03 NOV 2015 by ideonexus
The Myth of the Brain as a Video Camera
Before we discuss what current research tells us about memory and recall, it may be helpful to address a common misconception that emerged from the work ofCanadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield in the 1930s and 1940s. Penfield reported that during surgery, an electrical stimulation of the temporal lobe produced episodes of recall, almost like seeing movie clips. Many concluded that the brain ―videotaped‖ life, and to remember things, our memories simply needed to be prompted. But these epi... 1 
notes
notes08 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
Universities Targeting Out-of-State Admissions for Tuitio...
Colorado Mesa University was typical of most public institutions in the fall of 2007, with out-of-state students making up a small number, about 5 percent, of the overall student body. But when the economic downturn hit in the fall of 2008, and state support for higher education began dwindling, Colorado Mesa President Tim Foster knew it was time to shake up the status quo. He decided to aggressively recruit out-of-state students, who pay 50 percent to 60 percent more than do Colorado residen...Folksonomies: academia admissions
Folksonomies: academia admissions
1 ...at the expense of in-State students.
24 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Predictability and the Base Rate
Whenever a statistician wants to predict the likelihood of some event based on the available evidence, there are two main sources of information that have to be taken into account: (1) the evidence itself, for which a reliability figure has to be calculated; and (2) the likelihood of the event calculated purely in terms of relative incidence. The second figure here is the base rate. Since it is just a number, obtained by the seemingly dull process of counting, it frequently gets overlooked wh...Folksonomies: predictability
Folksonomies: predictability
1 notes
notesKeith Devlin explains why the accuracy of tests and measurments must take into account the base rate for the phenomenon.
29 MAR 2013 by ideonexus
The Growth Mindset
In a recent study, a group of
psychologists decided to see if this
differential reaction is simply behavioral,
or if it actually goes deeper, to the level of
brain performance. The researchers
measured response-locked event-related
potentials (ERPs)—electric neural signals
that result from either an internal or
external event—in the brains of college
students as they took part in a simple
flanker task. The students were shown a
string of five letters and asked to quickly
identify the midd...Folksonomies: intelligence plasticity
Folksonomies: intelligence plasticity
1 notes
notesUnderstanding that intelligence is plastic and improvable increases performance on certain tests.
29 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
The Invention of "Insufficient Milk Syndrom"
Even when women do decide to breast-feed, they sometimes feel they are thwarted by their own bodies. "Insufficient milk" is cited as a major reason women in the West terminate breast-feeding after a few days or weeks. The syndrome is fascinating because it is a clear example of a disease being "invented," defined, and then perpetuated by culture at large. In only about 5 percent of the cases is there something making it physically impossible for a woman to breast-feed. Before bottle-feeding c...
1 A problem that did not exist before the introduction of bottle-feeding.
08 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
The Economics of a Computer for Every Child in School
What these people are saying needs to be faced squarely. They are wrong. Let's consider the cohort of children who will enter kindergarten in the year 1987, the "Class of 2000," and let's do some arithmetic. The direct public cost of schooling a child for thirteen years, from kindergarten through twelfth grade is over $20,000 today (and for the class of 2000, it may be closer to $30,000). A conservatively high estimate of the cost of supplying each of these children with a personal computer w...Folksonomies: computer science education
Folksonomies: computer science education
1 notes
notesProviding a computer for every school child is not as costly as it seems, and the costs would be recuperated in improved learning, shortened schooling. These costs are 30 years old, and computers are much cheaper now.
