What is nontrivial digital computation? It is the processing of discrete data through discrete state transitions in accordance with finite instructional information. The motivation for our account is that many previous attempts to answer this question are inadequate, and also that this account accords with the common intuition that digital computation is a type of information processing. We use the notion of reachability in a graph to defend this characterization in memory-based systems and underscore the importance of (...) instructional information for digital computation. We argue that our account evaluates positively against adequacy criteria for accounts of computation. (shrink)

Wolf and White address different aspects of the paper and in this present reply space only permits making two brief remarks. One concerns White’s intriguing observation that digital computation without erasing information is possible. The second concerns the importance of control information in digital computing systems.

This commentary on Fresco's article "Information processing as an account of concrete digital computation" illuminates the two intertwined roles that the definition of the term "information" plays in Fresco's analysis. It provides analysis of the notion of actualizing control in information processing. The key point made is that not all control information in common computational devices cannot be processed.

An experiment was conducted to test the effectiveness of brief instruction in information structuring (i.e., representing and integrating information) for improving the coherence of probability judgments and binary choices among intelligence analysts. Forty-three analysts were presented with comparable sets of Bayesian judgment problems before and immediately after instruction. After instruction, analysts’ probability judgments were more coherent (i.e., more additive and compliant with Bayes theorem). Instruction also improved the coherence of binary choices regarding category membership: after instruction, subjects were (...) more likely to invariably choose the category to which they assigned the higher probability of a target’s membership. The research provides a rare example of evidence-based validation of effectiveness in instruction to improve the statistical assessment skills of intelligence analysts. Such instruction could also be used to improve the assessment quality of other types of experts who are required to integrate statistical information or make probabilistic assessments. (shrink)

Informal logic began in the 1970s as a critique of then-current theoretical assumptions in the teaching of argument analysis and evaluation in philosophy departments in the U.S. and Canada. The last 35 years have seen significant developments in informal logic and critical thinking theory. The paper is a pilot study of the influence of these advances in theory on what is taught in courses on argument analysis and critical thinking in U.S. and Canadian philosophy departments. Its finding, provisional and much-qualified, (...) is that the theoretical developments and refinements have had limited impact on instruction in leading philosophy departments. (shrink)

The concept of genetic information is controversial because it attributes semantic properties to what seem to be ordinary biochemical entities. I argue that nucleic acids contain information in a semantic sense, but only about a limited range of effects. In contrast to other recent proposals, however, I analyze genetic information not in terms of a naturalized account of biological functions, but instead in terms of the way in which molecules determine their products during processes known as template-directed (...) syntheses. I argue that determining an outcome in a certain way is constitutive for being an instruction. On this account, the content of genetic information is identified with the template's properties, which determine the product in the way constitutive for instructions. (shrink)

Some studies have reported that, under some circumstances, participants sometimes reject the truth of conditional premises and give incorrect uncertain conclusions to MP and MT, despite the standard instructions to assume the truth of the premises. Instructions that emphasise the logical nature of the task, on the other hand, increase the number of valid conclusions to these two inferences. In this paper, we examine two possible explanations for the influence of instructions on the production of valid conclusions: (1) instructions trigger (...) a logical mode of thinking that is appropriate for the task to be solved, and (2) instructions affect the way that retrieved information is used when constructing a mental representation of the premises. In order to compare these two hypothesis, we used conditional causal relations having either many or few disabling conditions (i.e. cases of P and not-Q) and presented them in four different instructional conditions. When presented with the standard instructions to suppose the premises to be true, MP and MT inferences show a relatively low percentage of valid conclusions. However, when the logical nature of the task and the necessity to assume the truth of the premises are emphasised, the number of valid conclusions greatly increases. Also, if disabling conditions are made explicit or generated before the presentation of these logical instructions, the performance on MP and MT is lower than when only the logical instructions are presented. Finally, the instructions had no effect on AC and DA. From these results, we concluded that the instructions had an effect on the use of retrieved information rather than on inducing different modes of thinking. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDistraction can reduce adults’ memory for emotion-eliciting information, whereas reappraisal can preserve or enhance it. Yet, when given instructions to use specific emotion regulation...

It is common in cognitive science to equate computation (and in particular digital computation) with information processing. Yet, it is hard to find a comprehensive explicit account of concrete digital computation in information processing terms. An information processing account seems like a natural candidate to explain digital computation. But when ‘information’ comes under scrutiny, this account becomes a less obvious candidate. Four interpretations of information are examined here as the basis for an information processing (...) account of digital computation, namely Shannon information, algorithmic information, factual information and instructional information. I argue that any plausible account of concrete computation has to be capable of explaining at least the three key algorithmic notions of input, output and procedures. Whist algorithmic information fares better than Shannon information, the most plausible candidate for an information processing account is instructional information. (shrink)

Healthcare Providers advising patient surrogates on the appropriateness of continued care for comatose patients have often been sharply criticized for coercive behavior toward patient surrogates; with failing to provide them with adequate information; and for a general failure to adequately cinsider the cimplex needs and hopes of patients, their surrogates, and caregivers. Because decisions on the continuation or withdrawal of care often need the legal approval of surrogates the failure of both medical personnel and patient families to understand each (...) other's priorities may lead to ethical and interpersonal conflict. (shrink)

While the Philosophy for Children method has been adopted within classrooms by individual teachers and into some school systems by schoolboards, public and school libraries, the ideal users of this sort of programming, have been slow to recognise the benefits of this didactic methodology. This is particularly surprising given that the P4C method integrates perfectly with traditional story-time orientated programming. Not only is the integration of P4C into story-time sessions virtually seamless, but it might also help reinvigorate a well-established feature (...) of library programming with an aim to develop 21st-century information literacy competencies. This paper examines the case for the P4C method, explains the process of integration of the P4C method with traditional story-time, and highlights the potential benefits of incorporating Philosophy for Children in public and school library programming. (shrink)

Negative conditional stimulus valence acquired during fear conditioning may enhance fear relapse and is difficult to remove as it extinguishes slowly and does not respond to the instruction that unconditional stimulus presentations will cease. We examined whether instructions targeting CS valence would be more effective. In Experiment 1, an image of one person was paired with an aversive US, while another was presented alone. After acquisition, participants were given positive information about the CS+ poser and negative information about (...) the CS− poser. Instructions reversed the pattern of differential CS valence present during acquisition and eliminated differential electrodermal responding. In Experiment 2, we compared positive and negative CS revaluation by providing positive/negative information about the CS+ and neutral information about CS−. After positive revaluation, differential valence was removed and differential electrodermal responding remained intact. After negative revaluation, differential valence was strengthened and differential electrodermal responding was eliminated. Unexpectedly, the instructions did not affect the reinstatement of differential electrodermal responding. (shrink)

This paper examines instructional issues such as how, when, and where the medical humanities are taught in medical school settings. The author interviewed seven humanities scholars teaching in medical schools using openended questions which elicited data illustrating 1) informants' teaching styles; 2) where/how their teaching currently fits in the medical curriculum; 3) their suggestions on ideal curricular integration of the medical humanities; and 4) informants' teaching successes.

This essay discusses the instructional value of mathematical proofs using different interpretations of the analysis cum synthesis method in Apollonius’ Conics as a case study. My argument is informed by Descartes’ complaint about ancient geometers and William Thurston’s discussion on how mathematical understanding is communicated. Three historical frameworks of the analysis/synthesis distinction are used to understand the instructive function of the analysis cum synthesis method: the directional interpretation, the structuralist interpretation, and the phenomenological interpretation. I apply these interpretations to (...) the analysis cum synthesis method in order reveal how the same underlying mathematical activity occurs at different levels of scale: at the level of an individual proof, at the level of a collection of proofs, and at the level of a single line within a proof. On the basis of this investigation, I argue that the instructive value of mathematical proof lies in engendering in the reader the same mathematical activity experienced by the author themselves. (shrink)

This work aims to reform legal teaching in Colleges and Universities and improve law students’ comprehensive quality. In the context of Educational Psychology research, Deep Learning theory is integrated into legal instructional design. Following a theoretical review of EPSY and DL, the current situation and problems of college legal teaching are understood based on the Law School in a University in Shanghai through auditing, communication, and investigation methods. The theoretical research results are integrated into the ID. The teaching content (...) is divided into language information module, wisdom skills module, cognitive module, action skills module, and attitude module. Each module is divided into three teaching methods, and all teaching methods are combined into the proposed legal ID. Finally, the proposed legal ID is applied in the legal classroom of the Law School in a University in Shanghai. Overall, seventy students are recruited and grouped into Class A and Class B. Class A uses the proposed legal ID, and Class B does not. The scores of Classes A and B are compared. After a semester, the average score of Class A has increased from 68 to 71.11 points. The covariance has decreased from 61.66 to 51.42. When the confidence level is set to 0.95, the confidence interval of class A has increased from 65.26–70.74 to 68.62–73.61. By comparison, the average score of Class B dropped from 68.14 to 68.11 points. The covariance has decreased from 60.24 to 41.76. When the confidence level is set to 0.95, the confidence interval of class B has changed from 65.44–70.85 to 65.86–70.37, without significant improvement. Therefore, the proposed legal ID based on DL theory is scientific and effective. This work has certain reference significance for optimizing the ID of CAUs and improving the comprehensive quality of college-student talents. (shrink)

In modern ELP teaching practices online media products are commonly used as resources of educational content. Although the idea that ICT has brought classrooms in our pockets is generally perceived as a positive trend, the overview of recent inquiries into the use of technology in education has revealed a number of contradictory findings connected with multimedia learning. On the one hand, a multiplicity of strengths of online environments such as YouTube channels, Apps, podcasts, etc. is highlighted in the studies exploring (...) the potential of multimedia applications for language learning. On the other hand, there is a significant number of studies which demonstrate opposite observations resulting from the research of the effects of the medium on learning outcomes: some authors argue that students overwhelmingly prefer print over electronic formats for learning purposes, others infer that multiple factors affect learners’ actual behaviors and there is no solid evidence proving the priority of one over the other. Cognitive psychologists are more precise in this point: looking into how people process information they affirm that to be effective instructional framework should not ignore human cognitive architecture. Drawing upon recent studies in the field of designing educational media with regard of cognitive, behavioral, and attitudinal aspects of learning the exploratory study reported in this paper attempts to bridge the cognitive and educational theories to specify the framework of technology-based classes for ELP students. Through three courses of in-depth structured interviews with 58 Russian undergraduate law students doing an ELP course in Saratov State Law Academy, Russia, particular focus was placed on an individual learner’s information coding style, information processing style and reading style. The results of the research suggest some ideas on developing an instructional framework for ELP technology-based classroom tuition taking considering the principles of cognitive teaching. (shrink)

Psychosis is associated with distorted perceptions and deficient bottom-up learning such as classical fear conditioning. This has been interpreted as reflecting imprecise priors in low-level predictive coding systems. Paradoxically, overly strong beliefs, such as overvalued beliefs and delusions, are also present in psychosis-associated states. In line with this, research has suggested that patients with psychosis and associated phenotypes rely more on high-order priors to interpret perceptual input. In this behavioural and fMRI study we studied two types of fear learning, i.e., (...) instructed fear learning mediated by verbal suggestions about fear contingencies and classical fear conditioning mediated by low level associative learning, in delusion proneness—a trait in healthy individuals linked to psychotic disorders. Subjects were shown four faces out of which two were coupled with an aversive stimulation while two were not in a fear conditioning procedure. Before the conditioning, subjects were informed about the contingencies for two of the faces of each type, while no information was given for the two other faces. We could thereby study the effect of both classical fear conditioning and instructed fear learning. Our main outcome variable was evaluative rating of the faces. Simultaneously, fMRI-measurements were performed to study underlying mechanisms. We postulated that instructed fear learning, measured with evaluative ratings, is stronger in psychosis-related phenotypes, in contrast to classical fear conditioning that has repeatedly been shown to be weaker in these groups. In line with our hypothesis, we observed significantly larger instructed fear learning on a behavioural level in delusion-prone individuals compared to non-delusion-prone subjects. Instructed fear learning was associated with a bilateral activation of lateral orbitofrontal cortex that did not differ significantly between groups. However, delusion-prone subjects showed a stronger functional connectivity between right lateral orbitofrontal cortex and regions processing fear and pain. Our results suggest that psychosis-related states are associated with a strong instructed fear learning in addition to previously reported weak classical fear conditioning. Given the similarity between nocebo paradigms and instructed fear learning, our results also have an impact on understanding why nocebo effects differ between individuals. (shrink)

This article discusses ethical problems related to postsecondary–K-12 collaborative work involving instructional technologies. Technology related school-university collaboration in particular can give rise to some ethical dilemmas, due to the variety of skills, interests, and obligations of participating teachers, tech specialists, professors, and school administrators. Participants, in promoting narrow interests and concerns too immoderately, can lose sight of a learning-driven framework for decision making. Ethics are implicated, because student learning should be at the heart of the codes that guide all (...) educators in their professional behavior. This article begins by identifying potential advantages of using technology to enrich teacher education classes. The article then describes problems related to initiating access to K-12 classrooms and to negotiating a plan of action. The article seeks to reconcile the concerns of school administrators’and information technology officers’typical concerns with those of K-12- and university-based instructors. (shrink)

This research presents a case study of the first-time experience of the instructor-researcher in teaching an online class. Through thematic analysis and grounded metaphor, evolution was identified as the metaphor used to illuminate the emerging themes in creating a narrative. Advantageous and less-than-advantageous characteristics of online instruction were identified. The advantageous characteristics identified were (a) students actively involved in their own education, assessing their own learning and seeking additional information; (b) students constructing knowledge; (c) measured responses by students; (d) (...) an increase in the quality of students work because of open access to peers' work; and (e) students' increases in technological confidence. The less-than-advantageous characteristics found were (a) concerns for clarity, (b) concerns for loss of personal or intimate interactions, and (c) misinterpretations resulting from communicating online. It is hoped that this work will assist the in understanding and the continued investigation of online instruction. (shrink)

How is intellectual virtue related to critical thinking? Can one be a critical thinker without exercising intellectual virtue? Can one be intellectually virtuous without thereby being a critical thinker? How should our answers to these questions inform the instruction of critical thinking? These were the questions informing the 2023 Charles McCracken endowed lectureships given at Michigan State University by Professors Harvey Siegel and Jason Baehr. This brief commentary introduces their respective papers, which appear in the current issue of Informal Logic.

Integrated information theory is a theory of consciousness that was originally formulated, and is standardly still expressed, in terms of controversial interpretations of its own ontological and epistemological basis. These form the orthodox interpretation of IIT. The orthodox epistemological interpretation is the axiomatic method, whereby IIT is ultimately derived from, justified by, and beholden to a set of phenomenological axioms. The orthodox ontological interpretation is panpsychism, according to which consciousness is fundamental, intrinsic, and pervasive. In this paper it is (...) argued that both components of the orthodox interpretation should be rejected. But IIT should not be rejected since an interpretation-neutral formulation is available. After explaining the neutral formulation, more plausible non-axiomatic epistemologies are defended. The neutral formulation is then shown to be consistent with various contemporary physicalist ontologies of consciousness, including the phenomenal concept strategy, representationalism, and even illusionism. Along the way, instructive connections between interpretations of IIT and interpretations of quantum mechanics are noted. (shrink)

A study is described in which the effectiveness of a computer program (Hermes) on improving argumentative writing is tested. One group of students was randomly assigned to a control group and the other was assigned to the experimental group where they are asked to use the Hermes program. All students were asked to write essays on controversial topics to an opposed audience. Their essays were content-analysed for dialectical traits. Based on this analysis, it was concluded that the experimental group wrote (...) more dialectically effective essays than the control group, and the amount of difference between the control and experimental groups was related to the students' intellectual developmental level, as assessed by the Measure of Epistemological Reflection (MER). It is concluded that argumentative writing, operationalized here as dialectical writing, can be improved by computer-assisted instruction, but that attempts to teach such forms of thinking and writing need to take into account students' capacity to benefit from such instruction. Such capacity is defined here as intellectual development. (shrink)

It is widely believed that neural elements interact by communicating messages. Neurons, or groups of neurons, are supposed to send packages of data with informational content to other neurons or to the body. Thus, behavior is traditionally taken to consist in the execution of commands or instructions sent by the nervous system. As a consequence, neural elements and their organization are conceived as literally embodying and transmitting representations that other elements must in some way read and conform to. In opposition (...) to this conception, growing approaches such as enactivism and ecological psychology hold that neurons are not in the business of representing. However, by insisting that neural causation is not of a representational kind, these anti-representationalist approaches seem to be left with only one rather implausible alternative, viz. that behavior is the result of nothing but basic physical causation such as push-pull forces. In this paper it is argued that a third form of causation—termed “modulation”—exists and is at work in the coordination of animal behavior. Modulation is the quasi-direct guidance of dynamical systems through specific yet emerging trajectories. By setting the constraints that coordinate the free interaction of multi-element systems, modulation influences without forcing nor representing goal states. The basic properties of modulatory causation are analyzed and shown to be present in some fundamental aspects of neural and bodily interaction. (shrink)

Instructions for authors need to be informative and regularly updated. We hypothesized that journals with a higher impact factor have more comprehensive IFA. The aim of the study was to examine whether IFA of journals indexed in the Journal Citation Reports 2013, “Medical Laboratory Technology” category, are written in accordance with the latest recommendations and whether the quality of instructions correlates with the journals’ IF. 6 out of 31 journals indexed in “Medical Laboratory Technology” category were excluded. The remaining 25 (...) journals were scored based on a set of 41 yes/no questions and divided into four groups by three authors independently. We tested the correlation between IF and total score and the difference between scores in separate question groups. The median total score was 26 [portion of positive answers 0.63 ]. There was no statistically significant correlation between a journal’s IF and the total score. IFA included recommendations concerning research ethics and manuscript preparation more extensively than recommendations concerning editorial policy and research integrity. Some policies were poorly described, for example: procedure for author’s appeal, editorial submissions, appointed body for research integrity issues. The IF of the “Medical Laboratory Technology” journals does not reflect a journals’ compliance to uniform standards. There is a need for improving editorial policies and the policies on research integrity. (shrink)

Integration information theories posit that the integration of information is necessary and/or sufficient for consciousness. In this paper, we focus on three of the most prominent information integration theories: Information Integration Theory, Global Workspace Theory, and Attended Intermediate-Level Theory. We begin by explicating each theory and key concepts they utilize. We then argue that the current evidence indicates that the integration of information is neither necessary nor sufficient for consciousness. Unlike GWT and AIR, IIT maintains (...) that conscious experience is both necessary and sufficient for consciousness. We present empirical evidence indicating that simple features are experienced in the absence of feature integration and argue that it challenges IIT’s necessity claim. In addition, we challenge IIT’s sufficiency claim by presenting evidence from hemineglect cases and amodal completion indicating that contents may be integrated and yet fail to give rise to subjective experience. Moreover, we present empirical evidence from subjects with frontal lesions who are unable to carry out simple instructions and argue that they are irreconcilable with GWT. Lastly, we argue that empirical evidence indicating that patients with visual agnosia fail to identify objects they report being conscious of present a challenge to AIR’s necessity claim. (shrink)

Objectives. To document the prevalence of ethical requirements in the instructions for authors of journals that published randomized clinical trials in 2005. Design. Using a validated computerized search strategy for retrieving abstracts of RCTs, we retrieved 13 184 references from 2056 journals. These journals were divided into journals that had published > 30 RCTs in 2005, and those that had published fewer. We included all the former and a random sample of the latter journals in the analysis. Measurements. Coders retrieved (...) the instructions for authors for each journal. The coders identified whether 15 ethical requirements were present in each of the instructions, calculated the age of the journal, and determined where it was published. Results. Only 51% of journals required that authors document review by an ethics committee, only 55% required declaration of conflicts of interest, and only 33% required documentation of informed consent. Overall, 48% of instructions required three or fewer of 15 ethics items. Journals publishing many RCTs each year had more ethical requirements, older journals had more requirements, as did journals published in the US. Journals published in Europe had fewer. However, in multiple regression analyses involving the journal's age, location of publication, and number of RCTs published, only publishing many RCTs was associated with having more ethical requirements. Conclusions. Many journals do not require important elements of research ethics in their instructions for authors. Ethical requirements are less common in the many journals that publish few clinical trials each year, journals that have often been overlooked in prior studies of journal ethics. Keywords: Randomized clinical trials, ethical instructions, publication ethics, journal requirements. (shrink)

The race among global firms to launch its respective products and services into the market sooner than the competitors puts pressure to equip its employees with job-related skills at the pace of business. Today’s global and dynamic business requires employees to develop highly complex cognitive skills such as decision-making, problem-solving, troubleshooting to perform their jobs proficiently. Traditional training models used by some organizations lead to a very slow speed at which employees gain an acceptable level of proficiency in the targeted (...) job skills. Also, these models have long and regimented instructional development cycle. Thus, traditional models are inherently counter-productive to the business and do not enable employees and organizations for today’s business needs. Therefore, business organizations need to explore new training models and strategies that could reduce the time an employee takes to reach target proficiency in complex skills without compromising the effectiveness or outcome. A comprehensive review of the literature shows a very limited amount of academic or practitioner research on this topic. This doctorate research study aims to find various training strategies that have proven successful in organizations for accelerating proficiency of employees in complex job skills. The researcher collected data primarily through 74 in-depth interviews with 86 training experts with known work experience of reducing time-to-proficiency in various settings. A total of 105 project cases have been collected across 42 industries to date. A grounded theory approach with constant comparison method is used to guide the theoretical saturation, analyze the data and to develop a theoretical model of training strategies. This unique study revealed a range of training strategies from non-training solutions to classroom instructions to workplace training to accelerate proficiency of employees in acquiring complex skills. This paper will specifically report the preliminary findings and conceptual model of major classroom-based instructional strategies only that has been found to hold the potential to shorten time-to-proficiency of employees at the workplace. This paper will also discuss the implications of the findings for the practitioners. Results in this study confirmed that classroom-based instructional strategies need to be designed and delivered the way the work is being performed in reality by the learners. Research findings suggest a pattern of five classroom-based instructional strategies that are more successful in reducing time-to-proficiency - 1) Contextualized learning 2) Performance analysis of star performer 3) Active processing and emotional involvement 4) Access to self-guided learning resources 5) Social interconnectivity and informal learning. (shrink)

Forming implementation intentions has been consistently shown to be a powerful self-regulatory strategy. As the self-regulation of thoughts is important for the experience of involuntariness in the hypnotic context, investigating the effectiveness of implementation intentions on the suppression of thoughts was the focus of the present study. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions . Results showed that participants who received information included in the “Carleton Skill Training Program” and in addition formed implementation intentions improved their hypnotic (...) responsiveness as compared to all of the other three groups on measures of objective responding and involuntary responding. Thus, in line with the nonstate or cognitive social–psychological view of hypnosis stating that an individual’s hypnotic suggestibility is not dispositional but modifiable, our results suggest that hypnotic responsiveness can be heightened by furnishing hypnotic instructions with ad hoc implementation intentions. (shrink)

The sequence of nucleotide bases occurring in an organism’s DNA is often regarded as a codescript for its construction. However, information in a DNA sequence can only be regarded as a codescript relative to an operational biochemical machine, which the information constrains in such a way as to direct the process of construction. In reality, any biochemical machine for which a DNA codescript is efficacious is itself produced through the mechanical interpretation of an identical or very similar codescript. (...) In these terms the origin of life can be described as a bootstrap process involving the simultaneous accumulation of genetic information and the generation of a machine that interprets it as instructions for its own construction. This problem is discussed within the theoretical frameworks of thermodynamics, informatics and self-reproducing automata, paying special attention to the physico-chemical origin of genetic coding and the conditions, both thermodynamic and informatic, that a system must fulfil in order for it to sustain semiosis. The origin of life is equated with biosemiosis. (shrink)