Monday, November 28, 2011

Changing Education Paradigms

In his animated TED talk, Sir Ken Robinson, a catalyst for change in the education system, illustrates both the current paradigm of standardized tests and a cookie-cutter approach to learning, as well as his envisioned shift in paradigm. He imagines a system in which students are encouraged to test possibilities, make mistakes (and learn from them), and follow passions.
The presentation succeeds in conveying his message, and it does so in a visual manner which allows for continual connections to past information. It's quite incredible to view the image as the video ends, in which it is clear what was discussed. It induces immediate nostalgia, and makes connections to information seamlessly. 
The company responsible for the animation and visuals is Cognitive Media from the UK. They've worked extensively with the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA for short), creating similar videos on equally interesting and important topics.

The Kaleidoscope Mind

Laura Seargeant-Richardson, writing for The Atlantic, describes a key to flexible thinking (aka creative thinking) is to slightly change the context of the idea. She cites how learning a skill can change the way we think about it, e.g. riding a motorcycle. Once we've learned to ride, we become more aware of the experience around us. So, by examining how we relate to an issue via alternate contexts, we may be able to build our ability to think flexibly.


A quote of particular interest: "As biochemist Szent Gyorgyi once said, 'Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.'" 

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Further Developments in the Trolley Dilemma

In looking further into the trolley dilemma study, I found an additional article from the Greene Center called Pushing moral buttons: The interaction between personal force and intention in moral judgment. (Greene, J. D., et al. Pushing moral buttons: The interaction between personal force ... Cog- nition (2009), doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2009.02.001)

The article breaks down the scenarios even more, pinpointing the effects of several variables including proximity and personal force. The idea of proximity in this situation compared the reactions of actions where the responder needed to be close to the sacrificial victim with those who could cause the reaction from a distance. The experiments also compared the effect of requiring personal, physical force to cause the reaction.

The results garnered results basically showing that it was seen as more acceptable to sacrifice the single victim if the responder could do so with no personal contact and from a distance.

This reminded me of a clip from Funny or Die, which spoofed the film, The Box. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qRK6yJSRR0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

The study concludes with recommendations for further inquiry. It also raises the possibility that our own moral judgments are based in part in our physical bodies.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Rock-Paper-Scissors


In a chapter of Len Fisher's, "Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life," on the classic decision-making game, Fisher flaunts the inherent fairness of the format. He cites three-pronged interactions in nature, including colonies of birds, and foreign policy, most notably the nuclear arms race between Europe, Russia and the US.

Fisher claims that the set-up, when ideally formatted, allows for a symbiotic balance of influence, where no one party receives more than their fair share. In fact, when the balance is tipped, all three participants lose out.

Game theorists call this sort of agreement a zero-sum game, in which, if the winner gets +1, the loser gets -1, and a draw gets 0, then the combination of all outcomes will equal zero. This contributes to the idea that this method is inherently fair. 

One particular instance of interest: when an art collector decided to auction his collection, he offered it to both Sotheby's and Christie's, however he added that they needed to decide who would get to run the event. He offered that they should use R-P-S to determine the winner. The story, as reported by the New York Times may be found here.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

The Trolley Dilemma vs. the Footbridge Dilemma


J.D. Greene and his associates, in their 2001 article for Science, "An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment," compared "the Trolley Dilemma" and "the Footbridge Dilemma" through a pair of experiments aimed at visualizing the possible differences in reactions to the moral-personal and moral-impersonal quandries. The dilemmas come from a common query of moral philosophers, in which the acceptance of two choices is recorded: 1) if you could switch the path of a trolley to save 5 people, while knowing that it would still hit one person, would you do it? and 2) if this same trolley was barreling toward 5 people, but you could stop the trolley by shoving a person into its path from an overhead footbridge, would you do it? The results are the same, 5 people are saved while 1 is killed, but the responses to such dilemmas differ greatly. Those tasked with changing the trolley's path to save 5 people will, for the majority, say this the better option. However, being charged with pushing someone in the path of the trolley to save 5 is seen as unacceptable.

The authors tested these dilemmas in two ways: 1) they tested for differences in brain activity in typical locations for both emotional responses and motor planning responses; and 2) they tested the response times of participants. In the first test, they found that the moral-personal choice, in which they had to push someone off the footbridge, registered highly in the emotional locations of the brain, whereas the impersonal choice, changing the trolley's path, did not elicit an equal emotional response. And for the 2nd test, they found that the response time, for those saying that pushing someone into the trolley's path, to save another 5 people, was the acceptable option, was much slower than those saying it was unacceptable. The authors theorize that the delay is in the participants' arguing internally about the emotional costs of pushing someone to their death to save another 5 people.

The findings suggest that there is a separation in the brain's response depending on the extent to which the respondent is personally involved in the dilemma.

Implications could broaden understanding of how to teach empathy and compassion, particularly in discussing foreign experiences or rare occurrences.

Joshua D. Greene currently directs the Greene Moral Cognition Lab in Cambridge, MA.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Social Emotion and Subjective Self

In prepping for a return to the classroom, I have challenged myself to review and research my Quizzical Itch over the course of the coming year. Each day, I will read or explore a new resource and comment briefly about it here, on The Artistic Spectrum.

So, to begin:

This weekend marked the annual Learning and the Brain Conference. Held at the Westin Waterfront in Boston, the three-day event featured a wide array of education and psychology professionals. One in particular who sparked an interest was Dr. Immodino-Yang, from USC. She spoke of a phenomenon in which the body physically responds to tellings of emotional experiences in others. She also noted the struggle for the body to internalize these emotions concurrently with hearing them. There is a switch in thought required, in which the mind moves from receiving input to reflecting upon its subjective meaning. She noted, also, that with those more practiced in this process, the switch may occur and repeat many times in a short period; however, with adolescents or children, the process must be strengthened through training.

Dr. Immodino-Yang's lecture made claims which she also introduced in her article for the journal, Emotion Review, titled, "Me, my 'self' and you: Neuropsychological relations between social emotion, self awareness, and morality." The article may be accessed here.