Freeman, Walter J.: How Brains Make up their Minds

[MiaKalish@LFP]

Hi, Rolland,

The book was actually published in 2001. It is:
How Brains Make Up Their Minds
by Walter J. Freeman (Hardcover - February 15, 2001)
The link probably goes to Amazon.com.

I always call this "Walter J. and the Bunnies" :-)

Mia




----- Original Message -----
From: "MiaKalish at LFP" <MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US>
To: <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 12:50 PM
Subject: Re: Government language study released (fwd)


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Rolland Nadjiwon" <mikinakn at SHAW.CA>
> To: <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 11:52 AM
> Subject: Re: Government language study released (fwd)
>
>
> > Mia...your comments on this, perhaps:
> >
> > I forwarded the news release on this study in standard black and white
to
> > most of my online 'skindian' friends. Some wrote back saying they could
> not
> > see it. I then sent it around in brown(earthtones). I spoke a bit later
> with
> > my son and asked him what he thought of it being in brown. He said, "I'm
> > color blind so it looked all the same to me. I did wonder why you posted
> it
> > twice."
>
>
> I told him it must have been pretty rough trying to find a Mexicano
> > when he lived in Oaxaca.
> --> I laughed so hard. . . . .
>
> Although, brown color-blindness is a bit unusual, except in the
> psychological sense. Usually, people are green/blue color blind, and often
> red/blue color blind. The really unfortunate people, like my past uncle,
> managed somehow to be blind both ways, and yet made his living as an
> electrician.
>
>
>
> >
> > Second thought: On your mention of "clues to how learning happened"
> > (paragraph 3 line 2), and "build[ing] visual models
> >  in my[your] head, in full color...."(last para),  I was very interested
> in
> > what you might respond to the question whether there is a
> Chomsky(Syntactic
> > Structures (1951)) difference between learning and language learning,
or,
> > any comment you might have.
> Actually, Rolland, I am in the middle of writing a grant for cognitively
> informed learning materials. Otherwise, I would like to do a detailed
> analysis of what I think about Chomsky. However, in the light of short
time,
> I will hit what I consider the high spots:
>     1: Chomsky is superb as an anarchist (Letters from Lexington is one of
> my all-time faves)
>     2: Chomsky doesn't know diddly about how people learn language. He is
a
> structuralist because he always really wanted to be a programmer, but
> unfortunately, when he graduated from Penn in 1954, computers had only
been
> breathing for 6 years, and they were still made of huge tubes.
>     3: Chomsky spent most of his life coming up with modeling strategies
> that were supposed to run on the computer that the military funded that
> never worked. He an Victor Yngve, also a Linguistist, also a programmer
> wanna-be, butted heads for years. . . (I know Victor personally).
>     4: There are syntactic structures, and some cool Psych experiments
have
> looked at the differences between the ways different learners rely on
them.
> Interestingly, English speakers rely on syntax: they would accept
something
> like The man bit the dog. Speakers of say, Italian, who rely on semantics,
> would not accept such a thing. They rely on semantics and would interpret
> the meaning as The dog bit the man.
>     5: I think we use structure a lot. . . . I just don't have any really
> good details to share at the moment.
>
> And, how would you see this in terms of
> > orality(primary orality) vs. literacy vs. full color visual modeling
> and/or
> > their juxtaposition in any order...I guess this last one is number three
> :)
>
> **** This one I can do :-)
>
> I did my thesis on learning Apache without using English as a bridge (such
a
> waste of cognitive time, space and effort to produce such a poor result),
> and so I had to cope with how I could help people learn without
introducing
> foreign cultural effects (from English) into the process. Here is what I
> did. First, I built the fonts to write Apache. Then I got the spellings.
> Then I got a native speaker who was also literate to say the words for us.
> Then I clipped out just the target words, so I now had a collection of
> written words, and matching spoken words. Then, I got pictures, ones that
> didn't move for the nouny things like Li (horse), and ones that did for
> verby things like hutas (running). Hugish was my favorite because we had a
> green lizard crawling. We used GIF animations. It was so cool. I put them
> together on the computer in Flash movies, and than I let 42 people, some
> Apache people, some people here at the University, play with these
> animations. I told them it was an experiment, but they had so much fun,
and
> they were so happy with their learning that it didn't seem to matter.
>
> What were the results? 77.8% effective across populations, self-directed
> learning, average 20 minutes. People learned 48 words, and were tested on
> 24. We hit an unexpected ceiling. When we designed the experiment, my
> advisors though I would be lucky if people learned 7 of the words. They
> didn't think that 25% of the people, evenly distributed between Apache and
> non-Apache people, would learn that many (24, 25% of the people learned
all
> 24 words. They could choose the correct text, the correct spoken word, and
> disambiguate the word in conversation.)
>
> Of course, then we got all smashed up with the Tribal politics, but that's
> another day's story.
>
> Does this answer your question in a very indirect, but very perceptually
> multi-modal way? See, if you give people rich stuff to learn from,
> especially when they can make connections to prior knowledge, they do
really
> good. And when you give them skimpy, stingy, ugly stuff that doesn't
relate
> to anything they know, doesn't have any point in their lives, and doesn't
> meet any of their goals, well, they don't bother to learn it. For a
> particularly interesting view of the learning process, read Walter J.
> Freeman's book on his experiments with bunnies. I don't remember what its
> called, but it was published in 2000.
>
> Mia
>
>
> >
> > -------
> > wahjeh
> > rolland nadjiwon
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "MiaKalish at LFP" <MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US>
> > To: <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
> > Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 1:04 PM
> > Subject: Re: Government language study released (fwd)
> >
> >
> > > The response to this report reminds me of a response I saw in one of
my
> > > classes when I referred to a book that talked about a longitudinal
study
> > > that was able to count the number of words children had heard (total
> > > volume,
> > > not unique words) and showed that the more words children had heard,
the
> > > better they were able to learn. Based on cognitive research that shows
> > > that
> > > the more connections you can make when assimilating new information,
> this
> > > makes total sense.
> > >
> > > Because the writers were supposed to identify their participants, they
> > > found
> > > themselves in the unfortunate position of having to say that people in
> > > different SES groups spoke different volumes and different forms to
> their
> > > children.
> > >
> > > So my professor Totally Ignored the Good Information about neuron
> density,
> > > activation of prior knowledge, clues to how learning happened, and
> > > referred
> > > to a listserv where people where having similar responses to that
shared
> > > with us by Taiaiake Alfred. Certainly he can take that position.
> > >
> > > However.
> > >
> > > My research shows that people In General don't learn well in black and
> > > white
> > > if they have no prior knowledge. Lit reviews show that people don't
know
> > > how
> > > to teach language. And finally, other cognitive research shows that
> people
> > > respond best to things about themselves and their friends. So, if you
> show
> > > the colors of the vegetation around the Colorado river, especially in
> > > winter, to the people who live there, they will respond more
positively
> to
> > > it than to black and white. Why? Because it is deeply familiar to
them.
> > > Does
> > > it matter if they are Tribal? Nooooo, not really. Unless of course the
> > > colors you choose just happen to be the Tribal colors. So, quiz: In
this
> > > case, will the Tribal people respond more? Or less? Than people who
> don't
> > > have deep cultural significance for the colors?
> > >
> > > It's really too bad that the results of these studies are published in
> > > terms
> > > of the People INSTEAD of the Materials.
> > >
> > > Guess I was on a soapbox, but this sort of thing really irritates me.
> > > I-Mia
> > > don't learn well in black and white. I take the time to build visual
> > > models
> > > in my head, in full color, and I dream the same way. If someone
> discovered
> > > that about me, I would say, Gee, does that mean you will be building
> > > materials that facilitate learning for me? Instead of going around
> howling
> > > that it is racist against Irish-Jewish women with green eyes who tend
to
> > > get
> > > cranky.
> > >
> > > !
> > > Mia
> >
> >
>
>