Nancy's blog

Best Designed Educational Hypermedia Site

2008-03-15T15:49:00.000-07:00

Nominate a web-site that you think is the "best designed" educational hypermedia site. By educational, I mean the site you nominate must have an educational purpose (not an online catalog for clothing). By hypermedia, I mean, there must be branching and links between pages. By "best designed," I mean given what you've learned about cognitive psychology in this course, what you have learned about learning in other courses, by what you've learned about hypermedia and the issues to pay attention to – which website does the best of satisfying these overall goals. Then writeup:

Which site you chose
Why you chose it (what makes it the "best-designed")?
How could it be better?

I nominate “Teachers Love SMART Boards” http://smartboards.typepad.com/smartboard/ as the best educational hypermedia website I’ve encountered. Its “educational purpose” is to help teachers learn how to use this form of technology with their students.

It is set up as a blog so it is interactive, in terms of teachers being able to ask questions and receive answers. This active engagement helps to improve learning. Moreover, there are webcast videos. These tutorials provide a voice-over while the screen shot offers a demonstration with an animated cursor. This, too, helps to improve learning because the explanation goes beyond the visual mode found in print alone. There is a “frequently asked questions” section which suggests topics the reader might not ask on his/her own. This, too, supports learning theory in that a purpose for learning is established. This offering of frequently asked questions takes into account diverse learners with varying backgrounds. Also, suggesting questions helps to guide the learner toward other topics. The site is frequently updated with new information, which motivates the learner to check the site to find out new information. The information is useful, practical, relevant and meaningful to the learner (the “learner” being defined as a teacher who is using a SMARTboard). The learners are encouraged to share their questions as well as their own ideas which helps give a feeling of personal empowerment in the learning process. Opportunity for review and assimilation ("rehearsal") of information is available by having archives available. The information is quite substantive – both that which is directly given in the site and the additional information ("scaffolding") that is referenced through various links. One could easily spend huge amounts of time with this subject matter. However, one could also spend a short amount of time getting specific information that is offered. For example, a listing of “2-minute videos” is available. Also, posts are given specific subject headings, as are articles, lesson plans, etc. These subject headings would allow the learner to go directly to the specific topic of choice. Again, this is empowering for the learner because he/she is given a choice as to what he/she chooses to learn and how much time he/she wants to devote to the learning process. Also, collaborative learning is encouraged by making it very easy for the learner to share his/her ideas with others. For example, after each blog listing there is an opportunity for the learner to email that particular information to others or to add the information to a saved file or to share more information to that which was given.

The site is well-organized without extraneous distracters. On the left side of the page there is an opportunity to go on-line with questions and/or comments as well as a listing of recent forum topics. On the right side there is an organization overview with a listing of additional pages, categories, recent posts, and archives of each month from August 2007 to the present. This organization overview remains on subsequent pages, which is helpful, in terms of not getting lost! The overview is not displayed, however, if the learner clicks on one of the hyperlinks within the text to view an article, for example. Regardless, this is not a problem because it is easy to simply click on the back arrow to return to the original home page. The main text is in the middle and the length of each line is relatively short. There is adequate spacing between the columns on each side and the main text which makes for easy reading. In other words, one does not get bogged down in lengthy textual information. The contrast between the background and the text is also conducive for easy reading. What I particularly liked about this site was that the author would alternate the print color from red to blue to black, depending on the subject matter. This helped my ability for processing the subject matter by “chunking” the information. It was also helpful, in my opinion, to simply have the links underlined, rather than color-coded. In my opinion, it was more useful to have the varied text coloring be used for more appropriate attention-getting purposes, which was the subject matter. I thought it was also visually well-designed in that the text contained many screen shots, visual depictions, short videos, etc. This visual effect served to increase my interest level in the subject.

Although there is a category listing entitled “Articles” and “Lesson Plans”, perhaps the site could be improved if there was some sort of index which listed all of the articles by title or all of the lesson plans by title. In so doing, this would allow for more expedient access if a learner was looking for something in particular and did not have a lot of time to spend scrolling through topics. Also, another suggestion is that the site could perhaps have a “search” option on the home page so that the learner could type in key words to help locate the articles, lesson plans, etc.

Hypertext Fiction

2008-02-29T09:25:00.000-08:00

Individual Homework Assignment:
Create a piece of non-linear fiction (maybe reading Joyce here will help, maybe not). This might be easier if you have the ability to make web-pages, but a powerpoint could work. The goal is to create something that makes the reader make choices, is non-trivial (more than a page or 2, or just 1 choice or two).

Example from web: lies http://users.rcn.com/rick.interport//lies/lies.html

Submit your work, and submit a short reflection on the process of non-linear writing and what you tried to accomplish.

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~nmugford/week9/index.html
Please click on the web address immediately above to view my piece of non-linear fiction, Nancy's Dilemma.

Below is my written reflection regarding the process of non-linear writing and what I tried to accomplish:

This task was extremely time-consuming. You would not think so, based on my simple-looking product. I began by writing an entirely different piece of fiction and created 4 different endings. Afterwards, I realized I was supposed to branch out before the endings, as well as at the end. It was very difficult for me to go back and figure out how to do that. My brain was having a hard time functioning that way! Therefore, I started all over!

The second time I was more fortunate. Aman drew a flow chart for me and that truly did help! I guess I could be classified as someone who is a “visual learner”.

The Lies story did not really help. First of all, the writing itself was a little surreal. The story line a little weird. Add to that the back and forthness... And THEN, to think I was supposed to do something like that! I was not really able to see the branching out options offered by Lies as much as it seemed to be just 2 different points of view. Or more than 2 - who knows. It was confusing.

Once I realized the structural technique, I was able to preplan and organize my story line. This was similar to concept mapping, in terms of it being a visual representation. Once I got a handle on what it was I was supposed to accomplish, I was able to get on with the project.

And what, exactly, was it that I was thinking I wanted to accomplish? I took a person/scenario and then offered two paths or choices for that primary "node". Then, my purpose was to have two more paths or choices that stemmed from each of these two newer "nodes."

Overall, this was a very interesting (and difficult) writing experience. It will be interesting to see how/if this writing genre takes off in future years. I couldn't help but make a comparison between this type of writing and watching my son playing video games over the years. He would go into one doorway, and then have a particular adventure, etc. and then come back out and explore another avenue, etc. When I watched him playing, I remember feeling confused at times. Perhaps, had I been a more active participant, I would have not felt so confused because I would have been making the choices with my joystick, or whatever that is called. In other words I would have been "creating" my paths, based on the choices I was making with my thumbs. (and brain and eyes, of course) Same thing here with the passive reading of a non-linear story, compared to the actual designing of a non-linear story. Obviously, I was more empowered by creating my own fiction. I was more engaged, too, by planning the structure, rather than just starting from the beginning and following a sequence of "and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened." It helped me to think of parallel connections as well as intersecting connections. And speaking of connections, I definitely see a connection between the relationship between computer programming and video games and the relationship between mental processing and non-linear fiction.

Stories Analysis

2008-02-24T13:03:00.000-08:00

Which information was more likely to be recalled? Which information was likely to be forgotten? Was there better memory for meaning or for specific phrases? Facts vs. events? etc. etc. In particular, report findings and support each finding with examples from the transcripts.

The gist, or general meaning of the passage, rather than superficial aspects, is what was more likely to be remembered, in both immediate and delayed recall summaries. Ashcraft refers to this as “content accuracy”. This is supported by the participants’ summaries, (both immediate and delayed). All participants remembered (a) the number of individuals, as well as the canoe - the canoe with five asking the other two on land to join them in fighting, (b) the arrows in the canoe, (c) the actual fighting, and (d) the individual dying at the end. (e) In addition, all participants remembered the general, if not the specific, settings. Not everyone remembered the specifics such as (a) names (b) details of settings (c) conversations. Results from Bartlett’s study support this finding, which is that omissions involving specific names or events result in retellings that are considerably shorter.

Another aspect of Bartlett’s results is that there is a tendency to normalize and rationalize occurrences in the successive recalls. This finding, too, was supported in the participants’ summaries. For example, the term “ghosts” is mentioned by only three participants in the immediate recall. Then later, in the delayed recall, one of those three participants failed to mention it. No one else mentioned this term, even though, in the original story, it is the “ghost” that that had shot the Indian. Apparently, the term was also in the title. (Obviously, I was not one of the three that remembered the term in the first place!)

According to Ashcraft, what we already know exerts a strong influence on what we remember about new material. This statement is also supported in the participants’ summaries, both immediate and delayed. All participants were able to retell the detail of the arrows in the canoe. This would fit in with the idea that our general knowledge about Indians is that they fought with arrows. Even though this was not specifically stated, it was implied when one of the young men said “We are going up the river to make war on the people.” When one of the young men replied, “I have no arrows” the other young man responded, “Arrows are in the canoe.” Had the participants not had this existing knowledge about fighting with arrows, they might have thought, “So what if they have or do not have any arrows.” According to Bartlett, an active organization of past reactions or past experiences can be referred to as a “schema”, which is a stored framework or body of knowledge about some topic. He also characterizes this as an “effort after meaning”. Another term for this is “reconstructive memory”. In other words, we remember by combining elements from original material together with existing knowledge.

Only once in the story was the term Indian used, and that was in reference to only one individual (“…that Indian has been hit.”) However, several participants made assumptions about the nationality of both of the individuals. For example, one participant stated that the two men were from a particular “tribe”. Another participant referred to them as “Native Americans”. A third participant assumed they were both Indians, based on other referents in the story such as arrows and canoes. Another participant refers to them as “natives of a particular village”. Also, six participants used the term “village” even though that term was never mentioned in the story. Instead, the term, “town” was used. Indians would be more likely associated with “village” than “town”, in my opinion. These two examples of added vocabulary relates to Ashcraft’s reference to “thematic effects”, in which inferences were drawn rather than remembering the passage on its own terms.

Ashcraft discusses propositional representations in terms of memory recall. He states that two events in a story that are connected by “and” or “then” should be less well recalled than two connected by a cause. He states that when stories are not particularly well-formed, as the “Ghosts” story, inversions and distortions in recall occur more frequently. According to Mandler and Johnson, the story grammar and propositional representation of this particular story showed how failures in recall could be related to structural “defects “in the original story, and how additions served to “restore” the story to a more usual, ideal form. Examples of such “additions” could be one participant’s decision to say that the young man had been “dreaming”. Another example of distortion in recall is the fact that several participants did not mention the part about the ghosts. Because the young man was described as dead at the end, and it is hard to know how a “ghost” could actually kill someone, then perhaps those two “facts” could not be reconciled and therefore, the ghost part was left out in order to restore the story to a more usual, ideal form.

Ashcraft also discusses scripts in memory. According to Schank and Abelson, our understanding of stories is guided by our scripted knowledge of a particular situation. For example the story states, “He got in the canoe”; however, the retellings were not exact in that regard. Instead, participants used wordings such as, (a)“The second man agreed to join them and followed to their village.” (b)“The other Native American went along with them.” (c)”The other young man traveled with the others.”

Ashcraft also states that a script does not prepare you for unusual or atypical events, thus when retelling a story, the atypical events are specifically stored during comprehension, since they are details that could not have been anticipated by the script. This was quite evident, based on the unusualness of the ending, when something black came out of his mouth and he was dead. All participants spoke of the death of the young man, and all but one mentioned something black coming out of his mouth. This was the case in all immediate and delayed retellings.

It is interesting to note that the story retellings were basically the same in the 4th and 7th week, yet both of these versions were noticeably shorter than the immediate recall. This continues to lend support to the notion that once material has been stored it is possible to retrieve. If however, it has not been properly stored in the first place, it can be “forgotten”.

Concept Map and Analysis

2008-02-17T01:56:00.000-08:00

Your homework this week is to do some experimentation with concept maps. This will be an extension of what we do in class. Specifically, you need to: …5) Submit your task, the resulting concept map, and your analysis of what you can deduce about the subject's knowledge on the task.

Task: The first prompt given to my participant was the question, “What constitutes good health?”

A graphical representation, or concept map, began with the two-word concept, “good health”, as the beginning node, or point. (Click on the concept map below to see an enlarged view.) From this beginning vertex, primary links, or lines, were connected to three major components of good health, as defined by my participant. These three interrelated concepts were listed by my participant as “body”, “mind”, and “spirit”. He felt all aspects of good health could be grouped into one of these three categories. He also felt these three concepts were interrelated. For example, if someone was physically ill, his/her mind and spirit would also be affected. From “body”, “mind”, and “spirit”, my participant was able to brainstorm more interrelated ideas. Through this process, he chose to first generalize a concept, and then be more specific. For example, under the more general topic of “food”, he listed what he considered to be specific foods that would fall into the broader topic of “good health”. He linked these foods under the concepts of both “body” and “mind”. His rationale for associating them with “mind” was that it required “a choice” to eat certain foods, and that was connected to thought.

Ashcraft refers to Collins and Quillian (1972), suggesting that a concept activates a path via some property from one to the other. My participant demonstrated evidence of this while creating the concept map by everything being defined in terms of everything else. His concept of “good health” was a set of interrelationships among other concepts.

According to Ashcraft, the structure of semantic memory could be considered to be a network. The major process that operates on this network, or structure, is spreading activation. Spreading activation is the mental activity of accessing and retrieving information from this network. Once a particular concept comes to mind, its mental representation receives a boost in activation, and the concept becomes “active” or “primed” or “awakened”. An important feature of spreading activation is that once a concept becomes activated, the concept then starts spreading throughout the network along with the connecting pathways. My participant demonstrated that this spread of activation did, indeed, correspond to a memory search, in which the search continually widened, listing more specific concepts under the broader topics.

Ashcraft also discusses proposition, which he defines as a relationship between two concepts. My participant demonstrated an understanding of relationships between concepts, as pictorially demonstrated in the concept map with the connecting arrows. There were concepts he chose to connect both ways, and other concepts which he chose to connect in just one way. He verbalized that some topics were more easily connected one way or the other. (e.g. one arrow pointing from one concept to the other, or two arrows, going both ways…he said it could be a matter of personal interpretation.)

Another point made by Ashcraft is that the higher the semantic relatedness between concepts, the faster you are able to retrieve the connection between them. This is referred to as the semantic relatedness effect; “concepts that are more highly interrelated can be judged ‘true’ more rapidly than those with a lower degree of relatedness.” In other words, semantic memory stores concepts in terms of their relatedness to one another, and this is the basic dimension along which semantic memory is organized. The fact that the participant opted to categorize “good health” into the three subcategories before going any further implies the aforementioned semantic relatedness effect. In addition, he spoke the terms quickly, without hesitation, demonstrating that when the prime is relevant, retrieval time to the target is usually speeded up. This is generally taken as evidence that semantic priming is an automatic process. The three main “primes” then, following “good health” were “body”, “mind” and “spirit”. The targets that followed then served as primes, etc.

What I can deduce about the subject's knowledge on the task is that he appears to have a general, broad-minded view of what constitutes good health. I should add, here, that the participant was my 21 year old son, who was willing to help me with this project as long as I promised him that the task would not be too taxing, in terms of his time and/or his mental exertion.

Homework Week 7

2008-02-14T11:00:00.000-08:00

Homework - Week 6

2008-02-10T17:23:00.001-08:00

Tell your subject you are going to read them a list of 20 words, and their job is to remember as many as they can. There will be 10 seconds between each word for them to help commit it to memory.

The 20 words are listed below:
paper seat tire love beach analysis conjunction brush chairman accurate woods green hunger gift keyboard number bottle jogging wheel system

Immediate Recall: (listed in order given)
paper seat tire love beach conjunction system bottle jogging
woods green keyboard number analysis chairman accurate

Delayed Recall: (listed in order given)
green woods seat paper chairman keyboard number guest
bottle jogging love accurate conjunction analysis tire paper

Differences between the 2 groups:
Beach and system were included in the Immediate Recall group, but were omitted from the Delayed Recall group. Brush, hunger, gift, and wheel were omitted from both groups. Guest was added to the Delayed Recall group.

Write up your findings, and try to explain the data in terms of long-term memory (ie., Ashcraft reading for this week).

According to Tulving’s classification, episodic memory refers to a person’s autobiographical memory, to the personally experienced and remembered events of a lifetime. Having the opportunity to remember words, rather than numbers or nonsense words, would allow the participant to associate personally experienced meaning to the words, and therefore, the likelihood of retention would be higher. This would account, in part, for the participant being able to remember 16 out of 20 words, for the Immediate Recall group and 15 out of 20 words for the Delayed Recall group. Ashcraft states that “the element of meaning within a passage will exert a strong influence on what is remembered, as will the person’s own knowledge of the material.”

According to Ashcraft, part of memory development consists of knowing when and why one should intentionally store and retrieve information. The participant knew in advance that he was supposed to remember as many words as possible. In other words, the participant understood the need to engage in deliberate rehearsal. Allowing 10 second intervals between each word, provided an opportunity for the participant to take action in order to learn the material. An active, strategic kind of learning method is referred to as rehearsal strategy. Mnemonic means “to help the memory” and this term refers to a rehearsal strategy. Because there were 10 second intervals between the words, the words to be remembered could be practiced repeatedly. In addition, the words could be integrated into an existing memory framework. This rehearsal strategy (mnemonic device) could then provide a means by which the participant could retrieve the information.

According to Ashcroft, a mnemonic device does three things to help the memory. First, it offers a structure for learning or for obtaining the information. Second, by using visual images, rhymes, or other kinds of associations, the mnemonic device ensures a durable record of the subject matter in memory, one that is not easily forgotten. This helps to safeguard against interference in storage, or against other kinds of loss within memory itself. Third, the mnemonic device guides the learner through retrieval by providing effective cues for recalling the information. This is a very important point, because much of what we call “forgetting” seems often to be a case of retrieval difficulty. Therefore, if a mnemonic device is applied correctly, information will be acquired at the outset, it will remain in memory, and it will be retrievable. When asked to repeat the words an hour later, the participant indicated he had not memorized the words in a sequential or rote manner. The sequence was not the same the second time. Also the same four words were missing the second time as they were the first round, which indicates this was not a matter of “retrieval” as much as not acquiring the information in the first place. Perhaps the rehearsal strategy for these four words was not effective enough to be sufficiently stored in the first place. Interestingly, “guest” was added to the list the second time, although it was not given in the original list. But even though the participant said the word, “guest”, he asked, “Was that one of the words given? I’m not really sure.” He did not ask that question about any of the other words he listed.

In addition to using a rehearsal strategy, having a time period of 10 seconds between each given word provided the opportunity for “overlearning”. Ebbinghaus investigated the effects of repetitions and his results demonstrated that “overlearning “ yields a stronger record in memory. Therefore, not only could meaningful associations be made during the 10 second time period, but repeating the word over and over, could also have an effect on the participant’s ability to retain the material.

2008-02-10T16:57:00.000-08:00

Homework 5 - REVISED COPY
Write a short summary (one or two paragraphs) describing any patterns you see, and conclusions you can reach, or any explanations you can bring to bear on the phenomena.

• 8 7 0 3 1 4 870314 (All correct.)
• 7 1 5 0 5 4 3 6 71505436 (All correct.)
• 2 1 6 6 8 7 2 5 4 5 216687215 (Substituted “1” for “4”)
• 6 8 1 4 3 7 9 5 2 4 7 0 68153790_ _ _ _ (Substituted “5” for “4”, “0" for "5" and omitted last four digits.)
• 2 8 4 3 9 3 4 8 2 5 5 1 28439_ _ _ _ _ _ _ (Omitted last seven digits.)
• T S Y L Q P TSYLQP (All correct.)
• C I M W O D X A CIMWODXA (All correct.)
• Q W E R T Y U I P QWERTYU_P (Omitted “I” near end of sequence.)
• K W U C R A L N Y W G S J QWU_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _J (Omitted 9 out of the last 10 digits.)
• L A B O N N E M A I S O N LABONNEMO_SAIN (Reversed “O_” for “AI”)
• LEAF GIFT CAR FISH ROCK (All correct.)
• PAPER SEAT TIRE HORSE FILM BEACH TREE BRUSH (All correct.)
• BAG KEY BOOK WIRE BOX WHEEL BANANA FLOOR BAR PAD BLACK RADIO BOY (Words in red were omitted.)
• LOVE EMOTION PLAN ATTEMP RULE LAW ANALYSIS SYSTEM FINE PAYMENT (Words in red were omitted.)
•WHILE I WAS WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS A RABBIT RAN ACROSS MY PATH (All correct.)

Explain the data by relating it to the Ashcraft reading for Week 5:

According to Ashcraft, short-term memory loses information rapidly, (approximately within 15 seconds) when similar material has already been presented and tested. Results from the Brown-Peterson task validate this statement. This loss of information is attributed to proactive interference. What this means is that performance deteriorates across trials because of the growing amount of interference. In other words, the previous trials are generating interference. The older material interferes forward in time with your memory for the current stimulus. The fact that the participant generally recalled the beginnings, but had more difficulty recalling the endings, supports the phenomena of proactive interference.

Ashcraft discussed verbal codes in terms of relating the letter names themselves, a verbal, almost speech-like code. Conrad (1964) found in his study that when mistakes were made by subjects, they were likely to recall a letter that sounded like the correct one. The one error that the participant made in the beginning of any of the sequences was substituting “Q” for “K”. Because there is a similar speech sound between the two letters, this could account for the error.

Ashcraft discussed the “magical number seven, plus or minus two”. The participant was able to recall with 100 % accuracy the list of eight words. The participant was also able to recall with 100% accuracy the list of thirteen words. Even though this was a longer list, exceeding the “seven, plus or minus two” concept, the words made up a meaningful sentence. Ashcraft discussed semantic codes in terms of the meanings of words positively influencing retention. The meaningfulness involved in a coherent sentence would be a factor in being able to recall the thirteen word sequence. On the other hand, when the participant was presented with a thirteen word sequence which was not a sentence, he was able to recall only five of the words. The loss of recall was in the middle of the sequence. Both proactive and retroactive interference could be factors involved in this instance. This would also hold true for the ten word sequence, in which the participant could recall both the beginning and ending, but loss of recall occurred in the middle of the sequence.

Ashcraft discussed recoding, a chunking or grouping process by which more information is packed into the units that are remembered. It appears the participant employed this process by associating words together such as “love” and “emotion” and “fine” and “payment”. There were other opportunities for word associations within the sequences, but perhaps proactive and retroactive interference factors inhibited recall of these word pairings. Recoding could also be an explanation for being able to recall the number series and the letter series. In other words, the participant grouped more information into a single unit in order to overcome the “bottleneck” or limitation involved in the information processing. For example, when the participant repeated the letters or numbers back to me, he chose to do so by saying them in 2 or 3 number or letter combinations, rather than one by one.

Ashcraft discussed the primacy effect, which refers to the accuracy of recall for the early list positions. He also explains the recency effect as the level of correct recall on the final items of the list. The participant demonstrated a strong primacy effect in his recall ability. Ashcraft states that a strong primacy effect is usually due to rehearsal. A recency effect is evident in the participant’s results, as well, but is not as strong as the primacy effect.

Sequential Memory Results and Comments

2008-02-03T14:05:00.000-08:00

Homework 5

Write a short summary (one or two paragraphs) describing any patterns you see, and conclusions you can reach, or any explanations you can bring to bear on the phenomena.

• 8 7 0 3 1 4/870314 (All correct.)
• 7 1 5 0 5 4 3 6/71505436 (All correct.)
• 2 1 6 6 8 7 2 5 4 5/216687215 (Substituted “1” for “4”)
• 6 8 1 4 3 7 9 5 2 4 7 0/68153790 (Substituted “5” for “4”, “0 for “5, Omitted last four digits.)
• 2 8 4 3 9 3 4 8 2 5 5 1/284393482551 (Omitted last seven digits.)
• T S Y L Q P/TSYLQP (All correct.)
• C I M W O D X A/CIMWODXA (All correct.)
• Q W E R T Y U I P/QWERTYU_P (Omitted “I” near end of sequence.)
• K W U C R A L N Y W G S J/KWU_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _J (Omitted 9 out of the last 10 digits.)
• L A B O N N E M A I S O N/LABONNEMO_SAIN (Reversed “O_” for “AI”)
• LEAF GIFT CAR FISH ROCK (All correct.)
• PAPER SEAT TIRE HORSE FILM BEACH TREE BRUSH (All correct.)
• BAG KEY BOOK WIRE BOX WHEEL BANANA FLOOR BAR PAD BLACK RADIO BOY (Left out words depicted in "red".)
• LOVE EMOTION PLAN ATTEMP RULE LAW ANALYSIS SYSTEM FINE PAYMENT (Left out words depicted in "red".)
•WHILE I WAS WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS A RABBIT RAN ACROSS MY PATH (All correct.)

Patterns: Shorter sequences were more easily retained. Meaningful CVC patterns were recognized and more easily retained. Beginnings and endings were more easily retained. Similar patterns can be recognized when working with emerging readers’ ability to direct attention to the beginning and endings of words, to recognize a CVC pattern (consonant/vowel/consonant), and to more readily retain short words, particularly words with which they can attach meaning.

Conclusions: When teaching new concepts, consider the meaningfulness of the subject matter. Also, when teaching difficult and/or lengthy material, consider breaking it down into shorter components. In addition, be aware of the tendency for the learner to focus on and remember the beginning and ending when learning.

Explanations: The simple explanation appears to be that humans more easily learn shorter amounts of material over longer material because it is not as taxing in terms of having to focus and attend to the task, which at times, can appear to be meaningless. Frustration can override the desire to learn. Boredom with a meaningless, lengthy, and/or difficult task can cause one to turn inward to think other, more pleasing thoughts, or one can become more focused on some external distraction, which diverts attention away from the onerous task in front of the learner.

The Turing Test

2008-01-26T12:00:00.000-08:00

Is the Turing Test a sufficient test? That is, if a machine passes the test, would you agree it is intelligent?

If intelligence could be defined only as the ability to solve problems, then I believe a machine that passes the Turing Test could be considered intelligent. But I do not believe this definition is sufficient in describing intelligence. Just because a machine passes a test, merely by answering questions via a mechanical link, in such a manner that a human cannot distinguish the machine from another human, does not mean it is intelligent. It seems to me that passing the test would be more indicative of the machine’s ability to mask the fact that it is a machine.

Perhaps this could be compared to a female who has had surgery to remove her breasts, to implant an artificial penis, and has taken hormones to deepen her voice and to grow more facial hair. This female might give the impression of being a male. In spite of appearing as a male, she is a female, at least according to the biological definition of her gender at birth. Even if she went through the motions of acting like a male, would that mean she is male?

In my opinion, this is a matter of semantics. Perhaps new vocabulary words need to be invented that could more specifically address the nebulous boundaries of a word such as “intelligence”, when attributed to inanimate objects such as computers. And for that matter, such words as “male” and “female”, when attributed to individuals who experience gender identity issues.

Is the Turing Test a necessary test? That is, does a machine have to pass this test in order to be intelligent?

I do not believe it is necessary that a machine pass the Turing Test in order to be considered intelligent. For example, a computer is able to solve problems and one might consider this to be intelligent, based on the definition of being able to “solve problems”. A machine that can answer questions in such a way as to deceive someone into believing the machine is human is, in my opinion, not necessary for determining whether or not the computer is intelligent.

Will a machine ever pass the Turing Test? Why or why not?

I do not believe a machine will ever pass the Turing Test. This test requires that an interrogator question a hidden entity, which is either a computer or another human being. The questioner must then decide, based solely on the hidden entity’s answers, whether he had been interrogating a man or a machine. Although a computer could respond to questions, I do not believe the computer could think like a human being. I think we saw a little bit of what this would be like when we explored the A.L.I.C.E. website. Although the computer could appropriately answer many of the questions, there were times when the syntax of the computer’s responses were not appropriate for the questions. Or there were times when the computer was not programmed to answer the question and tried to hide its “ignorance” by changing the subject, not answering the question, or by asking its own question. I am not saying a human being wouldn’t do the same thing. But given enough opportunities to receive an answer from a computer, I feel that, eventually, the interrogator would be able to figure out that the computer was not a human. In other words, at some point in time, the computer would just come across as fake or unreal.

Will a machine ever be intelligent? Why or why not?

Again, this depends on the definition of “intelligent”. If intelligent means “thinking” as a human, then, no, I do not think a machine will ever be intelligent. I believe a machine’s intelligence is simulated, not real. Simulated actions which might be interpreted as “thinking” or “intelligent” are a result of the human minds that programmed the computer. If one defines intelligence as including information processing, memory, storage, retrieval, assimilation, and synthesis, then a machine might be described as being intelligent. However, if consciousness is a part of intelligence, then machines, being man-made, could not be described as intelligent.

How Does the Mind Work?

2008-01-09T09:19:00.000-08:00

How Does the Mind Work?

I believe that mind is universal and each living thing is part of this mind. Mind, in my opinion, is infinite. I believe mind is acted upon by our thoughts. We think, and mind creates. Every time we think, we set our mind into action. Our minds do not impose judgments; and therefore, mind has to reflect our thoughts. Mind simply knows, but does not analyze or dissect. I believe mind is eternally acting upon thought, continually producing its own images from mind, and projecting them out into manifestation. In my opinion, most people think of mind only from the limitation of their own environment. The concept of mind is the concept of their thinking, which is very limited. But maybe this description of mind is too philosophical or metaphysical for the question posed.

I do not believe that objects such as trees, clouds, etc. have inherent meaning in and of themselves. Humans attach meaning to objects based on their experience. Experience also influences our ability to attach meaning to the relationships that exist between objects. For example, when an infant looks at a cloud he/she does not know the name, the function, or the relationship between the cloud and the sky; however, repeated exposure and personal experience will develop understanding of the cloud and its relationship to the sky.

We are able to read an assignment, make meaning from it, and associate responses in our mind, again, based on our prior experience. Being able to read develops from the awareness that spoken words are represented by written symbols. Being able to read also develops from the awareness that specific letters and letter combinations form sounds, which can be blended into meaningful words. However, in order for the word to be meaningful, the reader must also have some experience with that which the word represents.

Making a decision, such as planning a route from point A to point B also relies upon experience. The experience could include the know-how of reading a map. Perhaps a personal experience of having made the trip in the past could impact the decision. For example a positive experience might impact one’s choice to repeat the same route, whereas a negative experience might persuade one to alter the route.

I believe the mind absorbs all experiences. Our senses, including a psychic sense and who knows how many other senses of which we are not aware, beyond the basic five, are the channels by which this information is assimilated. Our capacity to attach meaning to objects and their relationships to other objects, to make decisions, or to read, in my opinion, is based on experience. Experiencing something then causes us to act, feel, and think. We do not necessarily have control over the experience, but I believe we do have control over how we choose to think and act. I’m not sure we have control over our feelings, as much as our feelings are indicators of the thoughts and actions we choose.