement of\ud the poetic text (Chapter 3). Eventually, these two top-down/bottom-up phases\ud come to merge during the final interactive phase (Chapter 4) in which I\ud postulate a group of acting readers' multiple 'embodied' poetic discourses -\ud controlled by the same poetic text - inter-acting in a representational\ud 'physical' space to recreate selves, schemata, and iconic contexts.\ud This theory systematically informs the practical part of my research\ud (Chapters 5-9) consisting in 'dialogic' classroom operationalizations of each\ud of the three phases. I pragmatically demonstrate (through protocol analysis)\ud that to be conceptually receptive to poetic language the student/acting-reader\ud needs to be physically prepared to be receptive to it. Stylistics, thus, is\ud meant as the analysis of the acting reader's own responses, not as the\ud analysis of the text (Chapter 5). I first provide 'top-down' affective\ud evidence that the nature of schemata is essentially 'bodily', as the body is\ud the experiential way to conceptualization (Chapter 6). Then, I show\ud students/acting-readers' 'bottom-up' cognitive embodiments of\ud ideational/interpersonal 'voices' in both macro- and micro-communication\ud (Chapter 7), to finally describe groups of acting readers' pragmatic\ud achievements of 'interactive' dramatic embodiments of collective poetic\ud discourses (Chapter 8). I conclude (Chapter 9) by indicating possible\ud theoretical and pedagogic developments of my rationale

Resonance, a step towards a fluency for complexity: The science, language, and epistemology of Gregory Bateson

This thesis confronts the urgency with which new language and vocabulary is required to move beyond linear assumptions in mainstream science and humanities, as well as global policy making. I examine Gregory Bateson’s body of work in history and philosophy of science, psychiatry and psychotherapy, anthropology, biology and ecology designed to communicate the necessarily interdisciplinary consideration for a nonlinear and recursive investigation of the self, other, and environment. Such intellectual forays cannot be dismissed as non-scientific. I offer definitions and contextualizations of key terms derived from cybernetics, new materialisms, and posthumanism (such as emergence, process, paradox, metaphor, fractality) to speak about the ramifying intricacies and pathologies in processes of knowing at various different scales. I conclude with a theory of resonance that may offer the epistemological groundwork with which to construct a metaphor of precarious intervention and to model a critical relationship between epistemology and ethics

The Relative Contribution to Meaning of Verbal and Nonverbal Channels of Communication: A Meta-Analysis

The current study is grounded in the psychological approaches to the mechanics of communication, somewhere between cybernetics and attribution. The integration of information available in different channels is the focus of the present study. To what extent do people rely on the different channels of communication to assign meaning to their world? More specifically, what is the relative importance of the verbal and nonverbal channels of communication in the meaning creation process? This question of channel reliance is of central import to the study of the role of information in social/psychological systems. If it can be assumed that meaning is based, at least in part, on information received from other people, increased weight to specific channels is bound to influence the meaning that is produced in any given situation. To understand how people create meaning we need to understand what the basis is for that meaning. Scholars may wish to begin to integrate nonverbal information into a variety of currently verbal-oriented approaches to communication. There appears to be some consistent patterns in the studies on the relationship between the verbal and nonverbal channels of communication. The present study finds significant effects the type of meaning conveyed, the age of the receiver, and the stimuli type used as an independent variable in the primary study. It seems clear that meaning is the product of both verbal and nonverbal information, apparently with little interaction between these channels. While the present study cannot claim to be a definitive end-point for research in this area, it should serve as impetus for further research into the patterns revealed here. Advisor: Jack Ka

2D and 3D Fabrication Devices: Can They Improve Spatial Reasoning Skills in Children?

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the potential benefit of two hours of activities involving 2D and 3D fabricators on the spatial reasoning skills of children in Grades 4 and 5, ages 9 to 10, from a private school in Southeast Texas. Can the introduction to hands-on activities with products created with these devices and learning about how these devices operate improve spatial reasoning skills? The research also evaluates the use of the Shapes Test as a valid measure of the spatial reasoning skills of children. The Cube Design and Spatial Memory subtests of the UNIT (Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Tests) were used for evaluating the spatial reasoning skills of the participants, based on their respected validity, along with a Shapes Test that is in development. Discussion regarding gender, language, and experiential theories of spatial reasoning skill development are included in the literature review

Instructional strategies integrating cognitive style construct : a meta-knowledge processing model

The overarching goal of this dissertation was to evaluate the contextual components of instructional strategies for the acquisition of complex programming concepts. A meta-knowledge processing model is proposed, on the basis of the research findings, thereby facilitating the selection of media treatment for electronic courseware. When implemented, this model extends the work of Smith (1998), as a front-end methodology, for his glass-box interpreter called Bradman, for teaching novice programmers. Technology now provides the means to produce individualized instructional packages with relative ease. Multimedia and Web courseware development accentuate a highly graphical (or visual) approach to instructional formats. Typically, little consideration is given to the effectiveness of screen-based visual stimuli, and curiously, students are expected to be visually literate, despite the complexity of human-computer interaction. Visual literacy is much harder for some people to acquire than for others! (see Chapter Four: Conditions-of-the-Learner) An innovative research programme was devised to investigate the interactive effect of instructional strategies, enhanced with text-plus-textual metaphors or text-plus-graphical metaphors, and cognitive style, on the acquisition of a special category of abstract (process) programming concept. This type of concept was chosen to focus on the role of analogic knowledge involved in computer programming. The results are discussed within the context of the internal/external exchange process, drawing on Ritchey\u27s (1980) concepts of within-item and between-item encoding elaborations. The methodology developed for the doctoral project integrates earlier research knowledge in a novel, interdisciplinary, conceptual framework, including: from instructional science in the USA, for the concept learning models; British cognitive psychology and human memory research, for defining the cognitive style construct; and Australian educational research, to provide the measurement tools for instructional outcomes. The experimental design consisted of a screening test to determine cognitive style, a pretest to determine prior domain knowledge in abstract programming knowledge elements, the instruction period, and a post-test to measure improved performance. This research design provides a three-level discovery process to articulate: 1) the fusion of strategic knowledge required by the novice learner for dealing with contexts within instructional strategies 2) acquisition of knowledge using measurable instructional outcome and learner characteristics 3) knowledge of the innate environmental factors which influence the instructional outcomes This research has successfully identified the interactive effect of instructional strategy, within an individual\u27s cognitive style construct, in their acquisition of complex programming concepts. However, the significance of the three-level discovery process lies in the scope of the methodology to inform the design of a meta-knowledge processing model for instructional science. Firstly, the British cognitive style testing procedure, is a low cost, user friendly, computer application that effectively measures an individual\u27s position on the two cognitive style continua (Riding & Cheema,1991). Secondly, the QUEST Interactive Test Analysis System (Izard,1995), allows for a probabilistic determination of an individual\u27s knowledge level, relative to other participants, and relative to test-item difficulties. Test-items can be related to skill levels, and consequently, can be used by instructional scientists to measure knowledge acquisition. Finally, an Effect Size Analysis (Cohen,1977) allows for a direct comparison between treatment groups, giving a statistical measurement of how large an effect the independent variables have on the dependent outcomes. Combined with QUEST\u27s hierarchical positioning of participants, this tool can assist in identifying preferred learning conditions for the evaluation of treatment groups. By combining these three assessment analysis tools into instructional research, a computerized learning shell, customised for individuals\u27 cognitive constructs can be created (McKay & Garner,1999). While this approach has widespread application, individual researchers/trainers would nonetheless, need to validate with an extensive pilot study programme (McKay,1999a; McKay,1999b), the interactive effects within their specific learning domain. Furthermore, the instructional material does not need to be limited to a textual/graphical comparison, but could be applied to any two or more instructional treatments of any kind. For instance: a structured versus exploratory strategy. The possibilities and combinations are believed to be endless, provided the focus is maintained on linking of the front-end identification of cognitive style with an improved performance outcome. My in-depth analysis provides a better understanding of the interactive effects of the cognitive style construct and instructional format on the acquisition of abstract concepts, involving spatial relations and logical reasoning. In providing the basis for a meta-knowledge processing model, this research is expected to be of interest to educators, cognitive psychologists, communications engineers and computer scientists specialising in computer-human interactions

Parallelism in Verbal Art and Performance

Peer reviewe